Centre for Information Technology and Development (CITAD) has lamented that despite the fact that the internet is a right and essentially necessary for any citizen to access, not fewer than 27.1 million Nigerians have been deprived of digital inclusion.
The assertion was made by CITAD Executive Director, Yunusa Zakari Yau Sa’id, while speaking at the handing over of ‘Hello World’ Digital Hub to Jama’are community in Jama’are LGA of Bauchi state on Saturday.
The CITAD Director also said that there have been people in Nigeria who were left behind digitally, saying however that his centre is poised to establish 20 digital hubs across the country between now and December this year to ensure digital inclusion of clusters of communities under the proposed hubs.
He further revealed that, “In fact, statistics from the Universal Service Provision Fund (USPF) indicate that there are 27.1 million Nigerians who are living in areas where there is no access to Internet service”.
Yunusa Zakari Yau however stressed that the internet is a right and necessary thing for every citizen to have, saying that, “So we are making efforts to make sure that the internet is not only available, but also affordable to people.
“That is why we just established this community hub where citizens of this community will come and access the Internet freely. CITAD is championing the activities in Nigeria, not only in Bauchi state.”
Yunusa Zakari Ya’u disclosed that the Jama’are centre is the second hub after the one in Abuja, revealing that the plan is to between now and December this year there would be 20 of the hubs across different parts of the country.
According to him, “The cost implications of the Jamare hub is that we bought the laptops, equipment, pay for the internet for full one year, but community also contributed with some resources in terms of erecting the structure, buying cement and blocks and so forth, but for the individual, he or she has nothing to pay as regard handset or computer or data for the allotted period”.
He also explained that there are four organizations that worked on the Jama’arsa hub that included Hello World which is a global organization that has been building hubs across the world, not not in Nigeria that conceptualised itself as a model to be identified as a done
Yunusa Zakari Yau also said that it was ‘Hello World’ that designed the dome – 48 percent and made contributions in terms of some equipment that included solar and network, while the association for progressive communication (APC) has been a long standing partner of CITAD.
“As a matter of fact, APC is a coalition of mainly Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) of which CITAD is actually a member of APC. So, when we say APC actually is CITAD there”.
He further explained that Jama’are community will use the facility in accordance with the rules set out by the committee saddled with the responsibility to manage the hub which is billed to accommodate 200 users at same time.
According to him, the USPF has done research and mapped out what it called unserved and under-served communities and came out with a count of 96 clusters of communities across the country where they would have access to internet, as he put the Jama’are Hub cost implication to N26 million.
A number of stakeholders spoke at the occasion, including the Jama’are Correctional Service where its Assistant Superintendent of Corrections (ASC 1), Saleh Sabo Sa’id that the service in Jama’are is a beneficiary of the CITAD programme that provided staff with computers.
Malam Saleh Sabo who is the Acting Public Relations Officer of the Jama’are Correctional Service, said that CITAD afforded the service staff capacity building workshop with certificates that elevated the beneficiaries in their work place, while others used the certificates to change cadres.
Malla Isa Adamu is another beneficiary of CITAD programme who said the hub would be used for multi-internet service provision at any given time in Jama’are, revealing that it costs CITAD N1.5mlion to provide data to it for users to freely use the facility for a period of one year.
Mairo Habu Dankabo of Action-Aid who virtually joined in from Kebbi state during the event, described the provision of the hub as a golden opportunity to beneficiaries who can use the facility to acquire lectures elsewhere, as well as access to global world anywhere, and promote development
Also speaking at the occasion, the national coordinator, community national network CITAD Project, Haruna Adamu Hadejia however cried out the raging inflationary trend in the country which the project is experiencing in terms of establishing the proposed 20 hubs in Nigeria.
Hadejia said, “So we experiences these type of differentials in terms of costings. Just last two months, we are in Abuja where we built the first hub and the money that we spent there, I don’t want sai it double now, but it trace like 1.89 percent out of two percent now, so you can see how the market is misbehaving”.
