By 2019, Nigeria would have spent US$148.8 billion on the importation of ICT products and services according to the country's National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA).

The agency also revealed that the country loses about US$3 billion annually to ICT importation.

Speaking on the first day of the e-Nigeria Conference in Abuja, the Director-General of NITDA, Dr Isa Ibrahim, noted that on software alone, the country spends US$1 billion annually, while the local ecosystem only accounts for less than 8% of the market share.

"Nigeria loses approximately US$2.8bn annually from the importation of ICT goods and services, including a whopping US$1bn spent annually on software imports. Locally manufactured or assembled computers represent less than eight per cent of all the computers used in the country. Similarly, Nigeria is projected to expend about $143.8bn on ICTs by 2019, a vast sum that translates to over seven times the value of the 2016 national budget," he said.

He enjoined international manufacturers to domesticate their products in order to achieve a mutually beneficial relationship for the playmakers in the country's ICT sector.

"Within the limits of the mandate that set us up, we at the NITDA are repositioning ourselves to filter the IT gadgets being imported to the country in the overall interest of the nation. We want to transform the NITDA from its administrative outlook to IT-driven and knowledge-based agency, and we request the support of all to materialise this aspiration," the DG said.