Over 95 per cent of Nigerians lack access to the Internet, the National Bureau of Statistics has said.

It also stated that the same percentage of the population had no personal computers, an indication of why Nigeria’s development rate had been slow.

Experts said Information and Communications Technology played a crucial role in the socio-economic growth of poor countries.

The latest figures from the National Population Commission show that Nigeria’s population is about 167 million people.

Over 95 per cent of the 167 million Nigerians, according to the NBS, may never have used the computer and the Internet before.

This was contained in the “Annual Socio-Economic Report: Access to ICT,” an outcome of the NBS/CBN Collaborative Survey in 2011.

The survey covered all the 36 states of the federation and the Federal Capital Territory. It also considered access to mobile phone, radio and television among Nigerians.

The NBS said access to PC appeared to be low with a national average of 4.5 per cent, whereas only 0.9 per cent of those who had access to computers actually owned them.

According to the survey, Kogi State has the highest percentage of total PC access in the country with 17.4 per cent, though, majority of the computers are not individually owned.

The FCT and Lagos have total access rates of 15.9 per cent and 15.8 per cent respectively; but only five per cent of the computers are individually owned.

The survey indicated that all other states had lower than 10 per cent total access rates to computers.

It also revealed that Kano, Kebbi, Zamfara, Borno and Sokoto had the least access to computers, at one per cent each.

The draft National Information Communications Technology Policy released by the Ministry of Communications Technology in January, showed that the country’s PC penetration was 4.7 per 100 people as at 2010.

Similarly, the International Communications Union’s statistics showed that the number of PCs in the country was still as low as seven per 1,000 inhabitants.

Analysts said the high cost of computers and the grossly under-developed technological base in the country were major reasons for low PC penetration in Nigeria.

The NBS said the national Internet access rates stood at 3.6 per cent in 2011, adding that only 0.5 per cent of the people who had access really owned a connection device.

The report said, “Compared to total PC access among persons, a fair number of states performed better than the national rate.

“Led by Lagos (27 per cent), two other states (Rivers and FCT) recorded above 10 per cent total access, although a considerable proportion did not claim ownership.”

“For states with the least access, Sokoto emerges with only 0.3 per cent access to the Internet. Kebbi, Zamfara, Kano, Bauchi, Kaduna and Ebonyi also turn out to have low Internet access rates, each with less than one per cent,” the report added.

The survey noted that urban dwellers had more access and ownership of Internet services at 11.6 per cent compared to the rural dwellers, which was put at 1.5 per cent.

Going by the equation embedded in the NBS data, it means that over 158 million Nigerians do not have access to the Internet.

http://www.punchng.com/business/business-economy/95-of-nigerians-lack-access-to-computers-internet-nbs/