The Gambia Seeks Nigeria’s Help to Accelerate the Development of its Telecommunications Sector
November 1st 2022
Nigeria is Africa’s largest telecommunications market with around 210 million mobile phone subscribers. Other countries on the continent want to learn from Nigeria’s success in a context marked by the acceleration of digital transformation across Africa.
The Gambian government wants to learn from Nigeria to accelerate the development of the telecommunications sector. To this end, Ousman Bah (photo, left), Gambian Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, requested the support and collaboration of the Nigeria Communications Commission (NCC) during a visit by work carried out last weekend at the headquarters of the regulator.
Bah said the visit was inspired by the success of the Nigerian telecommunications sector. “ Current industry statistics are proof that Nigeria is achieving its goals of digitalizing its economy ,” he added, stressing that his country was striving to follow the same path to success.
The visit of the Gambian delegation comes at a time when the Nigerian telecom sector is growing in a context marked by the acceleration of digital transformation. According to the regulator’s latest statistics, the market has 209.9 million mobile phone subscribers and 152 million Internet users, 86 million of whom are connected to broadband.
Furthermore, the sector’s contribution to the Nigerian economy has continued to grow in recent years. According to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), information and communication technology (ICT) contributed 18.44% to Nigeria’s real gross domestic product (GDP) in the second quarter of 2022.
Josephine Amuwa (pictured, right), Director of Legal and Regulatory Services at the NCC, said the success of the Nigerian telecom sector is linked to the regulatory activities of the NCC, which strives “ to create an enabling environment for competition among operators in the sector, as well as to the provision of quality and efficient telecommunications services throughout the country ”, in accordance with the Nigerian Communications Act (NCA) 2003.
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