The impact of ICT on economic growth has been researched and analysed by numerous scholars in the past decades. The majority of the research and analysis done by these scholars’ shows that the beneficial outcome of ICT on economic growth and development is wasn't clear before the mid-1990s. (Oliner & Sichel, 2000) Use ICT capital parts, for example, PC equipment, programming and telecom hardware alongside capital and labour as inputs and observationally confirm a high ICT impact on economic growth in the late 1990s, yet they discover no confirmation of a positive relationship before the mid-1990s. In 2000, (Jorgenson & Stiroh, 2000) demonstrate that the commitment of IT in economic growth of the United States is a result of the substitution of PCs, related hardware and administrations, not because of advancement in technology. Also, different studies clarify the huge impact of ICT on economic growth, for example, (Motohashi, 1997) and (Kraemer & Dedrick, 2001). The greater part of these studies have been checked on by (Pohjola, 2002). (Jalava & Pohjola, 2002) Show that ICT use and creation quality is the most vital components in US financial development in the 1990s. Likewise, they give to prove that ICT supports growth and development in Finland from 0.3% to 0.7% around the early and late 1990s. In Europe, (Schreyer, 2000) investigates the impact of ICT capital and shows that the commitment of ICT to the economic growth of four European nations, the United States, Canada, and Japan amid 1990–1996 is around 0.17–0.29%. Schreyer's study was extended to 13 European and five others and demonstrates a much higher commitment of ICT for every nation. The two research work concluded that huge European nations are long ways behind the US around there. Ultimately, by adding more data while carrying out research on the same information set, (Van Ark et al., 2002) equally agrees with previous researchers that the increases from ICT capital are higher in the US than in Europe. In spite of the various studies, the proof of ICT impact on economic growth in developing nations is still rare. For example, (Dewan & Kraemer, 2000) gauge the impact of IT speculation on yield development for the board information of 36 nations over the period 1985–1993, and talk about the differentiating strategy suggestions for IT capital investment in developed and underdeveloped economies. They uncovered that the yield from IT capital investment is certain and critical for the developed nations in the example yet not measurably noteworthy for the developing ones. This study explained that the difference in result between the developed and developing countries where due to the low level of IT speculation and absence of integral resources in developing nations. They clarify that correlative interests in infrastructure, human capital, and learning based structures are essential for IT speculations to be beneficial which are accessible in developed countries as opposed to developing countries. Also, (Lee ST, 2005) shows the huge impact of ICT on economic growth of numerous developed and recently Industrialized Economies, unfortunately not in developing nations. By this outcome, (Edquist, 2005) presume that the obscure effect of ICT on economic growth in developing nations may represent the late presentation of ICT in these nations; for instance, Internet network and services was not accessible in most developing nations until the late 1990s.
Contrary to the analysis made above, (Antonelli, 1991) proposes that developing nations may acquire advantage from ICT than developed nations since changing from the prevalent innovation to another "ICT-situated worldview" uphold noteworthy expenses to developed nations. It can adequately bolt developed nations into those standards. At the same time, it is essential to open up doors for less-industrialized nations to make up for lost time and even "jump" past the industrialized nations because they have lower exchanging expenses (Seo H & Lee Y, 2006). In this perspective, developing nations may have favourable position over developed nations concerning ICT dissemination. (Madden & Savage, 1998), utilizing the example of 27 Central and Eastern European nations, demonstrate a positive and noteworthy effect of telecom companies on economic growth amid the period 1990–1995. (Roller & Waverman, 2001) likewise, affirm a causal relationship among telecom investment and economic growth for 21 OECD nations over the period 1970 to 1990. (Jacobsen, 2003) And (Waverman L, 2005) in a comparable study show a positive effect of cellular telephones on economic growth. Another study led by (Koutroumpis, 2009) for 22 OECD nations amid 2002 to 2007, demonstrates that there is a positive, easy-going connection among broadband framework as a driving element of ICT and economic growth, particularly in the vicinity of basic foundation mass. Applying board information of 29 nations, (Seo HJ, 2009) examine the bidirectional relationship between ICT venture and economic growth. They just check the positive effect of ICT on economic growth in the 1990s. The positive and noteworthy impact of versatile information transfers dispersion on both economic growth and profitability development has demonstrated by (Gruber & Koutroumpis, 2010) for 192 nations over the period 1990–2007. In spite of the reality that ICT is understood or comprehended to be driving motor or engine of economic growth, there are few proofs that demonstrate the negative impact of ICT on economic growth. For instance, (Kiley, 1999), applying the conventional development bookkeeping system in the US, clarifies the negative commitment of PCs to economic growth because of modification expenses. He shows that the presentation of another good venture like PCs can force substantial conformity expenses to the economy and abatement economic growth. Additionally, (Pohjola, 2002) finds no huge relationship between ICT venture and economic growth for the specimen of 43 nations over the time of 1985–1999. In another exploration, (Jacobsen, 2003) uncovers no huge positive effect of PC entrance on the economic growth of 84 nations amid 1990–1999, in spite of the fact that he affirms the positive connection among cell telephone and growth.
