Loveth Okoli
The Chairman of the Set-Top Box manufacturers, Mr Geoffrey Ohuabunwa, has said Nigeria would harvest billions of Naira from the successful completion of the Digital Switch Over (DSO) project.
Ohuabunwa, a critical stakeholder in the process of the nation’s transition from analogue to digital terrestrial broadcasting, said in Abuja.
He said apart from massive employment generation, the DSO, if successfully delivered would generate fund for the government through the sales of spectrum to be vacated by broadcast stations to telecommunication companies.
“As a country, we have lost time, employment opportunities and revenue because we have not transited all these years.
“The project is designed in such a way that broadcasters are to vacate the spectrum they are occupying on their analogue transmission which is to be harvested by the Federal Government.
“The harvested spectrum which is called Dividend 1 and 2 will be sold to generate a lot of money for the country..
He added: “Presently, NTA and most of the private TV stations are occupying some of the spectrum.
“The highest the private stations are paying to government for the spectrum is not more than N500 million.
“If they move out of the analogue system, the government will farm back the spectrum which cannot be less than 20’’.
He recalled that the last time one of the spectrum was sold by the NBC, a whopping of N35 billion accrued to the government.
“If the process of DSO is completed and the government sells just five of the spectrums which I know will not be less than N50 billion each, that will help us to offset our budgeting deficit.
“It will also help us in growing the economy and in solving the challenges of insecurity as well as development of critical infrastructure,’’ he said.
Ohuabunwa corroborated the position of the Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed that more than one million jobs would be created in three years with DSO.
The minister had said this while inaugurating a 24-member ministerial task force to drive the process of DSO to completion.
Ohuabunwa said “the minister was very correct when he gave synopsis of the jobs to be created with the resumption and completion of DSO’’.
He added that with the benefit of many channels provided by DSO, it will open windows of opportunity for many young and talented Nigerian’s content producers.
Ohuabunwa said the DSO would engender quality production of creative materials and grow advertising revenue for the country.
