The Nation Newspaper

Tag: Bill

  • On the Peace Corps Bill

    SIR: The House of Representatives is planning to empower the Nigeria Peace Corps with their bill passed on Thursday June 9.

    It is no longer news that the bill was opposed vehemently by virtually all the national security agencies during the public hearing on April 13; however what requires the attention of every concerned Nigerian now is the adamant nature and unexplainable interest of the House in the Peace Corps bill.

    The lawmakers argued that the corps willassist the military and para – military organizations in arresting security challenges.

    When, where and how have the Peace Corps assisted the military or paramilitary agencies in ensuring that the nation is well secured? Which crime specifically have they prevented? Is it against the Hoko Haram; ritual killers or kidnappers?

    The fact is that Nigerian Peace Corps has never contributed to the issues of national security in any way unlike the Vigilantes who have their footprint everywhere on all issues of security, ranging from assisting the Nigeria Army in the fight against the insurgents, confronting and arresting kidnappers and robbers.

    It would be disastrous if the nation employs another large group of purely civilians as security only to serve as a replicate of the existing ones with no major impact on the national security. The work and job of security should not be seen as a political thing, but a serious issue which must seek to fix round pegs into round holes.

    There is nothing the Nigerian Peace Corps (NPC) would do that Nigeria Security and Civil Defense Corps (NSCDC) and Nigeria Police Force (NPF) have not been doing already.The whole country is aware of the herculean task and bravery of the members of the vigilante groups in terms of security in Nigeria as they fought rigorously and victoriously along the officers of the Nigerian Army against the insurgents at several occasions.

    Considering the present state of economy, a group that would be a liability on the already over-stressed economy should not be accepted as the House of Reps is planning.

    The federal government and the National Assembly should not be misled into believing that creating employment for the youth could be mingled with provision of adequate security for the nation. There are several other areas where the youths could be productively engaged without risking the security of lives and properties of the citizenry.

    When you look into the genesis and the background of Nigeria Peace Corps which emanated from Peace Corps of United States of America, the group is basically established as a non-security group to assist any community in not-for-profit civilian services, and not to provide security at all.

    The professional step the Nigerian security chiefs took during the public hearing of the Nigeria Peace Corps on April 13 was a very commendable one. In the United States of America, before any paramilitary group or organization can be formalized and legalized, it is the security chiefs that would be consulted and not the politicians alone.

    So I wonder why the lawmakers would disregard the professional advise and views of these security chiefs to proceed with the passage of the bill as they did.

    Security is a very sensitive thing all over the world, and especially in Nigeria where there are great security challenges such as terrorism, kidnapping, ritual killings, child trafficking, robbery, insurgency and so on and so forth.

    No nation disregards security views and professional advice of security experts. We should not play politics with security. It is extremely dangerous.

    You cannot ask farmers to join the army on the battle field simply because the army needed a backup.

     

    • Akinwumi Gideon

    Akure, Ondo State.

  • Bill seeks 10-year jail term for land grabbers

    •Bureau makes N3.148b in four months

    A bill seeking 10 years imprisonment for land grabbers popularly known as Omo Onile is pending before Lagos State House of Assembly, Permanent Secretary, Lands Bureau Mr. Bode Agoro has said.

    The bill is expected to be passed into law in the third quarter of the year.

    It is titled “Bill for a law to prohibit forcible entry and occupation of landed properties, violent and fraudulent conducts in relation to landed properties in Lagos State and for connected purposes.”

    Agoro, who was giving account of his one-year stewardship under Governor Akinwunmi Ambode, said the attacks on government allottees by Omo Onile were unbecoming, adding that the government would no longer fold its arms and watch.

    “The incessant complaints and constant agony being felt by people of the state necessitated the Lagos State House of Assembly to embark on the bill. This law will definitely go a long way in stopping this terrible menace in our society. Let the Omo Onile be warned because we are determined to win the battle against them. We are coming for them and we are facing them squarely,” Agoro said.

    He regretted that Omo Onile have constituted themselves into nuisance, disturbing public peace at will.

    Agoro said between January and last month, the bureau realised N3.148 billion from land sales.

    Between last May and March, it generated over N8 billion; Governor Ambode signed 5,625 Certificate of Occupancy (C of O) within the same period. Agoro attributed the feat to the government’s strong will, immense capacity for hard work and desire to accelerate the process of issuing land title.