2.1 HISTORY OF INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY IN THE WORLD.
The first modern network goes as far back as 1792 when Frenchman Claude Chappe invented semaphore system. This semaphore system also dubbed as the telegraph, was known to have had moving arms to indicate letters of the alphabet or coded words, this, in turn, led to the first ever national network being installed 1792 in France, after sending the first signal. Following such a development was the Electric Revolution, which by the way was an idea gotten from the study that dates back to ancient times, of the natural phenomena such as lightning. Tales told of Miletus investigating static electricity generated by rubbing pieces of amber around 600 BCE, two millennium after that an English scientist known as William Gilbert was also said to have published a write up on the first modern study of magnetism and electricity. It then took another two centuries before another research and experiment on telegraphs took place. The first research was on electrolysis and static electricity and the second research was carried out in 1832, where Schilling invented the electromagnetic system. By 1839, the development of electrical telegraph enabled people to send complex messages from one country to another, this of course was the first time in history such a thing had happened. In that same year, the first-ever commercial service was opened in London by a Scientist known as Charles Wheatstone together with a businessman known as William Fothergill Cooke. A various scientist from other parts of the world was also working on numerous ways to enable an easy conveyance of information to different locations via wire. An example of such scientist was American man known as Samuel Morse, who in 1844 opened a telegraph service in the United States. In 1851, the electric telegraph system had already begun to spread in so many places, but there was a problem hindering the full connection of the world, and that was the problem of the Sea. These became a problem that was tested by the scientists above, but once they found a way of passing the telegraph cables underneath the seas, a link was built between Britain and France, which were among the countries where such a historical journey began. By the time this information transformation framework was now moving easily smoothly from European countries to North America, it was no longer a problem of being able to pass communications on time, rather it was a matter of national jurisdictional agreement between 2 or more nations. Of course, agreements started to be made between countries and in 1865 over 20 European states signed a treaty to governing telegraph services that gave birth to the rise and growth of Information and computer technology in the world. An organization known as the ITU was created in 1865 and had there the first conference meeting in that same year. The aims and objectives of this organization are to tackle greater problems as a result of wanting to connect the world through communication. It took only a decade after the creation of ITU for the next breakthrough in communications to take place, and that breakthrough was the issuance of a right to ownership of the telephone in 1876. It was very important and life-changing because people could not only send telegraphs to one another, but they could also speak directly to each other from a very long distance. In 1885, the ITU started to draw up international regulations governing telephones, this was carried out at an International Telegraph Conference held in Berlin, Germany. Over a 100 million calls were made between member countries in the ITU organization. In 1888, another breakthrough came about, as a result of the relentless efforts of various Scientist to see that communications went to the next level and, in this case, was the invention of a Radio Transmitter. More efforts were put in by scientists such as Heinrich Hertz and James Clerk Maxwell that resulted in the creation of a Radio system. Within this same period, two other scientists known as Marconi and Popov developed a transmitter that empowered the first ever radio communications.
On 23 of December 1900, the first ever wireless telephone message was transmitted between a Canadian inventor Reginald Aubrey Fessenden and Thiessen, who was his assistant, through a radio. Lead to the birth of a radio broadcasting era.
