The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has commended the Minister of Communications, Innovation and Digital Economy, Dr. Bosun Tijani, for leading initiatives that aim to equip young Nigerians, especially girls, with digital skills, as it hosted 185 students on an educational visit to its National Communication Museum in Abuja.
The students, who are participants in the 2026 National Girls in ICT (NG-ICT) Competition, were chosen from the six geo-political zones of the nation by the Ministry to foster digital inclusion and encourage increased female involvement in Information and Communication Technology (ICT) and other STEM fields.
At the event, the Executive Vice Chairman (EVC) of the NCC, Dr. Aminu Maida, represented by the Director of the Research and Development Department, Babagana Digima, emphasized that the museum tour was intended to bridge the gap between the older and younger generations in Nigeria’s telecommunications evolution, enabling young individuals to recognize the sector’s shift from analogue systems to the present digital era.
”When they observe the past and how it has evolved into the future, they can also take it from here and contemplate what it will resemble moving forward. That is the primary purpose of having them here,” Maida stated.
Throughout the tour, NCC officials escorted the students through displays that chronicled significant milestones in Nigeria’s telecommunications history, starting from 1886 when the colonial government set up the nation’s initial communication infrastructure. The students also discovered the early telegraph services that connected Lagos to various regions of West Africa and Europe through submarine cables.
As stated on Sunday by Nnenna Ukoha, the Director of Public Affairs at the NCC, a particularly memorable moment for the students was discovering the state of telecommunications in Nigeria at the time of its Independence in 1960, when the entire nation had merely 18,724 telephone lines available for a population of around 40 million individuals.
The statement indicated that the students were then guided through the development of the telecommunications sector, which included the functions of the former Department of Posts and Telecommunications (P&T), Nigerian External Telecommunications (NET) Limited, and the creation of the Nigerian Telecommunications Limited (NITEL) in 1985.
NCC Commends Ministerial Initiative On Girls ICT Empowerment Tour