    “The need for the acceleration of the titling process is that a high number of property owners in the state have realised the importance of having titles for their lands, especially the business community, as registered land titles are major documents needed as collateral for obtaining facilities from financial institutions,” he noted, adding that the Directorate of Land Services, a department in the Bureau, has also introduced a new form, known as IC, which incorporates the passport photograph of the purchaser to be affixed on the deeds of agreement.

  • Bill seeks 10-year jail term for land grabbers

    •Bureau makes N3.148b in four months

    BILL seeking 10 years imprisonment for land grabbers, popularly known as Omo Onile, is pending before the Lagos State House of Assembly, Permanent Secretary, Lands Bureau, Mr. Bode Agoro, has said.

    The bill is expected to be passed into law in the third quarter of the year.

    It is titled “Bill for a law to prohibit forcible entry and occupation of landed properties, violent and fraudulent conducts in relation to landed properties in Lagos State and for connected purposes.”

    Agoro, who was giving account of his one-year stewardship under Governor Akinwunmi Ambode, said the attacks on government allottees by Omo Onile were unbecoming, adding that the government would no longer fold its arms and watch.

    “The incessant complaints and constant agony being felt by people of the state necessitated the Lagos State House of Assembly to embark on the bill. This law will definitely go a long way in stopping this terrible menace in our society. Let the Omo Onile be warned because we are determined to win the battle against them. We are coming for them and we are facing them squarely,” Agoro said.

    He regretted that Omo Onile have constituted themselves into nuisance, disturbing public peace at will.

    Agoro said between January and last month, the bureau realised N3.148 billion from land sales.

    Between last May and March, it generated over N8 billion; Governor Ambode signed 5,625 Certificate of Occupancy (C of O) within the same period. Agoro attributed the feat to the government’s strong will, immense capacity for hard work and desire to accelerate the process of issuing land title.

    “The need for the acceleration of the titling process is that a high number of property owners in the state have realised the importance of having titles for their lands, especially the business community, as registered land titles are major documents needed as collateral for obtaining facilities from financial institutions,” he noted, adding that the Directorate of Land Services, a department in the Bureau, has also introduced a new form, known as IC, which incorporates the passport photograph of the purchaser to be affixed on the deeds of agreement.

  • Bill seeks 10-year jail term for land grabbers

    •Bureau makes N3.148b in four months

    Bill seeking 10 years imprisonment for land grabbers popularly known as Omo Onile is pending before Lagos State House of Assembly, Permanent Secretary, Lands Bureau Mr. Bode Agoro has said.

    The bill is expected to be passed into law in the third quarter of the year.

    It is titled “Bill for a law to prohibit forcible entry and occupation of landed properties, violent and fraudulent conducts in relation to landed properties in Lagos State and for connected purposes.”

    Agoro, who was giving account of his one-year stewardship under Governor Akinwunmi Ambode, said the attacks on government allottees by Omo Onile were unbecoming, adding that the government would no longer fold its arms and watch.

    “The incessant complaints and constant agony being felt by people of the state necessitated the Lagos State House of Assembly to embark on the bill. This law will definitely go a long way in stopping this terrible menace in our society. Let the Omo Onile be warned because we are determined to win the battle against them. We are coming for them and we are facing them squarely,” Agoro said.

    He regretted that Omo Onile have constituted themselves into nuisance, disturbing public peace at will.

    Agoro said between January and last month, the bureau realised N3.148 billion from land sales.

    Between last May and March, it generated over N8 billion; Governor Ambode signed 5,625 Certificate of Occupancy (C of O) within the same period. Agoro attributed the feat to the government’s strong will, immense capacity for hard work and desire to accelerate the process of issuing land title.

    “The need for the acceleration of the titling process is that a high number of property owners in the state have realised the importance of having titles for their lands, especially the business community, as registered land titles are major documents needed as collateral for obtaining facilities from financial institutions,” he noted, adding that the Directorate of Land Services, a department in the Bureau, has also introduced a new form, known as IC, which incorporates the passport photograph of the purchaser to be affixed on the deeds of agreement.

  • Labour warns against workers’ sack over ‘bloated’ wage bill

    Labour has warned against the sacking of workers under the guise of a bloated wage bill.

