She spoke in Lagos, at a breakfast forum entitled: Enabling Internet Ubiquity in Nigeria, organised by Digital Jewels, an Information Technology capacity building firm.
Ms Opeke said though the foundation of Internet ubiquity has been laid, limited infrastructure were an impediment.
She called on the Federal Government to intervene in this regard by supporting private investors in the country to address the infrastructure challenge.
She said: “While some of the key building blocks to drive ubiquity exist, more work is required to cut through national challenges to deliver widely-accessible, always-on and affordable Internet services to the people of Nigeria.
“Internet availability is achievable but the growth will be slow in spreading from the cities to the rural areas due to limited infrastructure. However, the spread can be fast-tracked by direct government interventions to support private sector investments.
Also speaking at the forum, Chief Executive Officer of Digital Jewels, Mrs Adedoyin Odunfa, identified Internet ubiquity as a catalyst for enabling efficiency, convenience, innovation globalisation and transparency in governance.
Mrs Odunfa noted that while Internet access has been on the increase, Nigeria is far from achieving ubiquity as the nation was missing among the first ten ranked countries in Africa.
According to her, the country came fourth behind Cape Verde, Cote d’ Ivoire and Ghana on e-government development in West Africa according to the 2011 United Nations e-government survey.
She decried increasing insecurity of government establishments and private organisations with the hacking of their websites, saying security is crucial to Internet ubiquity.
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Autor(en)/Author(s): Adline Atili
Quelle/Source: The Nation, 23.02.2012
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