Nigeria will leverage its telecoms and IT industries as it shifts its attention to other key sectors in order to strengthen the country's economy. So says Nigeria's Minister of Communication Adebayo Shittu who spoke at the inauguration of a nine-man board for the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) in Abuja on 26 January.

Shittu said that the revolution in Nigeria's telecom sector has been rewarding but more needed to be done "to continue the auspicious march towards fully transforming Nigeria into a truly digital and knowledge-based economy."

He hinged the need for this move on the downward slide in oil revenue in the international market.

The Minister had earlier this week called on the Senate to preserve Nigeria's attractiveness to Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) by guarding against pronouncements that will scare away MTN.

This is coming ahead of a likely pronouncement that may be made on the telco over a lingering allegation of illegal transfers of US$13.92bn profit out of Nigeria between 2006 and 2016 which is still being investigated.

The minister was also in Rwanda this week where he admitted that he and his delegation were there to learn from the smaller landlocked East African country because, irrespective of the size, it has surpassed Nigeria in the area of ICT.

He says in a (transcribed directly) video interview: "What brought the Nigerian delegation to Rwanda - and that delegation consists of both government officials and the private sector - is the appreciation of the fact that Rwanda has succeeded largely in developing the ICT sector for the benefit of its citizens to improve on governance, to improve on businesses and to bring greater revenue to government coffers. The Nigerian population is very huge and the Nigerian nation itself is very large, but we must be humble enough to admit that wisdom is not the exclusive preserve of any nation and (that) wisdom and knowledge is not determined by size but by capacity. So because of that, we took the decision to come here and within the last two days that we have been here, we have not regretted it. We have gained immensely from developments here and we have actually also taken notes and had taken a lot of documents back to Nigeria to go and study for possible application in our country."

Shittu met with President Paul Kagame with whom they formed a Rwanda-Nigeria foundation that will lead to trade deals and exchange of skills.

In a related news, Nigeria recorded a marginal increase in its density in 2016 as it ended with a 110% growth in the spread of telephone services according to new figures from NCC. The data show that there are 154 million phone in about 207 communities across the country. This indicates a 5.10 million increase in the number of phone subscribers as at the end of the year.