DAYO OMOOGUN argues the remarkable improvement in the sector in the past decades
As Nigerians bask in the euphoria of another Democracy Day celebration in the last 27 years, the season provides us an opportunity to pause and reflect in order to take stock of the gains and pains that have come about for Nigeria. Of course, there are several parameters with which we can measure the progress or retrogression or to establish whether, like a rocking chair, we have been on a charade of “motion without movement”.
The general tendency at times like this, for most Nigerians, is to bemoan, curse and rant over the many opportunities we have failed to harness towards turning around the fortune of our country for good. However that is not the whole picture and we can decide to be intentional in the choice of our perspectives – whether our glass is half full or half empty! Certainly there are some areas where there has been a huge difference, indeed transformation! One such sector is the telecommunications sector where we have transitioned from when the elites declared glibly that telephone is not for the poor, when possession of a phone was a status symbol to now that the average Bose, Emeka and Aliyu have active phone lines. In fact there has been a paradigm shift in the mentality of most Nigerians to the effect that the phone is a necessity, an essential life and business tool rather than a luxury.