During the 20th-century radio, equipment had begun to circulate rapidly all over the world. A lot of radio stations constructed along coasts and adapted for traveling ships. But there was a problem of using the same radio frequency that constantly caused interference with communication. This problem was corrected in a meeting held in 1906, at the first International Radiotelegraph Conference in Berlin, by the signing of an agreement between nations on what frequencies were to use and also ways in which this radio stations built in various coast were to operated. Then came another breakthrough with the invention of television that they displayed in London 1925. This innovation took the world by storm, followed by a passing of electronic system in the 1930s that gave birth to television era. As a result, of the growth in technological advancement in the 20th century, there was a need for a unified approach towards the passing out of information through telecommunication technologies. This lead to the dealing of telegraph and telephone services being made part of ITU responsibility officially in 1925. An International Radio Consultative Committee was also created in 1927, to enable an organised study in all fields concerning telecommunications. In 1932, a historical invent took place in Madrid, Spain that changed the face of ITU to the world forever. It led to the emergence of the International Radiotelegraph Conference with the International Telegraph Conference after serious discussions in a meeting. Due to the second world war, a lot of lives and properties were lost. Including the destruction of most radio towers built back then. In other to rebuild lost properties because of the war, an organisation known as the United Nations was established in 1945, and then two years later an ITU conference was held in the United States of America and the ITU association was voted to become part of the United Nations establishment. In 1947, it was decided at the international telecommunications conference, that roles and positions should be assigned individually, to have a better understanding of what parts and duties are to play by every member of the organisation. As telecommunication kept on growing, mankind decided to explore and see what was outside of our planet in space. For the first time in history, a small satellite called Sputnik was launched in space in 1957. After a year, another satellite known as Project Score was also launched in space followed by two other satellites called ECHO 1 and Telstar in 1960 and 1962 respectively. Subsequently, the Fax machine was created in a more formal and modern way because such idea had been conceived long before the Don of the telephone. The next big thing was the creation of Internet, in 1971 the ITU telecom world began, and since then has hosted a lot of conference in various parts of the world, there was lots of progress in the 80’s that saw the landmark of digital technologies. The creation of computers, telephones and so many telecommunication technologies made information processing, gathering and transfer very fast and durable. In 1990 the cypher or code (www) that symbolizes World Wide Web, was also introduced and accessible to everybody in the world, the world was now turning into a global village as a result of the simplicity to which information transferred from all forms of technologies. Finally, the device that revolutionized every aspect of telecommunications in this modern era was a Mobile phone. For the first time in 2000, an ITU conference was held and decided to make mobile phones compatible with the internet, there allowing people to access as much information they could be ever as for with just a click of a button. From then till date there been lots of progress and inventions that has made the world to refers this era as a computer era, things has only gotten better and better but all this, in general, doesn’t come without its challenges.
2.2 HISTORY OF THE NIGERIAN TELECOMMUNICATION SECTOR
Telecom offices in Nigeria were initially setup in 1886 by Colonial masters from Britain. When Nigeria got independence in 1960, with a population of around 40 million individuals, the nation just had around 18,724 phone lines for use. Meaning a tele density of around 0.5 telephone lines for every 1,000 individuals. The telephone system comprised of 121 trades of which 116 were of the manual (magneto) sort and only 5 were automatic. Within 1960 and 1985, the telecom office comprised of the Department of Posts and Telecommunications (P&T) accountable for the inside system and a restricted risk organization, the Nigerian External Telecommunication (NET) Limited, in charge of the outside information transfers administrations, gave the passage to other parts of the world. During the same period, the telephone framework was questionable, congested, costly and client hostile. Government-held parastatal, the Nigeria Telecommunication Limited (NITEL) was set up in 1985 and held an imposing business model in the business sector for over ten years. The organization's domination was checked by a long sit tight times for associations well as inadequately kept up and sparse foundation. As a limited liability company, the primary target of setting up (NITEL) was to harmonize the planning and coordination of the internal and the external telecommunication services, attract foreign direct investment, and also provide efficient and affordable services to the country. To put it in a summary, the controlled all activities concerning wired telecommunication in Nigeria. The Nigerian government, in November 1992, set up an autonomous controller. The Nigeria Communications Commission (NCC) that supervises the telecoms division. Because there was a need for serious improvement due to low private sector involvement and poor technology in telecom sector from 1960 when the country had independence up until 1999, at the time that only half a million people that had access to telephone lines as compared to over 90million people residing in the country. This period was referred to as the ''dark age'' of the Nigerian telecommunication sector. Underneath is a table showing details of how the Nigerian telecom sector has evolved throughout the years in comparison with other major sectors in the Nigerian.
