Nigeria is Africa's largest telecommunications market with over 220 million mobile subscribers. Other countries on the continent want to emulate its success in a context marked by accelerated digital transformation. 

On May 23, Nigerian Digital Minister Isa Ali Pantami (photo, left), and his Gambian counterpart, Ousman Bah (photo, right), signed a memorandum of understanding to strengthen their digital cooperation.

The memorandum notably covers broadband development, spectrum management, research, capacity building, cybersecurity, Internet governance, infrastructure, legal framework, and e-governance.

The MoU is signed about seven months after The Gambia requested the support of the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) to accelerate the development of its telecommunications sector. At the time, Mr. Bah said that figures show Nigeria had achieved its digitization goals.  

According to the latest figures from the NCC, Nigeria has 226.1 million telephone subscribers and 157.5 million internet users, of which 92 million use broadband. In addition, information and communication technology (ICT) sector activities contributed 16.22 percent to Nigeria's real GDP in the fourth quarter of 2022, according to National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) figures.

The new partnership is expected to accelerate ICT development in both countries, particularly in The Gambia. According to the latest data from the Public Utilities Regulatory Authority (PURA), the country had 2.6 million mobile subscribers, of which 1.1 million were using broadband.

Isaac K. Kassouwi