    Refering to Minister of Finance Mrs. Kemi Adeosun’s statement that about N165 billion has been spent on payment of civil servants’ salaries, Labour said it was shocked by the excuses being made to justify the failure of some states to pay workers and execute certain projects.

    Speaking with The Nation, Trade Union Congress of Nigeria (TUC) President, Comrade Bobboi Kaigama, said they were all a ploy to sack workers.

    He said: “We recall that it was widely reported that the immediate past administration discovered hundreds of thousands of ghost workers within the civil service.

    “The present administration has also told us that they have discovered some and adopted a series of measures to curb such. We are upset that the available information technology platforms and the Biometrics Verification Number (BVN) introduced by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) have not helped to iron out these things.”

    The TUC president said labour was happy that the minister faulted the Integrated Payroll and Personal Information System (IPPIS) introduced by the last administration, adding that the system was sabotaged by elements benefitting from salary fraud.

    “We also welcome her claim that she has created a unit assigned with the sole responsibility of checking the salaries and catching those behind the over-bloated salary,” he said.

    He, however, said Labour would fight to finish any attempt to sack civil servants for errors that are not theirs, adding that it is the height of injustice to sack a worker who earns a stipend just to be able to sustain the payment of millions of naira to politicians.

    “We cannot be made to bear the brunt of what we do not know about just to massage the ego and pockets of a privileged few. Nobody or group should prompt a disruption of the prevailing peaceful industrial atmosphere in the country,” Kaigama said.

    In a related event, TUC has decried the recruitment of Permanent Secretaries from outside the civil service.

    Kaigama, who stated this in Abuja, said: “We wish to state that the recent appointment of Permanent Secretaries from outside the civil service contravened the relevant provisions of the constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

    “This is capable of doing collateral damage to the system. The ill-advised policy, if not stopped now, is capable of killing the morale of senior civil servants who have served their fatherland meritoriously for decades. This is because they can no longer aspire to rise to the peak of their career.”

    Kaigama urged the Federal Government to discontinue the practice while those already recruited particularly those above 60 years, should be disengaged.

    He said it was common knowledge that the civil service is the engine room that oils the wheels of government to ensure efficient and effective service delivery to the people.

    Kaigama cited Public Service Rule 020810, which stipulates that retirement age in the civil service shall be 60 years of age or 35 years of pensionable service whichever comes earlier.

    He also called on the Federal Government to quickly settle all outstanding arrears owed civil and public servants.

    According to him, the outstanding include salary arrears, promotion arrears dating back to 2007, first 28 days in lieu of hotel accommodation, duty tour allowance, mandatory training allowance for 2010, burial expenses and repatriation allowance, among others.

    “We are worried that the sum provided for the settlement of these arrears under the Service Wide Vote in the 2016 Budget is inadequate and has even been slashed by N28.5 billion by the National Assembly.

    “We, therefore, demand that the federal lawmakers retrace their steps on this issue and approve what was voted for the outstanding benefits of civil servants in the interest of industrial peace and harmony in the country.

    He also called on the Federal Government to prepare a supplementary budget to capture the balance of indebtedness to public servants so that the matter can rested.

  • Day Aisha Buhari made case for bill

    Day Aisha Buhari made case for bill

    The two chambers of the National Assembly on Monday, May 9th engaged themselves with two high-profile public hearing on a bill to create the North East Development Commission.

    Entitled the North East Development Commission Bill, 2016, the sentiment attached to the bill is understandable given the need to fashion a platform to address the ruinous misadventure of Boko Haram insurgents in the zone.

    That the NEDC Bill has all the trappings of the Niger Delta Development Commission Bill that gave birth to the NDDC is not in doubt.

    Perhaps, the major difference in terms of funding is that while the NDDC arelies heavily on accruals from oil companies operating in the Niger Delta region for its funding, the NEDC, when passed, will draw its funding from federal allocation and payment by extractive and mining companies doing business in the zone.

    Laudable as the steps being taken to set in motion machinery to rebuild the ravaged North East, there appear to be disconnect between the Senate and the House of Representatives on how to go about it.

    Keen observers at the senate talk shop wondered why two separate public hearing on the same bill should be held same time, same day by the same parliament?

    The two chambers are known to have in the past harmonised their positions and conducted joint public hearing on an important bill such as the NEDC Bill, at least to save cost as well as to narrow areas of disagreement.

    Some say ego trip and unhealthy rivalry that have held a lot of legislative activities down in the National Assembly must have been at play.