In 1999, democracy returned to Nigeria and Olusegun Obasanjo the President back then, on taking up of office May 29, 1999, revisited the telecom sector that was already deregulated to form Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) in 1992 and ordered to issue new licences to mobile operators. Three multinational mobile operators, MTN, AIRTEL and MTEL on 23rd of March, 2001 were issued licences and given 90 days deadline to start operating. The present day leading body of the Nigerian telecommunication sector (NCC) under Ernest Ndukwe, saw the body starting to satisfy and guaranteed as a dynamic performing actor in the sector. In 2003, the Nigerian Communication Act gave controls already dwelling with the Ministry of Information and Communication to the NCC, diminishing the part of Ministry to policy making and giving the NCC a free role in controlling the sector. The NCC presented another license patterns to telecom operating companies in the sector in 2006, with the presentation of innovation impartial Unified Access Service Licenses (UASL), which permit operators to offer fixed, mobile and data services using technologies of their preferred innovation. Gradually more and more multinational mobile operators such as Etisalat, Glabacom and co have been issued a licence as well, now there are more than 130 million mobile subscribers due to increased competitiveness among operators in the country. According to Wikipedia (MTN) is a south-Africa based multinational mobile telecommunication company operating not only in African countries but European and Middle Eastern countries. It heads office located in Johannesburg. (AIRTEL) an Indian based multinational mobile telecommunication company with its head office located in New Delhi. (MTEL) was formally known as NITEL, which was owned by the government until sold by the bureau of public enterprise (BPE). (ETISALAT) According to Wikipedia is a multinational UAE-based telecommunication service provider currently functioning or operating in fifteen countries across Africa, Middle East, and Asia? Finally (GLOBECOM) according to Wikipedia is a Nigeria multinational telecommunications company headquartered in Lagos, it started operating in the country on 29th of August 2003. All this mobile operators mentioned above are the five (5) major multinational companies are that have not only generated competitions in the country but increased the amount of investment in the country and also creating a lot of jobs directly and indirectly for the people living the country. Of course, there are other minor multinational mobile operators within the country and their impact coupled with the major once, is felt in the economy.
2.3 Pattern of FDI in the world
Foreign investment began with commercial ventures unrest in the second half of the nineteenth century in West European nations – particularly in Great Britain. The primary explanation for foreign investment was the need for industrial raw materials in the first half of the 1880s. As clarified by Moosa (2002), the remote venture took the sort of stacking by Britain to finance monetary improvement in different nations and additionally the responsibility for resources. Within the same period, the direct investment of modern nations were coordinating to the colonies of West European nations. Moosa said that foreign investment of British endeavours to a great extent focused on the consumer products division. Despite the fact that, the historical backdrop of portfolio investment – bond and debt investment – is exceptionally old, FDI had started to become an important piece of the worldwide investment instrument in the 1920s. There was downward, and an upward trend in foreign investments in between WWI and WWII, the first reversal of this downward trend was at the beginning of the 1920s after WWI, but the global economic crisis in 1929, once again, led to a dramatic reduction in foreign investment flows in the world. Even, the majority share of the home countries’ foreign investment drew back during this period. Although the downward trend of foreign investment flows continued during war period in the world, FDI flows had continued to increase (Hanink, 1997). The quick development in FDI raised approach various issues at the national and worldwide level. Amid the 1960s and 1970s FDI and multinational companies were, for the most part, treated with suspicion because of concocts that happen during the war, as they were seen to utilize their financial quality to exploit developing nations. Amid the same period, numerous developed nations sanctioned enactment to screen and control the stream of FDI and the exercises of multinational corporations. Their worry was less in the connection of monetary abuse, yet more in the setting of financial power. Today, in any case, the general strategy position of most nations is to be open to FDI. Subsequently, national governments are effectively looking for a superior comprehension of its determinants, effects and suggestions. At the worldwide level, significant talk has occurred on the theme of fusing guidelines on interest in the World Trade Organization (Bijit Bora 2002). According to Bijit Bora, in the past decade, there has been extensive enthusiasm for the 'powers for globalization'. Of these, the global exchange merchandise and administrations and the increment in a universal generation through multinational corporations have been distinguished as being essential variables. After the nine years upward trend, from 1993 to 2000, the