The Federal Government has announced ban on the importation of Subscriber Identity Module (SIM) cards.
The Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Isa Pantami disclosed this on Monday in Oniru, Lagos.
TheFact Daily recalled that in June last year, Pantami had informed Nigerians that the Buhari administration had established a SIM card manufacturing plant in Lagos.
He said, the plant has the capacity to produce 200 million cards annually and also export them to other African countries.
“We have the capacity to produce a minimum of 200 million SIM cards annually. With the support of the Federal Government, private sector has been provided with enabling environment to start the production of smart phones. Today in Nigeria, we have produced smart phones.
“When we came on board, more than 98 percent of software been used by the sector was imported, as it is today, we reduced it significantly by more than 40 per cent. It is because of this we came up with this policy”, he stated .
The Minister who spoke at the Nigerian Telecommunications Indigenous Content Expo (NTICE) organised by the Nigeria Office for Developing Indigenous Telecoms Sector (NODITS) of the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), noted that Africa’s biggest country should not be importing things that could be produced within.
According to him, “Let me make it clear that the federal government will no longer tolerate the importation of sim cards. We are now producing them in Nigeria.
“Our aim is to increase indigenous content in the ICT sector so that by 2025, we will be self-reliant by at least 80 percent”, the minister noted.
Pantami called on stakeholders and citizens to support government efforts to boost local patronage and consumption.
“If we do this, history will be kind to all of us”, the professor of Cybersecurity added.
