BY LINUS CHIBUIKE
THE Federal Executive Council, on Wednesday, approved about N18.41billion for ICT Parks and Digital Switch Over projects in the Ministry of Communications and Digital Economy and the Ministry of Information and Culture, respectively.
The Council gave the Ministry of Communications and Digital Economy, an N8.98 billion approval for a new National ICT park in the Federal Capital Territory to coordinate public and private ICT hubs in Nigeria.
The approval was given just as the Federal Government said it would soon release the timelines for the replacement of BVN with NIN in bank accounts, following a meeting with the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria and other stakeholders.
The Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Isa Pantami, who disclosed this to State House Correspondents at the end of the FEC meeting presided over by President Muhammadu Buhari at the Council Chamber, Presidential Villa, Abuja, noted that 4,200 square meters land had been acquired for the establishment of the ICT Park.
He said this just as he revealed that the Communications Ministry generated over 17.5 per cent of Nigeria’s Gross Domestic Product.
Pantami said, “The wisdom behind the ICT Park is for it to be a center where public and private ICT hubs are going to be coordinated by the Federal Government of Nigeria, where young innovators with crazy and disruptive ideas will be mentored and all what they need provided for.
“We will provide the enabling environment for them to utilise and come up with disruptive technologies. This is the first of its kind in Nigeria. We have so many parks and hubs but they are regional. This one will be central and will be a center of job creation for our teaming youths.”
According to him, it will be a center where technology will be developed and incubated and will play a significant role in reducing unemployment.
“The Federal Executive Council has approved the memo and we are going to start establishing it in Abuja; we hope Abuja is going to be another Silicon Valley in Nigeria,” the minister said.
The Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, also told State House Correspondents that the Council gave approval for the sum of about N9.43 billion to complete a Digital Switch Over.
He said a deadline set for its implementation had previously been missed.
The DSO, a transition from analogue to digital television broadcasting, is critical to the efforts of the government at repositioning the creative industry and making it the alternative to oil, according to the minister.
