A workshop organised by the Nigerian Communications Commission, NCC, weekend, to educate Nigerian Legislators on some intricate parts of telecom business/investments, incidentally exposed that Nigerians make a massive monthly investment of over four hundred billion naira on recharge cards alone.
This whopping sum, may have demystified the age long cliché that ‘Talk is cheap’. Besides, the investment on recharge cards, surprisingly dwarfed the ones made on House Rent, Petrol, Kerosene and electricity –options, known to have squeezed the economies of average Nigerians for several decades.
From the statistics of an ICT expert, Mr. Gbenga Oyebode of Aluko &Oyebode law firm, Nigerians spend 149.1bn on House rent, 128bn on Petrol, 144.8bn on Kerosene, and 91.8bn on electricity monthly.
At the workshop themed: “ICT infrastructure as key driver for economic development: what role for the legislature?” Oyebode reeled out these figures to postulate the impact of ICT infrastructure on economic development.