    Again even before the crucial interventionist bill is passed and signed into law, a subtle fight over the headquarters of the commission seemed to have emerged among the North East states.

    While Senators from Borno State, the center of Boko Haram insurgency, want the headquarters of the commission to be cited in Maidugiri, lawmakers from Yobe and Bauchi states are campaigning for the headquarters of the commission to be cited in their states.

    Yobe State governor, Ibrahim Gaidam, represented by Education Commissioner, Mohammed Lamin, at the House of Representatives version of the public hearing, did not hide his desire to have the headquarters of the commission cited in Damaturu, his state capital.

    The question on the lips of some stakeholders is whether there is any need to work at cross purposes on a bill that has one objective, the rebuilding of the badly damaged North East geo-political zone?

    Apart from these avoidable downsides, the NEDC Bill has had a smooth sail in both chambers.

    No doubt, the presence of the First Lady, Aisha Buhari, at the House of Representatives public hearing was a huge boost for the bill. Her presence however gave the impression that the bill has become, for all intents and purposes, a done deal.

    The First Lady was reported to have declared in a memorandum she personally submitted at the public hearing, “I believe that for rapid development to come to the region, a concerted effort must be made. I am Aisha Muhammadu Buhari and I support the NEDC Bill 100 percent.”

    On his part, Senate President, Abubakar Bukola Saraki, gave the Senate Joint Committee on Special Duties, Establishment and Public Service up till May 25, 2016 to complete work on the bill and report back to plenary.

    Saraki, who gave the charge while inaugurating the public hearing, insisted that what had been witnessed in the North East demanded special attention from well meaning Nigerians and not just from the government.

    Chairman of the Joint Committee, Senator Abdul-Aziz Murtala Nyako, had promised that his committee would work assiduously to ensure that the report on the bill was laid and read the third time on May, 25, 2016.

    Following Nyako’s remarks, Saraki concluded that though time was running out, he would hold the committee to its promise to turn in the report on the bill to plenary on May 25.

    For Saraki, it is imperative to pass the bill quickly to mitigate the precarious situation of those affected by insurgency in the North East.

    He said: “We must all rise up and say never again. We have seen families wiped out, children orphaned, incomes plunged below a tenth of what they were a decade ago. Families that have survived this onslaught have largely survived with little to live by and now rely directly on handouts for food rations.”

    He said the importance of the bill becomes more germane since the war against insurgency cannot be won by might alone.

    Director General, National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), Alhaji Mohammed Sani Sidi, in his presentation disclosed that over 800 repentant Boko Haram insurgents are currently undergoing skill acquisition training as part of efforts to rehabilitate and reintegrate them into society.

    Sidi said the skill acquisition exercise is being handled by the military and monitored by the Office of the Chief of Defence Staff (CDS).

    While responding to the comment by a former member of the House of Representatives, Hon. Kaka Kyari Gujbawu, who called for general amnesty for repentant Boko Haram insurgents, Sidi said: “It is not true that the Federal Government has no amnesty package. There is what is called safe corridor. I do know that 800 plus (Boko Haram) have been registered. I don’t want to be specific. They have exited Boko Haram through the window. They are currently receiving various skill acquisition training. The military is handling it. It is being monitored by the Office of the CDS.”

  • El-Rufai’s religious preaching bill

    Much as Governor Nasir El-Rufai of Kaduna State tries to explain the rationale behind the bill to check the activities of preachers, it would appear the controversy generated by it will continue to linger for a longtime to come. For, there are grey areas in that executive bill that raise suspicion on the capacity of its implementers when passed into law, to be fair to all the religions.

    Titled “A bill for a law to substitute the Kaduna state Religious Preaching law 1984”, it seeks among others, the establishment of two committees, one from the Jama’atu Nasir Islam (JNI) for Moslems and the other from the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) for Christians. It also proposes the setting up of an inter-faith ministerial committee to exercise supervisory control over the JNI and CAN committee.

    Both the JNI and CAN committees are to issue licences to preachers as approved by the inter-faith ministerial committee and renewable after one year. Other key aspects of the bill relate to restricting the playing of cassettes, CDs, flash drive or any other communication gadgets containing religious recordings from accredited preachers to one’s house, inside the church, Mosque, or any other designated place of worship.

