How telecom investment grew from $500m to $75bn in 25 years – Rewane

Managing Director of Financial Derivatives Company and Chairman of FCMB, Bismarck Rewane, has described the telecommunications revolution as one of the most significant transformations in Nigeria's economy in the last 25 years. He said combined investment in the telecommunications sector was about $500 million at the beginning of the period but had grown to more than $75 billion. Rewane, in an interview with journalists in Lagos, said the arrival of MTN Nigeria in 2001 coincided with a period when access to communication was severely limited. He said the company's entry, alongside the liberalisation of the sector, helped create an economy where communication and connectivity now underpin almost every major economic activity. Rewane recalled that Nigeria had only about 250,000 fixed telephone lines in 2000, when NITEL operated as a state-owned monopoly, and said the country has since moved from severe scarcity to mass connectivity.

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