Nigeria's Communication Technology Minister, Dr Omobola Johnson, told the Internet Governance Forum in Istanbul, Turkey midweek while contributing to a discussion on Policies Enabling Access, Growth and Development on the Internet that building the country's local content capacity is a major focus of the Broadband agenda.
The point was also made by Ms Funke Opeke, CEO of MainOne, that the construction of her Company's Data Centre is a critical infrastructure whose focus is also to empower youth productivity pointing especially to distributing content of Nollywood films which is a thriving sector of the economy. According to her "We realise that Internet Access can improve economic outcomes for the large youth population that we have in Nigeria. Delivering affordable Internet services to more of our youth will make a critical difference in our economic development and deserves the Industry's utmost attention."
Dr. Jimson Olufuye, Chairman Africa ICT Alliance, AfICTA, who spoke at the plenary, gave an industry account of major progress made in the application of the resources of internet in Nigeria where the private sector has been embraced by Government. He mentioned in particular the one-day cheque clearing regime which was just being announced by the Central Bank of Nigeria as the forum was in session and canvassed for a spread of such outreach to the private sector across the developing countries of the world. He commended the work of the CSTD.
Host country Turkey, is very well known for extreme intolerance to the profits of the internet and its governance record in that regard is appalling. It is an irony that it the place the United Nations appointed to host the 2014 edition of the annual talk shop which started 8 years ago. In the past one year alone, Turkey had shut down social media platforms of twitter and YouTube just as it has jailed journalists and hounded others who seek to use internet to expose fraud. Former prime Minister, now President Recep Tayyip Erdogan once said that twitter is a 'menace' and treated all social media platforms as such.
Good a thing European Union Vice President Neelie Kroes raised the issue and made appropriate rebuke of the Government of Turkey.
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