The Federal Government is expected to kick off the deployment of a nationwide 90,000km fibre-optic network in October, Communications Minister Bosun Tijani has announced.
Tijani made this known on Thursday in Abuja while speaking at a workshop focused on the proposed standards for innovation hubs across Nigeria.
He said the funding required for the project had been secured, describing the fibre expansion as a key step towards improving broadband infrastructure and bringing reliable internet services to communities that remain poorly connected.
“President Bola Tinubu approved that we must deepen connectivity and we’re investing in 90,000 kilometres of fibre optic network.
“By the time we are done, it’s going to be either the third or second longest fibre optic network on the African continent, somewhere between what we have in South Africa and Egypt. And this is a project that is starting implementation in October. We have raised the funding for it,” Tijani said.
The initiative, Project BRIDGE, is expected to expand Nigeria’s fibre backbone considerably by adding at least 90,000km through a public-private partnership. Once completed, the country’s fibre network could rise from about 35,000km to approximately 125,000km.
The project is backed by funding from several international development institutions, including the World Bank, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and the African Development Bank, alongside support from the European Union.
Tijani said the fibre project was only one component of the government’s broader digital infrastructure programme, which also includes telecom towers, power infrastructure, satellites and data centres.
He disclosed that nearly 3,700 telecom towers were also planned for areas that currently have no network coverage.
“There are over 20 million of those people in this country today living in communities where there’s no access to telecommunications at all,” he said.
The minister added that the government was also planning to upgrade Nigeria’s communications satellite to improve access in locations where conventional telecom infrastructure would be difficult to establish.
According to Tijani, the infrastructure push is connected to the government’s ambition of building a $1tn economy and creating more opportunities outside the oil and gas sector.
“The bigger our economy gets, the more jobs we create, the more taxes we’re able to capture, the more money we have available to deliver roles and services to our people,” he said.
“And that we cannot achieve just through oil and gas. If we can create more companies like Andela, like Paystack, like Flutterwave, the future of Nigeria is, of course, extremely bright.”
Meanwhile, the Director-General of the National Information Technology Development Agency, Kashifu Abdullahi, said the proposed National Innovation Hub Standards Framework was designed to improve the quality and distribution of innovation hubs across the country.
He said more than 339 hubs had been identified nationwide, but noted that a large number were located in Lagos, Abuja and a few other states.
“We find it necessary to standardise across the country so that you don’t need to travel from Yola to Yaba for you to grow your business,” Abdullahi said.
He said the framework would provide seven key areas and roughly 35 criteria for assessing innovation hubs and helping them develop into effective startup incubators.
Abdullahi also revealed that NITDA was working with the Education Ministry to introduce digital skills into formal education, noting that the disconnect between schools and industry remained a challenge for the technology sector.
The European Union Delegation to Nigeria and ECOWAS also backed the proposed standards, with Prof. Leila Ben-Amor stressing the importance of having a common benchmark as Nigeria’s innovation ecosystem expands.
“Scale without a common standard is fragile,” Ben-Amor said.
She added that Team Europe and participating member states were supporting Nigeria’s digital ecosystem with more than €820m between 2021 and 2027.
Representing Denmark’s Consul General to Nigeria, Nosakhare Ayejimiwo said a national benchmark would help raise the capacity of innovation hubs and enable governments and development organisations to better direct their support.
