THE Nigerian telecom industry has been described as gender sensitive due to it gives every gender equal opportunities, especially women to rise to the leadership position in the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) sector.
This was made known by the Executive Vice Chairman and Chief a Executive Officer of the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), Prof. Umar Garba Danbatta in a keynote address delivered at the e-BusinessLife magazine International Girls in ICT day 2016 in Lagos.
Danbatta who was speaking through the commission Director of Public Affairs Mr Tony Ojobo noted that the evidence of the industry being gender sensitive follows its provision of the enabling environment that has enabled women to rise to the topmost echelon of leadership in the ICT sector.
“What this means is that in the future growth of this sector that currently provides about 10 per cent to the nation’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and is expected to be a major plank in the diversification agenda of the economy from oil, women would be among the major drivers,” he said.
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He also made known that the digitally inclined girls of today, will be in the leadership position of the economy of this country in the next decade, and beyond, stressing that a digitally skilled generation of women will bring about a refreshing dimension in the quest to improve and diversify the nation’s economy.
The impact and contributions that women have made in the development of the telecom industry since the revolution of 2001, he said, cannot be over emphasis.
“We believe that the future holds even more for women as the digital space continues to widen with more services and more applications that tend to cover every facet of human endeavour,” he said.