The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has reportedly joined forces with the Association for Progressive Communications and other institutional stakeholders towards addressing challenges confronting rural network connectivity in Nigeria.
The Executive Vice Chairman of NCC, Dr. Aminu Maida, made this known during a two-day workshop hosted in Abuja from June 3-4, 2025, to explore policy framework for enabling community networks towards bridging the digital divide and accelerating socio-economic development in Nigeria’s underserved and unserved communities; he further said workshop is important to bridging the digital divide in Nigeria and foster inclusive social economic development.
According to the NCC boss, the Commission is fully committed to making the outcome of the workshop a catalyst for meaningful change, stating that the expertise, perspectives and commitments will shape the future where Nigerians, regardless of his or her status, will have meaningful access to opportunities from digital connectivity.
However, the Co-manager of the Association for Progressive Communications’ Local Network (LocNet) initiative, Kathleen Diga, noted that the collaboration was to tackle identified hindrances to digital inclusion. “This is a space where we can be open and exchange ideas of possibilities, opportunities that will remain in realising values of a diversified ecosystem.”
In her words, “I believe this workshop presents a moment in time that we can explore the bottom-up approach in local communities, small social enterprises, corporative among others, which have the ability to fill some of the digital gaps that remain unfilled,” she said, adding emphasising the need to recognise that community centre connectivity exists and they are grow throughout the global south, which, she said, are a “strategic response to digital exclusion.”
“This workshop is an opportunity for all of us to harness the expertise, insights, and experiences of diverse stakeholders present here which includes the regulators, community leaders, technical experts and potential foreign providers to address the critical challenges such as affordable devices, access, licensing, spectrum allocation, infrastructure development, sustainability and institutional monitoring,” said Maida, who was represented by the Executive Commissioner, Technical Services, NCC at the event, Abraham Oshadami.
The event had in attendance NCC, the Association for Progressive Communications and other institutional stakeholders such as the Rural Electrification Agency (REA) and the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) all geared towards exploring a joint policy framework to address rural digital divide.
The Association for Progressive Communications is a 35-year-old international network member-based organisation encouraging digital inclusion in the unserved communities, particularly with communities in the global south and the workshop, through its LocNet initiative aimed at crafting an enabling inclusive regulatory framework for community networks in Nigeria.
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