Seven years after their launch, mobile phone services have transformed Nigeria’s society and economy, bringing unprecedented changes in just a short time, officials say.
Earlier this year, Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country outstripped economic powerhouse South Africa as the continent’s biggest market for mobile telephony.
Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) head Ernest Ndukwe told AFP that as of March 2008 there were total of 60.9 million phone subscribers — that is 70 times more than before mobile services were launched in the country in 2001.
The opening up of the industry came with the licensing of three Gobal System of Mobile Communications (GSM) operators — South Africa -based MTN Nigeria, Econet Wireless Nigeria (first known as Celtel, now as Zain) and M-TEL, the mobile arm of state-run group NITEL.
Local operator Globacom and United Arab Emirates group Etisalat were later licensed but the latter has not yet started operations.
Analysts say MTN ranks as market leader, followed by Globacom and Zain, with the number of mobile subscribers likely to rise by 10 million per annum over the next five years.
“The exponential growth … has pushed up Nigeria’s (mobile telecoms penetration rate) from 0.73 percent in 2001 to 32.79 percent in March 2008,” Ndukwe said.
Before the advent of mobiles, Nigeria had a congested, expensive and un-user-friendly landline system, with more than 10 million people waiting to be connected by the state-run telecoms monopoly NITEL in 2000.
“Connection costs were prohibitively high … while the waiting time for fixed lines ran into years,” NCC’s Ndukwe said.
Then in 2001, then president Olusegun Obasanjo broke NITEL’s monopoly by licensing private operators.
“Nothing has been the same since then. Nigeria has been transformed socially, economically and technologically as a result of that decision,” Tayo Ekundayo, spokesman for firm Multi-Links, told AFP.
Fidel Otuya of Intercellular, another telecoms firm, agrees.
“The exponential growth of the last seven years is more than an explosion. It is in fact a bang. A revolution which has changed our way of doing things — businesses, communications and security,” he said.
“The use of short message service (SMS) and calls … has cemented social relations among Nigerians,” he said.
Nigeria is home to many different ethnic groups and faiths, and has experienced both civil war and sectarian unrest.
According to Ekundayo, the sector has generated some 2.5 billion dollars in taxes and attracted 15 billion dollars of direct foreign investment.
As services have grown, costs have plummetted. The connection fee for a fixed line has crashed from around 500 dollars seven years ago to around 20 dollars.
A mobile SIM card now costs less than two dollars, down from around 300 dollars when the GSM operators first set up, and ownership of a phone is no longer a status symbol as was the case before the liberalisation.
“Today market women, traders, students, artisans and even beggars own phones,” said Abuja-based economist Olatunji Adisa.
The sector has created millions of jobs, many in the non-formal sector, mainly hawking of recharge cards and sale of handsets and accessories in towns and villages.
Despite the sector’s phenomenal growth, power, transmission and connectivity problems still dog the industry.
Mobile telephony — like every other sector of the Nigerian economy — is hard hit by electricity problems.
“A lot of money goes into running of generators to power our equipment and base stations. If the power problem can be solved it will go a long way in improving our services,” said Zain spokesman Emmanuel Otokhire.