The Center for Information Technology and Development (CITAD) in a strive to seek for the operation of community network has placed its demands before minister of Communication and Digital Economy Prof Isah Ali Pantami.
Speaking on behalf of CITAD 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 for the communities and issuance of ministerial directive to recognise community networks as an additional tier of connectivity providers in the country.
It demands 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 demands for the empanelling of a committee to articulate a substantive Community Network Policy for the country.
In his speech, he gave the most recent study on ICT gap carried out by the USPF as 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”.