    It also makes it an offence for any person to preach without licence, play a religious cassette or use a louder speaker for religious purposes after 8pm in public places. An offender shall on conviction be liable to a term of imprisonment not exceeding two years or a fine of N200, 000 or both.

    The Catholic Bishop of Kaduna, Most Rev. Dr. Matthew Man-OSO Ndagoso, is of the opinion that the bill is unnecessary as our laws can handle issues it seeks to tackle.

    For the chairman of the JNI in the state, Alhaji Ja’faru Makafi, the bill is nothing new as preaching activities have had a long history of regulation in the state. He said it was for this reason that the regime of Ahmed Makafi had to drop similar idea when he was reminded that there were existing laws regulating preaching.

    Thus, the bill appears an avoidable duplication of existing laws guiding the practice of religion and therefore patently unnecessary. Apart from this, there are aspects of it that are largely vague and suspicions are that in their implementation, the Kaduna State government may likely come out in its true colours.

    The first has to do with the setting up of the two committees for JNI and CAN that are to be supervised by an inter-faith ministerial committee. The bill should have gone further to specify the composition of the inter-faith committee. This is especially so because given the very sensitive nature of religion on these shores, there is every reason to expect some friction when it comes to the composition and chairmanship of the committee. The direction it tilts will be a mirror to what may follow thereafter.

    There will be friction over the propriety of the inter-faith committee to determine which preachers to issue licences and which of them should not be accredited to propagate their faith. Such issues are very hard to regulate. Moreover, the criteria for the issuance of such licences have not been spelt out. Is it going to be based on large followership, popularity, record or rigorous religious training?  Or is it going to be biased in favour of well established faith organizations? What future is there for the budding ones?

    And where is it written that these criteria are all there is for purposeful and effective evangelical work?  It would seem the inter-faith committee is ab initio handicapped in the assignment the bill seeks to carve out for it. It will also amount to serious intrusion into the activities of the two religions by the government. There must be a point beyond which the government cannot intrude in religious affairs. Setting up an inter-faith committee to regulate what Christians and Moslems do would amount to an action taken too far.

    There are also serious issues with the proposed trial of preachers without licences in the sharia and customary courts. The controversy that will arise from this may make nonsense of anything to be achieved by that piece of legislation.

    If at all, preaching should be regulated in the manner being proposed in the bill, it ought to be left for the two religious bodies.  But it is not all religious sects that belong to CAN and JNI. And that further constrains the attempt to regulate. You can neither regulate nor issue licences to faith based organizations that fall outside the ambit of these two religious bodies.

    But then, there is the more fundamental flaw in the reasoning that the cause of religion is better served when preachers are armed with a licence from the government. Its corollary is that issuing licences to preachers constitutes both the necessary and sufficient conditions for peaceful co-existence among members of the two dominant religious groups. There are no facts to support this thinking.

    Moreover, some of the preachers who command large following today and have performed well in their missionary work are neither known to have undergone formal training in their missionary work nor certified by such bodies as JNI or CAN before they commenced preaching. So the contention by El -Rufai that the bill “seeks to ensure that those that preach religion are qualified, trained and certified by their peers to do so” cannot be stretched too far.

    In fact, if such regulation had been in force, many of the religious denominations that abound today would not have been allowed to spring up. That is the simple fact and that is why the feeling is strong that the bill is meant to limit religious freedom.

    There are also issues with limiting the playing of cassettes, CDs and flash drive to one’s homes and inside the churches and mosques. The inevitable impression is that much of the religious disharmonies we have had in that state derive in the main, from unrestrained spreading of religious messages through these medium. This cannot be supported by the genesis of the various religion-induced riots that had in the past, led to the destruction of lives and property of inestimable value not only in that state but other states in the north. It cannot also be achieved by making it an offence for any person to preach without licence or limiting the use of loud speakers for religious purposes in public places after 8pm.

    Such regulation will no doubt, come into conflict with the mode of evangelization of most Christian dominations. The issue is not as much with the playing of religious cassettes or spreading religious messages after a certain period of time. It has not got much to do with what preachers do during their public outings.

    We need to look beyond these if we really seek the right handle to the cycle of religious violence that has been the sad lot of some states in the north. The Maitatsine riots of the 80’s; the series of religious violence of the past and the Boko Haram insurgency have little to do with some of the issues the bill seeks to regulate. Neither is the bill designed to check the future emergence of weird fundamentalist ideology nor the selfish manipulation of the down-trodden by the elite that give rise to such riots. Such indoctrination is implanted within the four walls of these religious bodies rather than outside of it.

