From: Oluseye Ojo, Ibadan
The Chairman, House of Representatives Committee on Rural Development, Oladipo Adebutu, on Tuesday, said rural telephony equipment worth $200 million are lying fallow in different parts of the country in the past 10 years, in spite of the fact that the project can generate one million direct jobs.
He disclosed this when he led members of the committee on inspection of equipment in Ibadan, the Oyo State capital, and Ishara in Ogun State. The committee had paid a courtesy call on Governor Abiola Ajimobi of Oyo State before the commencement of the inspection.
Adebutu was accompanied by Temitope Olatoye, representing Lagelu/Akunyele Federal Constituency of Oyo State; Solomon Maren, representing Mangu-Bokkos Federal Constituency of Plateau State, and Akintayo Amere, representing Ayedire/Iwo/Olaoluwa of Osun State.
Adebutu stated that the $200 million was borrowed from China and the Federal Government had fully repaid the loan, adding that such a huge project should be resuscitated in view of the benefits embedded in extending telecommunication services to the rural communities, and checking rural urban migration.
The National Rural Telephony Project (NRTP) began in 2001 under former President Olusegun Obasanjo and the Federal Government suspended the project in 2011 due to what was described as poor execution of the project.
The first phase of the project was designed to cover 218 of the 774 local government areas of the country. It was to provide over 636,256 Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) lines in all the council areas in the country with a view to having access to information communication technology (ICT) in order to bridge the digital divide. The project, as gathered, was subdivided into three phases, and was estimated to cost $200 million.
According to Adebutu, “We do believe that the main thing that drives people from the rural community is the absence of amenities, and surely communication is a very important part of that. For that reason, the nation has national rural telepony arrangement and this process has been in for nearly two decades.
“Unfortunately over this period, the programme has not been consummated. The Federal Government borrowed the sum of $200million for the first phase of this programme, bought the equipment and so on and so forth. In fact, Nigeria has repaid that loan, the equipment is lying all over the nation. For the second phase, Nigeria has committed $35million as well and they await counterpart funding from China to consummate this programme.
“Till date, that programme lies moribund. Now we are here to inspect the sites and the equipment available to ultimately find a way forward, such that all the investments the nation has made shall not go to waste and we should be able to create rural telephoning for our citizens.”
Two members of the 27-member committee, Solomon Maren, from Plateau State, and Akintayo Gafar from Osun State, assured Nigerians that every step would be taken to ensure that the project works with latest technologies because the initiative could provide one million direct jobs as well as three to four million indirect jobs. They lamented how Federal Government could allowed the project to waste after its completion and certificate of completion accordingly issued.
Earlier during the courtesy call, Governor Ajimobi, described Oyo State as very strategic to the rural telephony project, as 62 per cent of the state is rural, promising to give necessary support to the actualisation of the project.