Nigeria Unveils plans for smartphone battery production

Bosun Tijani, Nigeria’s Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, has unveiled plans for smartphone battery production that will help strengthen the country’s case to attract phone manufacturers to establish local production of smartphone batteries.

Currently, internet penetration in Africa’s most populous nation stands at 42.24 percent, with more than 100 million people remaining digitally excluded.

According to the minister, Nigeria is also a home for lithium deposits which is a highly reactive metal essential for the production of energy-dense rechargeable batteries used in electronics like smartphones, laptops, electric vehicles, and grid storage systems.

Tijani also explained that the federal government was focusing on internet expansion nationwide, particularly through the planned 90,000 km of fiber-optic cable, and it is expected to open new doors for technological advancements in the country.

Read Also: US, Nigeria Fund 90,000 km Fibre Optic Project

“We are considering that if the internet is more ubiquitous and available, we now have a strong case to have conversations with manufacturers of mobile phones that they must either manufacture locally or they must manufacture the batteries that they use locally, because, you know what, we have a good stock of lithium batteries.

“So even if they can’t manufacture the whole thing yet locally, we can enforce that they must use the batteries that we have. If we do that, that’s going to create more job opportunities for mineral resources; space factories will come into the country,” he added.

Despite the difficulty Nigeria is facing in making the decisions, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu is particularly focused on strengthening infrastructure.

Adding that with strong foundational infrastructure in place, Nigeria would be able to develop an economy that creates significant job opportunities for young people—an essential step for the country’s progress.

PUNCH/Chidimma Gold