Nigeria's Minister for Communication Technology, Omobola Johnson, has reiterated the country's objective to secure greater investment in broadband penetration and grow the current level of 6% to 30% by 2018.

According to a report published by the Vanguard, Minister Johnson recently attended an ITU (International Telecommunication Union) Conference in Qatar and explained the relevance of ICT to Nigeria, describing the sector as "the next oil and gas".

The publication quoted the Minister as saying, "The ICT industry has significant enabling effect on other sector the economy, contributing a combined 2.56% of added value... Investment opportunities are huge as a result of accelerated roll out of robust, reliable and cost-effective ICT infrastructure to increase citizen access to ICT."

The West African country is looking to focus on the deployment of terrestrial fibre optic networks as part of its national broadband strategy, as well as LTE coverage and fixed broadband.

Statistics pertaining to Nigeria's ICT market mentioned by Vanguard include 134 million phone subscriptions and over 74 million internet users or 52% of the population.