year 2000 worldwide private remote direct inflows FDI came to US$1.1 trillion contrasted with US$159 billion in 1991. The yearly development rate of FDI amid the previous decade surpassed the development of both the worldwide exchange products and administrations and yield. FDI flows in the world dramatically decreased between 2001 and 2005, the average growth of FDI inflows in the world was -3 % annually throughout the period. Between 2004 and 2007, there was higher economic growth in the home and host countries, high profitability sectors, high stock valuations are the other reasons (UNCTAD, 2008 & 2009). However, the worldwide crisis in 2008 and its negative effects in 2009 prompted an intense fall in FDI inflows and outpourings around the world. Interestingly, while FDI inflows to developed countries tumbled from US$ 1358 billion in 2007 to US$ 962 billion in 2008, FDI inflows to developing countries increased from US$ 529 billion in 2008 to US$ 620 billion in 2009. In spite of the sharp decrease in both FDI inflows to develop and developing countries in 2008, the proportion of FDI inflows of developing countries to world FDI inflows increased to its most astounding point, very nearly 43 %, since 1982. FDI outward stock from developing countries to other developing countries, excluding Caribbean offshore or seaward financial centres, grew by 66% from $1.7 trillion in 2009 to $2.9 trillion in 2013. Globally FDI growth rate in $US trillion was -20.4 in 2009, 11.9 in 2010, 17.7 in 2011, -10.3 in 2012, 4.6 in 2013, and -16.3 in 2014. It was stated by UNCTAD in their recently published report that the worldwide FDI inflows declined in 2014. The global foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows decreased by 16% to $1.23 trillion in 2014, mostly because of the fragility of the global economy, policy instability for investors and elevated geopolitical risks. But they made prediction or estimation that it will be 11.4 in 2015 and 8.4 in 2016 (UNCTAD, 2015).
2.4 The Pattern of FDI in Nigeria
Nigeria is the most populated country in Africa and also has the largest economy as well, this is one of the major reasons which it has been able to attract a lot of investors into the country, with aims of penetrating the enormous market at disposal. As much as they have been many investments coming in, there is a change of policy and laws that have made this possible, thereby increasing the growth of the economy. In 1995, the Nigerian Investment Promotion Commission Act laid out the structure for Nigeria's investment policy or approach. Under the Act, 100% foreign proprietorship or ownership is permitted in all businesses aside from oil and gas, where investment is compelled to existing joint endeavours or new generation sharing understandings. Investment from both Nigerian and foreign investors is disallowed in a couple of commercial ventures crucial to national security: the generation of arms and ammo, and military outfits. Investors can repatriate 100% of benefits and profits. As a result of the adjustment in policy, Nigeria gets the biggest amount of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in Africa. Outside Direct Investment inflows have been becoming massively through the span of the most recent decade: from USD1.14 billion in 2001 and USD2.1 billion in 2004, Nigeria's FDI came to USD11 billion in 2009 as per UNCTAD, making the nation the nineteenth most noteworthy beneficiary of FDI on the planet.
Nigeria's most important of FDI have customarily been the nations of origin of the oil majors. The USA, present in Nigeria's oil segment through Chevron Texaco and Exxon Mobil, had speculation supply of USD3.4 billion in Nigeria in 2008, the most recent figures accessible. The UK, one of the host nations of Shell, is another key FDI accomplice – UK FDI into Nigeria represents around 20% of Nigeria's aggregate remote venture. As China tries to grow its exchange associations with Africa, it too is getting to be one of Nigeria's major source of FDI; Nigeria is China's second biggest trading partner in Africa, alongside South Africa. From USD3 billion in 2003, China's immediate interest in Nigeria is accounted for to be presently worth around USD6 billion. The oil and gas area gets 75% of China's FDI in Nigeria. Another significant source of FDI incorporates Italy, Brazil, the Netherlands, France and South Africa.
As mentioned in the previous chapter after the creation of Nigerian communication commission NCC and the ordering of issuing a licence to investors in the mobile telecommunication industry, there was significant increase the amount of investment coming to the country. In an article published in a well-known Nigerian newspaper, ThisDayLive by (Emma Okonji, 2014), According to the Minister of Communications Technology, Dr. Omobola Johnson last year, She said the highly diversified nature of our economy reflects the high number of investment coming into the country. Considering the period from 2007 till 2013, more than 50 percent of the FDI capital put into Nigeria has been into the capital concentrated asset areas. In any case, almost 50 percent of FDI projects are service situated, and telecommunication sector has experienced strong growth and development, drawing in around 24% of FDI ventures or enterprise. Despite the fact that oil and gas sector are Nigerian major source of foreign direct investment, there are other sectors of the country which have been able to attract a significant amount of investment in the country as well.
