The Center for Information Technology and Development, CITAD has tasked the Minister of Communication and Digital Economy, Hon. Isa Ali Pantami to move for the establishment of what it called as community network in Nigeria.
Speaking at a press conference in Kano on Monday, the Coordinator, Community Network Project, Haruna Adamu Hadejia said they have five requests before the minister.
Among the demands, CITAD called for immediate grant of community networks licence and issuance of ministerial directive to recognise community networks as an additional tier of connectivity providers in the country.
CITAD, a Non Governmental Organization, NGO, also demanded for the provision of community networks support seed grant through the Universal Service Provision Fund (USPF).
Other demands include the setting up of an industry committee to establish an interconnectivity framework between community networks and back haul network operators as well as cross-community networks peers.
It finally demanded for the empanelling of a committee to articulate a substantive Community Network Policy for the country.
In his address, Hadejia hinged the call for community network on the most recent study on ICT gap carried out by the USPF, which discoveres that 31 million Nigerians are living in unserved or underserved areas. “The areas comprise of 114 locations with a population range between 1000 and 906,000 which represents 14 percent of the country”.
However, he stated also that “Nigeria still has a huge number of unconnected standings at between 70 to 100 million people, depending on what parameters one uses to estimate the number of the unconnected in the country”.
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