4.0 ICT POLICY DEVELOPMENT IN NIGERIA Prior to 1999, development in the ICT sector of Nigeria was generally assessed to be far below expectation, for a country of its size and resources. For example, total fixed telephone lines were less than 400,000 while regular internet users were less than 200,000. From a policy and regulatory standpoint, the Federal Government of Nigeria adopted the National Telecommunications Policy (NTP) in 2000 to guide the development of the telecommunications industry in Nigeria. This was followed by the enactment of the Nigerian Communications Act (NCA) 2003 to give legal effect to the NTP. Previously, the National Mass Communications Policy recommended the creation of a regulatory body to regulate Broadcasting and this led to the promulgation of Decree 38 of 1992 that established the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC). In a similar vein, the National Information Technology Policy was approved in 2001 to guide the IT industry in Nigeria, and was followed by the enactment of the National Information Technology Development Agency Act 2007, which provided the legal platform for the creation of the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA). It is noteworthy that there has never been a national postal policy; however, Decree No. 41 of 1992 established the Nigeria Postal Service (NIPOST) to provide postal services in Nigeria. These policy and regulatory developments along with other government and private sector initiatives have resulted in significant improvement of the ICT sector. For instance, the national installed capacity has moved from approximately 400,000 available fixed telephone lines pre-1999 to over 90.5 million available mobile telephone lines by the first quarter of 2011, making Nigeria’s telecommunications market the fastest growing in Africa. There is now modest ICT deployment in the functioning of government organizations, as well as in the private sector. In addition, ICT now drives fairly significant breadth of activities in the financial and oil and gas sectors while various e-Government initiatives are ongoing in various departments across the three tiers of government. !"#$%&"'()*+(,%'$-.(/(0120( ( ( ,"34(25(