2.5 PYRAMID RESEARCH WORK ON NIGERIAN MOBILE TELECOMMUNICATION SECTOR.
Pyramid Research group (PYR) is a the United Kingdom based telecommunication research firm, is an economist group company that provide international market analysis and consulting services to the communications industry. A research was carried out by Pyramid Research group on ''The impact of mobile services in Nigeria'', march 16th, 2010.
The research gathering and analysis was separated into four sections. The first section talked about the mobile telecommunication industry having a positive impact in Nigeria by attracting investment and creating various commercial activities. In that section, it was found and concluded that over the past decade approximately 16 billion dollars has been invested in the telecommunication sector, and there are as many as 3 million jobs, directly and indirectly, involved with the sector. The mobile subscriptions also surpassed 72.6 million in the year 2009 accounting for over half the population at that time and further estimating the subscription to go over 128 million in the year 2014. This section also identified a problem of specific mobile database applications as limited, because end users in Nigeria value mobile services and are a frequent user of the platform. They then concluded that future development of the sector will be driven by joint effort among industries players, the local government and international organisations.
The 2nd section in the research talked about the mobile services market around the world driven by advances in the areas of access networks, devices and applications. Categorized as Wider Availability of High-Speed or Rapid Networks, Versatile and Affordable Devices, and Variety of Applications. The pyramid research (PYR) as at then forecasted that more than 55% of the world mobile subscription will be using 3G+ in 3 years to come, and also determined that the Nigerian telecom market 422000 in 2001 to 73 million at the end of 2009. The research went on stating that in the Us dollar-based revenue terms from 2001-2009, Nigerian telecom market was the second-fastest expanding market, behind South Africa in the whole of Africa. Which was a remarkable achievement?
In this section, it was also reviewed that the Nigerian telecom sector has contributed to the economy in creating jobs directly or indirectly and estimated that as many as 3 million jobs have relation to the industry. The jobs are divided into two subgroups. The top category of the indirect jobs included infrastructure development, marketing, equipment sales, public relations and advertising as well as security workers involved in the protection of based stations. It stated that Zain employed about 8000 workers as at 2008. Then at the base of the indirect jobs category, there are phone booth operators, mobile phone and service sellers, retailers, recharge card distributors and as well as vendors. What this phone booth operators simply does are making available few mobile phones in public centres for making all kinds of calls whether local, international, emergency or any other purpose known to people.
According to the pyramid research (PYR), the mobile operators are in constant evolution because virtually all the five major mobile operators in Nigeria has undergone technological migration from 2G to 2.5G and were working towards getting to 3G network service. Additionally, the telecom sector is said to have had an impact on other sectors of the economy such as the provision of urban and rural connectivity in the education, health, finance, agriculture, transport and entertainment applications.
In the 3rd section of the research, the pyramid group conducted a survey of over 1500 mobile users in Nigeria to analyse the impact of the telecom sector to their daily lives. The research included a combination of male and female participant and also designed to include all mobile users living in different part of the country with 70% living in urban areas and 30% living in the rural areas across the country. The age grade was from 16 to 69 years old of the population. Questionnaires containing mostly closed-end questions were developed. 60% of the interviewees was said to have accepted that the telecom sector has positively affected every aspect of their lives and 35% out of the 60% also claimed that the sector dramatically improved all sector of their lives. 80% of the samples saw financial gains from the improvement of the sector. All these and many more were some of the benefits that the participants in the questionnaires accepted the got from the telecom sector.
The 4th and last section of the pyramid research talked about the new types of mobile applications that the Nigerian people would like to use to make further live easier for them. Such applications like local weather news, related educational applications from government, money transfer over mobile phones, agricultural related applications and the ability to pay for transportation fee with the mobile phones. Then the research group now concluded that for the sector to continue their part in evolution, four key strategies had to be carried out.
-Organizing local players to launch programs /facilitate industry data.
-Manage programs towards self -sustainability.
-Monitor, operate and enhance the application plus gas.
-Government involvement in the promotion of the telecom sector has to increase.
