by Adeniruju Adedapo

The online community is growing very fast and might someday outnumber the world’s population – with over a billion websites now online. More so, it’s fast becoming an integral driver of development in today’s societies. This has positioned it as the fifth estate of a society rather than the outranked entity it used to be.

As the gospel of change and development reaches a climax across the globe, developed nations are fast to employ the strengths of the digital age in fast-tracking societal integration.

Consequently, developing nations like Nigeria are beginning to lay hold of this indisputable reality – the role of internet in improving the social, economic and political standing of a society.

It’s noteworthy, however, that the present-day Nigeria has the highest number of internet users in Africa, and 10th in the world chat – ranking above UK and France. With over 70 million internet users and over 3.9% penetration rate, Nigeria has a potential that can be awakened by investing in the future of internet through:

Job Creation and Entrepreneurial Development: Among the numerous crises militating against Nigeria, unemployment seems to pose the greatest threat in recent years. Conversely, with internet accessible to over 38 per cent of Nigeria’s population, unemployed people can be fully engaged with jobs like: Online editors, content creators, digital media curators, Public Relations Managers, etc.

E-Commerce: If terms like “Our server is down”, “System currently inoperative”, etc. will become history in Nigeria’s commercial sector, better and swifter access to internet connection must be a national priority.

Internet is capable of easing e-banking and e-commerce users of the provoking burdens of connectivity. Even more, companies and business owners might no longer need to sacrifice hundreds of thousands on the altars of newspaper outfits, just to advertise their goods or announce job vacancies available for only a few. With just a click – rather, a tweet – they can get that done and receive instant feedbacks.

Education: The impact of an enlightened people in a society cannot be overemphasized. In Nigeria, however, many academic institutions, from primary to tertiary level, are devoid of ultramodern standards capable of stirring young people’s entrepreneurial acumen. This is evident in many dimensions; chief among them being the stale academic curriculum which has little or no relevance in 21st century work environment.

Since the digital age has pulled down the “wall of Jericho” hindering the flow of data, ideas and information across nations, freer and less-frustrating access to the untapped digital wealth is required, thereby giving students better access to, and exchange of, information at local and international levels.

Health Services: Taking a short stroll along the street of history, one would recall that Nigeria became a reference point of excellence when the spotlight of the WHO brought the country to the envy of other Ebola-infiltrated nations.

October 20, 2015 goes into the annals of Nigeria’s history when the nation was declared free of the deadly disease that has claimed thousands of lives worldwide in recent years. However, contributions of platforms like www.ebolafacts.com are invaluable to the achievement of such a great feat.

Internet can also aid health care delivery as a result of its growing need in tele-medical applications including connecting remote super computers to lasers for precision, focusing, transmission of digitized X-ray photographs, etc.

Advocacy and Citizens’ Engagement: Until recently, the Nigeria’s concept of “Democracy” since 1999 proved to be a betrayal of the real explanation of the word.

The representation of the people’s opinions, which was supposed to determine the product of the nation’s leadership, suffered terrible neglect. However, internet penetration is rapidly rescuing the drowning voices of advocacy. From Europe to Middle-East to Africa, the success of online advocacy is fast becoming evident.

Agriculture: The success of this sector in any society is a function of the cooperation and mechanism exemplified by the various stakeholders, chief among them being the farmers. It’s noteworthy, however, that beyond planting, farmers will need to commercialize their products, which will require a fluids flow of information and social interaction.

On a general note, it will be unfair to pretend like there are no challenges embattling the proliferation and impact of internet usage in a nation like Nigeria.

Some of these systemic barriers, which have grown unabated over the years, include: Epileptic Power supply, the cost of purchasing internet gadgets and accessories, poor ICT education, among many others. If this gospel of change must transform the lives of Nigerians, we must see it from Saint Internet’s perspective.

Just as electricity was vital to the industrial age, internet poses as the lifeline of the information age. And, like many other developing countries, Nigeria is yet to fully embrace the influence internet access has proven to have on economic and socio-political affairs.

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Op–ed pieces and contributions are the opinions of the writers only and do not represent the opinions of Y!/YNaija

Adeniruju Adedapo Treasure, a literary enthusiast, social commentator and graduate of Obafemi Awolowo University. I blog at The Reflector [www.teamreflector.org/author/treasure], and I tweet via @TreasureNGA.