Spore (2008) pointed that half of the world‘s 6.5 billion now use a mobile phone, compared with 2 billion just 2years ago. In Africa, mobile phone business is the most rapid growing sector of the economy with over 150 million subscribers (Scheen, 2008). Adogla (2009) said the annualized aggregate growth rate in handset number was pegged at a healthy 58%, a figure that clearly propelled the African cellular market to outperform all others worldwide. In Nigeria, the introduction of GSM in 2001 marked the positive contribution of telecommunications to socio-economic activities of the people. According to NCC (2012), the GSM industry empowered at least 84.3 million subscribers and with an impressive tele-density of about 72.20. In Ibadan for instance, more than 95% of the sampled respondents possessed GSM phones used for communication. The breakdown of subscribers revealed that telecommunications is dominated by GSM users (89%) and distantly followed by Code Division Multiple Access system (CDMA) and fixed wired/wireless. Indeed, less than 10% of telecom subscribers in Ibadan were connected to CDMA. Empowerment of citizens with mobile phones has transformed businesses and way of life in urban and rural areas of the country. The benefit spread across different sectors of the economy-health, education, communication, agriculture, industry, banking, wildlife and trade.
In agriculture, the mobile phone holds the ace in the application of modern information communication technologies (ICT) to disseminate information and knowledge to farmers. ICTs have the greatest potential to act as a facilitator for specific development
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oriented programmes that are currently operational at grassroots in Nigeria (NCC, 2010).
Access to ICTs provides information on prices, markets, technology and weather to the farmers. Community-based tele-centres have the potential to empower rural communities and facilitate socio-economic developments in agriculture using selected ICTs (e-mail, internet, phone, radio, TV, print) to accelerate the wider delivery of appropriately packaged agricultural information and other relevant information for the poor. In the fisheries sub-sector, mobile phones are used to coordinate fishing efforts (Adogla, 2009); product marketing, talk and to improve safety (Spore, 2008) as well as linking fishermen and wholesalers together for business (Scheen, 2008).
The mobile phone communication benefits education at several levels. The pervasiveness of GSM has brought about rapid social, political and economic transformation, which has culminated in a network society organized around ICT (Yusuf, 2005). Currently e-learning is becoming one of the most means of using ICT to provide education to students both on and off campus by means of teaching online offered through web based systems. Considering the role of education in nation building and the population explosion in the secondary school these days, the use of ICT in the teaching-learning process becomes imperative. This is true because its adoption by the teachers will enhance effective teaching. Such issues like good course management, content creation, self-assessment, self-study, collaborative learning, task oriented activities, and effective communication between the actors of teaching/learning process and research activities will be enhanced by the use of ICT based technology (Ajayi, 2006). In recent time, most of these services are powered by GSM technology.
In Nigeria, the available infrastructures for ICT in most tertiary institutions are grossly inadequate. It was observed that most university students still visit internet cafe off campus because of demand on the internet on-campus. The bandwidths shared on most of these systems at cyber cafés are still low. As a result, much time is wasted on internet browsing. Olaniyi (2006) stated that most of the institutions of higher learning in Nigeria have started building their ICT centres but they focus on internet facilities without considering other components that make up ICT centre. Although access to internet services in the Nigerian education sector may appear low, the provision of data services by
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GSM providers widened the level of coverage. In this way, there are people especially students who could browse the internet on their mobile phones.
Undoubtedly, ICT makes access to education more flexible and reduces barriers of time and place. In addition, communication technologies can also enhance the quality of university teaching and research. The internet has emerged arguably the most visible component of the information and communication technologies. The rate of adoption of the internet exceeds that of all technologies before it. Its uses comprise communication, publishing and research. The dynamics of adoption and usage of ICT could be examined at three levels, which are the macro-(national), meso-(sectoral) and micro-(organizational and individual) levels. Oyelaran-Oyeyinka and Adeya (2004), Achimugu and Afolabi (2009) investigated the level and depth of use of computers by university staff. From their survey in Nigeria, 58.5% used computers for word processing, 32.2% used it for spreadsheet and data processing and 20.5% used it for programming, 66.9% used it for email/internet while 9.4% used the computer for other purposes apart from the aforementioned. There is a higher degree of e-mail and internet use within the private universities compared to the public universities. The main reason could be as a result of better facilities at some of the private universities coupled with lower densities of users per access point. This implies faster connections, shorter waiting times, less congestion and lower cost as the private institutions often provide free access for the staff. The challenges facing Nigerian public universities pertaining ICT acceptance and usage for teaching and learning is primarily lack of commitment by the government in terms of funding, staff training and stable power supply (Oye, Salleh and Iahad, 2011).