2.6 FRAUD ACTIVITIES IN THE TELECOMMUNICATION SECTOR
As much as the Nigerian telecommunication sector has had a positive/good impact on the Nigerian Economy it has also had a negative/bad impact as well. Cases of fraudulent activities concerning mobile calls, cybercrimes, Examination malpractices, pornography and so many other crimes related to the telecom sector recorded over the years. There have been various articles written in newspapers, and researchers have also been carried out concerning some negative impacts it has had over the years. Some of are summarized in this section. In an article written in Nigerian Daily Sun newspaper, it was reported that around 1 million fake phones valued at 2.7 billion Naira, an equivalent of 14 million dollars were imported into Nigeria in 2013 as stated by the government. It was a statement made by the Information Communication Technology (ICT) Minister, Mrs Omobola Johnson. She also reviewed that the number could even become higher in the 2014 and also indicated that the ability for the government to attract more investment into the telecom sector could be affected if the nation remained a lucrative market for fake products. Then she went on notifying the health risk of sub-standard devices and fake phones being significantly high, pointing out the high amount of radiation discharge that could cause cancer and also the exploding of batteries. Then the issue of fake phones draining network services due to the use of inferior components, its comprisises of. In the same publish or article, the Director General of the Consumer Protection Council (CPC) said that about 6.8 billion of the world's 7.2 billion people owned a mobile phone and that over 120 million people out of the 167 million as at 2013 in Nigerian were included in the world owners of phones. Due to the increasing violation of various phone rights, she charged CPC to work together with the ICT towards rectifying the violation of right phone issues (Walter Ukaegbu, 2013.)
In another research written by Ogundile (2013), An increase in fraud incidence as a result of the growth of the mobile telecommunication sector in Nigeria was discussed. It determined that due to the competitive nature of Nigerian telecom sector as a result of so many mobile operators, there are different kinds services provided to subscribers in other to convince them into using a particular network. The research stated that there are two kinds of Mobile telecommunication fraud that are
Superimposed fraud and the, Subscription fraud.
According to the research, the superimposed fraud is a kind of telecom fraud. Whereby the fraudster takes charge of legitimate mobile accounts, and all the legal use of such account is superimposed on the real owner of the account while the subscription fraud is a telecom fraud whereby the fraudster obtains a mobile account without the intention of paying the bills. Such subscribed services are the
Prepaid Services (PS) Post Paid Services (PPS) Roaming Services (RS) Value Added Features and Services Premium Rate Services etc.
All this a many more are the services provided by Nigerian telecom sector. In the research, Ogundile went on stating that the prepaid services and the postpaid services are two of the most common services provided, and the prepaid services are the ones less susceptible to fraud, unlike the postpaid services, meaning that it is less vulnerable to fraudulent activities. Ogundile stated that this kind of telecom frauds was causing problems. And equally posing a threat to the Telecommunication industry as a whole. Due to such threats, in other for it to reduce it in the industry, in 2010 it led to the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC). In conjunction with the mobile telecom companies and the Nigerian lawmakers passing a bill that stated that Subscriber identification module (SIM), are to be registered before usage, this will now give the mobile operators the incentive of being able to monitoring and detecting any fraudulent activities. The result was said to have yielded some positives by reducing the amount of fraud rate within that period. He went on to state that the registration of SIM card that was introduced not only helped in reducing fraud activities but also served as a way of providing better and personal services to each subscriber based on their identity and demands. In the conclusion of the research, he stated that based on the findings of his research work, the Nigerian mobile telecommunication sector cannot be completely free from fraud, but is could be managed properly and thereby reducing the negative effects it has on the sector in general (Ogundile O.O, 2013).
According to research done by Ogaboh, Moses & Bassey (2010), despite the advantages of mobile telecommunication in encouraging contact, increasing economic and social improvement through upgraded systems. Different assessment surveys ascertained that mobile telecommunication is used for criminal exercises, for example, pornography, fraud, loathes and acquiring merchandise by the scam. Such terrible circumstance has gotten almost no attention or consideration.
2.7 NIGERIAN MOBILE NETWORK OPERATORS
Due to Nigeria being the largest country in the whole of Africa with an estimated population of 180 million people, Nigeria happens to be the country with the largest economy and also the country with the largest mobile market with over 125 million subscribers. This 125 million people makes up about 75% of the population as about February 2014. Currently, there are there multiple mobile network operators in the country, since 2001 when operating silenced were ordered to be issued. The four major operating mobile operators in Nigeria are:
– MTN
-GLOBACOM
-AIRTEL and,
-ETISALAT
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