    El-Rufai should drop that superfluous piece of legislation and channel his energy to improving the material conditions of the people of that state. With improved education and material conditions of living, the ease with which politicians manipulate the masses for self-serving ends in the guise of religion, will wane very considerably. And that is the real issue.

  • IPOB slams lawmakers for allowing Grazing Bill

    The Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) has berated the Southeast and Southsouth lawmakers in the National Assembly for allowing the Grazing Reserves Bill to pass the second reading at the Senate and the House of Representatives.

    A statement in Umuahia, the Abia State capital, by its Director of Media and Publicity, Emma Powerful, said the National Assembly members from  zones  did not know what they were doing by their action.

    The statement reads: “The national assembly members from the two zones allowing the grazing bill to pass second reading shows that our people in the national assembly were used by their fellow members and they

    were just stooge and they are there for their personal interest and not for their people.

    “We of the IPOB discovered that they have been bought over by their Hausa-Fulani counter parts in the Senate and House of Representatives in Abuja to the detriment of their people who they are representing.

    IPOB is warning them that this is a systematic way of bringing the invaders in our land and they are coming to Islamise us (we children of Chukwu Okike Abiama) God Almighty.

    “We are warning the Southsouth and Southeast, governors to thread with caution because we don’t have places to use as Fulani ranch and any governor who issues a place will bear the consequences and

    posterity will never forgive those who sabotaged his or her people.

    “More so, the highest producers of cows grazing and ranch in the world is Argentina followed by Australia, they have not been ravaging and

    destroying farmland or causing problems with the people, let the northern governors allocate enough land in their state to them because we have no land for cow rearing in Biafra.”

  • AfDB seeks $400b to reduce Nigeria’s, others’ food import bill

    AfDB seeks $400b to reduce Nigeria’s, others’ food import bill

    Africa Development Bank(AfDB) is seeking $400 billion over the next 10 years for an intiative known as Africa Feeding Africa to reduce food importation in Nigeria  and the rest of Africa.

    Currently,Africa spends $35.4 billion annually on food imports. Out of this, Nigeria spends $12billion on food imports.

    Addressing over 200 research and development experts at the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture(IITA), Ibadan, Oyo State, the Director, Agriculture and Agro Industry Department, AfDB, Dr Chiji Ojukwu,warned that the continent’s import bill could hit $40 billion yearly if nothing is done to arrest it. Consequently, he said the bank,working with International Institute for Tropical Agriculture (IITA) designed the programme also known as Technologies for African Agricultural Transformation (TAAT)), targeted at eliminating extreme poverty, hunger, nutrition, achieve food sufficiency and turn the continent into a net food exporter.

    The plan is to spend $40billion yearly to build the critical value chains to achieve rapid agricultural transformation across Africa and raise productivity.

  • Telcos, GSMA, others reject electronic tax bill

    The group representing mobile operators globally, the Global System for Mobile Communication Association (GSMA), the umbrella body of mobile operators, Association of Licensed Telecommunications Operators of Nigeria (ALTON), the Association of Telecommunications Companies of Nigeria (ATCON) and the National Association of Telecommunications Subscribers (NATCOMS), have jointly  rejected the Bill for the Establishment of a Tax on Electronic Communication Services in Nigeria currently before the National Assembly.

    The bill  is seeking to establish a nine per cent Communication Service Tax to be levied on charges payable by a user of an electronic communication service such as short message service (SMS), voice calls, multimedia service (MMS), and  data usage supplied by service providers in the country.

    They stakeholders warned that if introduced, such tax will result in an increase in prices for consumers, have adverse impacts on the adoption of mobile services and industry investment, and be counter-productive to the longer term national digital strategy objectives set by the Federal Government. It will also increase affordability barriers to the uptake of mobile technology in the country.

    A letter dated March 30, 2016 addressed to the Minister of Finance, Mrs Kemi Adeosun and her counterpart in the Communications Technology, Mr Adebayo Shittu, the stakeholders said the socio-economic impact of mobile penetration is now widely recognised, adding that a World Bank research noted that a 10 per cent increase in mobile broadband penetration in low to middle income countries leads to a 1.38 per cent increase in gross domestic product (GDP) growth.