‘High cost of production preventing further downward review of data price’

Amidst clamour by Nigerians for further downward review of current data prices in the country, the Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Prof. Isa Pantami, has said a review may not be feasible for now, going by the current cost of production borne by telecoms operators in the country. Pantami spoke with Nigerian journalists on the sideline of the second and the first in-person General Assembly of the Digital Cooperation Organisation (DCO) in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. ADEYEMI ADEPETUN was there. Excerpts.

The call for further downward review of data prices in Nigeria continued to reverberate. Is there any intervention coming from the Minister on this?
If you ask about the price of data, I have already exceeded the target given to me even before 2025. We assembled a team of experts from government, academia, industry, and civil society groups that developed the Nigerian Broadband Plan 2020-2025. At the time that we drafted the plan in 2019, up to early 2020, the price of one average gigabit of data was N1, 200 according to the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC). In that plan, our target by 2025 was that the price of one gigabyte of data should be brought down to N390. But today it is N350. That is N40 lower than the target of 2025.

So, which price are you talking about? Should we give data for free? That is the next target, and we are not yet there. But if it is the target of 2025, we have exceeded that by reducing the cost of data by N40. We reached the target, and we exceeded it in 2022.
It is because of this that I do not think there is a need to reduce data price because of the cost of production. These companies within the Internet communication sector are managing 32,800 generators every day in Nigeria. Second, fuel consumption, IHS was in my office the other day telling me that they consume one million litres of diesel everyday to sustain their infrastructure and facilities because of our challenge with the national grid. We have to acknowledge though that President Buhari has many initiatives today that are being implemented to increase the generation and distribution of transmission of our national grid.
Another statistics to share with you is that the average cost of one gigabyte of data in selected countries in the world shows that among 15 countries with the cheapest price globally, Nigeria ranked No 7 out of over 193 countries surveyed in total. So only a few countries have cheaper data than us. Our price is given at $0.60 per gigabyte. This is calculated with the official foreign exchange. It is similar to what I have told you. You cannot compel companies to operate at a loss. They are for profit. If they operate at a loss, the government will not get revenue, citizens will lose their jobs and the economy will crash. This is not what we are after. We are only providing an environment where the price will be affordable. We believe it is now affordable. The government has been providing broadband to some institutions for free. Just last year, President Muhammadu Buhari approved the provision of unlimited broadband to 18 higher institutions of learning – 17 universities and 1 federal college of education. NCC is carrying out the implementation today.
The President also approved the provision of 20 markets with unlimited broadband to support commercial activities. These are the major markets in Nigeria. The universities are among the top in the country with the highest population. This is unlimited for both staff and students. A second phase is already in place and set to commence in the next few weeks. These show that the government is very responsible. Regarding the price of data, I think we have reached where we are supposed to be, at least for now.

During the 2022 LEAP conference, some initiatives were announced involving Nigeria and the kingdom of Saudi Arabia. What are the outcomes of those initiatives, particularly the Startup Passport?
There are many initiatives that Nigeria happened to be the leading beneficiary with regards to our membership in the Digital Corporation Organisation (DCO). Last year, Nigeria happened to be the first African country to join the DCO. The DCO organised a conference during the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, where foreign direct investments were specifically mobilised for Nigeria. Investors were brought together by this organisation to indicate their willingness to invest in Nigeria. Since then we have been in touch with many of them. Many have come to Nigeria and others are in the process of coming. Some of them have registered their corporations as well. There are so many initiatives and to me, it is one of the leading initiatives from which we have so far benefitted.
Secondly, we have also benefited from being with other member countries. As I earlier mentioned in my response, there is no monopoly on wisdom and knowledge. You will discover that each and every country has its own strength. So when you collaborate together you complement each other.
Besides being in DCO, we established a very strong collaboration with member countries and we are working together, particularly we share with them our area of strength and they reciprocate with their area of strength. The one you have cited as an example is the startup passport, Nigeria is a major beneficiary and most probably among all the countries because in DCO, no country has benefited from Startup passports like Nigeria. This year, we brought around 16 startups. Last year we brought many startups as well. All of them are being supported by the DCO and they are assigned a Startup Passport.

The DCO has set a target to create 30 million jobs by 2030 for member countries. What percentage of that are we expecting from Nigeria?
When it comes to giving statistics, I am a mathematician and also a computer scientist; I know the implication of statistics. You have to do your homework. I don’t just cut figures anyhow and say them. I know that Nigeria and Pakistan have the highest population among the DCO members so far. By implication, we should work harder to leverage our population, secondly leverage our Nigerian startup strength, which we are among the very few countries in Africa to have a law in place that will support startups and also we are blessed with talents in Nigeria. What we only need to do is to mentor and harness that talent. I believe by doing that, we will be able to get a much higher number that is equal to the proportion of our percentage compared to other DCO members.