Nigerian spend up to 448 billion naira ($2.6 billion) every month on mobile phone’s recharge cards making it the most expensive item on house hold budgets, even more than rent, electricity and fuel combined, Vanguard reported.

These was a revealed during a recent workshop organized by the Nigerian Communications Commission, (NCC) to educate lawmakers on some intricate parts of telecom business/investments.

It was estimated that the amount Nigerians spend on mobile phone recharge cards dwarfed the combined total they spent on House Rent, Petrol, Kerosene and electricity -which came up to about 370 billion naira per month.

Nigerians are said to spend 149.1 billion naira on house rent, 128 billion on petrol, , and 91.8 billion on electricity monthly, said Gbenga Oyebode of Aluko &Oyebode law firm who is also an ICT expert.

“Telecoms services have become very central to our daily lives, whether to individuals, businesses or government. Over the years, the importance attached to telecoms services is being underscored by the increasing expenditures on telecoms services,” Oyebode told the workshop.

But notwithstanding all of the potential of ICT contribution to Nigeria’s GDP, the industry still lags behind due to insufficient development of infrastructure. Broadband penetration in the west African oil producer is estimated at 6 percent only.

The latest subscriber statistics from NCC showed that the country connected 169 million telephone lines of which 127 million were currently active.

On a popular Nigerian social forum known as Nairaland a user said ” Well, I’m not surprised. I used a minimum of 400 naira per week just to recharge my phone. Imagine my hubby that recharges like 1500 (naira) every week. Multiply that by 1 year. Telecoms business is really booming!”