Malam Ubale Maska, Chairman, Broadband Implementation Steering Committee (BISC), says about 5 billion dollars was required for the implementation of the Nigerian National Broadband Plan (NNBP) 2020-2025.

Maska, represented by Dr. Usman Abdullahi, stated this at the maiden Stakeholders Consultation meeting with Industry Players on the implementation of the plan in Abuja.

“The plan itself can be achieved at the cost of between 3.5billion dollars and 5 billion dollars.

“We have several options and none is defined yet; we hope to raise something from the government. But as you can see government has its hands full.

“There are conflicting demands; we don’t know if that will happen. But the infrastructure funds that the Central Bank of Nigeria is floating is another source,” he said.

Maska said that the event was to present to the industry players, the details of the provisions of the new NNBP 2020 -2025 with expected questions, comments, observations and feedback.

He said that it was also to present the key provisions of the plan, which were the set targets, pillars and recommended initiatives among others.

“I am very positive that discussions here will immensely help in improving our collaborative efforts and actions aimed at accelerating innovations, industrial growth and sustainable development of the telecommunications sector and the Nigerian digital economy in general,” he said.

NCC Executive Vice Chairman, Prof. Umar Danbatta restated the commission’s commitment towards successful implementation of the plan.

Represented by Malam Ubale Maska, Danbatta said that 30 per cent broadband target set in the previous plan of 2013-2018 was met and surpassed due to collective efforts of the industry players.

He said that some targets were not met in the previous plan due to various challenges that were being addressed as a continuum.

According to him, the importance of broadband to our Gross Domestic Product(GDP), socio-economic development, and most specially the Digital Economy, cannot be overemphasised.

He, therefore, urged the industry players to in their usual manner commit to the attainment of the set goals of NNBP 2020-2025.