The Nigerian telecoms sector has attracted $68 billion in Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) to the economy in the last 16 years, Umar Dambatta (photo), the Executive Vice Chairman/CEO of the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), has revealed.

Speaking at a sensitization workshop on Code of Corporate Governance for the Telecoms Industry in Lagos on Tuesday, he explained that the achievements were reached amid recession ravaging the economy. According to Dambatta, the sector’s contribution to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), has also increased to 9.8%. He, however, acknowledged that the quality of service offered by network operators has not been impressive.

“The continued drop in service quality has really created a huge gap between consumers and the Mobile Network Operators (MNOs), a reason for some drop in subscriptions,” he said.

Indeed in March 2017, the number of subscribers dropped by 1.33% to 152 million against the 154.5 million subscribers at the end of 2016.

Anita Fatunji