The lack of adequate healthcare is one of the most onerous aspects of poverty.
There has been significant focus on using ICTs to actually deliver healthcare (telemedicine) and as a way of educating people on health issues in Nigeria. For instance, preventive measures against AIDS and recent incident of bird flu are communicated to the poor through television, Internet, radio, posters. However, there are other uses of technology, which have the potential for revolutionary improvements in the delivery of healthcare. In most cases, the technology is being used in its simplest forms to aid in the collection, storing and retrieval of data and information.
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Two years after introduction of GSM in Nigeria, Idowu et al., (2003) conducted an interview among medical practitioners in some Nigerian teaching hospitals to find out the current level of utilisation of phones to facilitate patient care at their own expenses. Neither the government nor hospital management had taken up the responsibility. Currently, the number of GSM service providers in the country has increased significantly and all of them keep rolling out several service options or packages including internet services with varying benefits to attract customers. Although, a GSM based referral system was developed, validated and recommended for use in the primary health care centre, how far this has enhanced the development of an ICT-driven health care practice in Nigeria is still to be known (Okafor, 2009). Nevertheless, GSM services now facilitate health provision as users now get health tips on their phones by means of short message service (SMS).
Recently, information is recognised, as a prerequisite for empowerment (World Bank, 2002) and participation by encouraging people to be active in the development process, to contribute ideas, take initiative, articulate needs and problems and assert their autonomy (Ascroft and Masilela, 1994). ICT is the latest in the series of continuing technological revolutions. It has significant influence on gender empowerment, by better equipping women to take advantage of opportunities, and access services provided by ICT to exercise their rights and hold state and non-state actors accountable. There is therefore the need for greater concentration on the use of ICT for gender empowerment in Nigeria.
For instance, United Nations Millennium Declaration (2001) has ensured that globalization becomes a positive force for the entire people of the world‘s people and to combat poverty, hunger and disease and to stimulate development that is truly sustainable, and to ensure that the benefits of new technologies are available to all. Women‘s full and equal access to ICT-based economic and educational activities supports women‘s contributions in both business and home- based activities and improves women‘s socio-economic status, strengthens the family and provides access to information, freedom of expression and formal and informal associations. ICTs also provide options for women including overcoming illiteracy, creating opportunities for entrepreneurship, allowing women to work from home and care for their families, accessing ICTs from rural locations and enhancing and enriching quality of life. The provision of GSM services is the easiest and
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fastest way to access ICT in the 21st century (Ndukwe, 2008). Therefore, by extension Nigeria has impressive record of ICT utilisation because of the current tele-density.
In Nigeria, the ICTs have also helped to impact on the livelihood strategies of small-scale enterprises and local entrepreneurs as well as in the enhancement of various forms of social capital. A proportion of the research literature discusses social capital and ICT from general internet studies as well as specifically place based research (O'Neil 2002). Social capital theory, particularly since Putnam (2000), has attracted the attention of scholars working to understand ICT in local as well as historical communities. While Putnam‘s theory focuses on the value of bridging across-group social ties, earlier social capital theory particularly Coleman (1988), emphasizes the value of bonding within-group social ties.
ICTs initiative is part of existing social interactions; they reduce the friction of space not the importance of place (Hampton 2004). The technologies have been viewed as part of a complex ecology of communication tools that enable local social interactivity. For instance, the Internet is a tool for maintaining social relations, information exchange, and increasing face-to-face interaction, all of which help to build both bonding and bridging social capital in communities (Kavanaugh and Patterson 2001). ICT initiatives play a significant role in developing and sustaining local social ties and stronger ties are characterized by broader media usage (Haythornthwaite, 2005). To buttress the above position, more than 89% of GSM users in Ibadan and by extension Nigeria as whole (NCC, 2012) have utilised their GSM phones to connect family and friends. This has helped to build strong social bond and collective solidarity.