As part of the efforts, the Federal Government recently announced its plan to launch a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) to convey additional 90,000 kilometres of fibre optic cables.
With this plan, Nigeria’s internet connectivity and advanced universal access will be significantly enhanced. According to the government, the project will expand Nigeria’s connectivity backbone from the current 35,000 kilometres to 125,000 kilometres.
Meanwhile, there are some challenges that may hinder the implementation of the projects. Some of the obstacles were identified and discussed by the stakeholders at the sixth edition of the Policy Implementation Assisted Forum (PIAFO) which was a focus on Nigeria’s renewed strategic agenda for digital economy held in Lagos recently.
Though the country is forging ahead amidst various challenges, the Internet connectivity in Nigeria is still not at the required level. Apart from the major cities, many rural areas in the country are still out of coverage.
The limitation in Internet connectivity is linked to various factors but most importantly telecom infrastructure which is lacking in many rural areas.
The Executive Vice Chairman/Chief Executive Officer of the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), Dr. Aminu Maida, said there was a need, as the regulator of the nation’s telecommunication sector, “to share thoughts and ideas with industry stakeholders concerning the prospects and challenges confronting our march to achieving ubiquitous broadband connectivity across the nooks and crannies of Nigeria.”
Obstacles
Most of the obstacles identified are said to be caused by the state governments. According to the stakeholders, without addressing the current issue of Right of Way charges, multiple taxation, and levies, which are under the control of the state governments, the project which is to be implemented through a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) would be an exercise in futility.
They stressed the need to ensure the successful implementation of the project which was announced recently by the Federal Government to complement existing connectivity for universal access to the internet across Nigeria and provide the Nigerian digital economy with the backbone infrastructure it needed.
Vandalisation
Another major obstacle to the project is damages done to the fibre optic cables in Nigeria. Damage to fiber optic cables have become a major challenge for telecommunications companies in Nigeria.
Often times, these cuts are the acts of saboteurs, construction companies or thieves who steal the cables with intention to sell in the black market. Fiber optic network is undoubtedly crucial to the delivery of telecommunications services across the world.
It is a technology that uses thin strands of glass or plastic to transmit data, whether telephone signals, internet communications or cable television signals. Nigeria is reported to have over 79,000 kilometres of fiber optic cables laid across the country.
Though far from being sufficient to meet the broadband needs, these cables have been the subject of vandalism and theft over the past decade.
In 2023, the NCC stated that over 50,000 cases of destruction of fibre optic cables and other telecommunication infrastructure had been reported.
The Commission’s Q2 report for 2023 noted that fibre optic infrastructure vandalism contributed to over 30 per cent of all reported network outage incidents.
A source from the regulator informed that telecommunication companies face an average of a total of 1,600 cuts per month. Reports from telecommunication companies buttress this disturbing trend.
The recent one from MTN Nigeria notes that damages to three of its fiber cables were due to the activities of a construction company, gas pipe installation and bush burning respectively.
These cable cuts are one of the major reasons we experience downtime in telecommunication services. Concomitantly they have resulted in low download speed, high drop call rates, poor voice quality, among others.
Users are affected and businesses that rely on telecommunications services for the delivery of their services cannot do so optimally. Take for example the case of banking services which we mostly con
duct through our mobile phones today. When telecommunication services are down, banking services suffer, too.
According to a report, in 2022 alone, over N13 billion was spent by Mobile Network Operators, InfraCos, and other Service Providers in fixing damages to fibre cuts and other telecommunication infrastructure.
In 2023, this amount rose to N14.6 billion. In the same report, operators in the telecommunications sector faced revenue losses amounting to N12 billion in both 2022 and 2023 due to customer compensation, site relocations and fibre resilience costs.
A source in one of the telecommunications companies told me that these challenges were sucking deeply into their resources and preventing them from making the kinds of investments they would ordinarily have been making.
Way forward
Presenting a paper on the topic, ‘Harmonizing Nigeria’s Fibre Deployment Strategies for Effective Implementation’, Executive Director of Broadbased Communications, Mr. Chidi Ibisi, said while the government’s SPV initiative is a good plan that could help the country bridge its current digital infrastructure gap, the government would need to address current challenges.
“The issues of high cost of Right of Way (RoW), destruction of fiber by road construction companies and vandals all need to be addressed for this new SPV initiative to be successful,” he said.
Highlighting some of the challenges telecom operators face when deploying infrastructure, the Group Chief Operating Officer of WTES Projects Limited, Mr. Chidi Ajuzie, said the biggest challenge to fibre cable laying in Nigeria is the informal RoW by hoodlums in states.
“For states, a formal right of way is set and some states are adopting it but the informal side of the right of way is where the complexity has come today.
“If I’m trying to lay fibre in some communities here in Lagos, the first thing that happens is the so-called land owners (omo onile) that would come out and a different set of people will keep coming from one street to another and they charge you. How do we achieve adequate broadband infrastructure in this kind of situation?” he said.
State governments’ role
According to the Chairman of the Association of Licensed Telecommunications Operators of Nigeria (ALTON) Engr. Gbenga Adebayo, for the 90,000 kilometres fibre project to succeed, the state governments have to take ownership.
“For the project to succeed, I think the governments at subnationals should take ownership. This issue of state governments seeing right of way as IGR should be a thing of the past.
We can’t talk about the digital economy on one side and the government is seeing those who provide the services as sources of revenue.
“The government has always come up with good policies, but the implantation, particularly when they are tested far afield, is the biggest problem. Governors will go to Abuja and say ‘in my state, I will give the right of way free of charge.”
“When you go to such a state, they may give you the right of way for zero or one Naira, but they will give you developmental levy, education levy, state impact levy, ecosystem levy. When you add all of these together, it is more than the right of way charges. So, who is playing who?” he said.
Private sector
Making vital contributions at the forum, Dr. Ayotunde Coker, the Chief Executive Officer of Open Access Data Centre (OADC), stressed the need for the fibre project to be executed by the private sector even as the World Bank is expected to fund it with up to $3 billion.
He said: “The World Bank can put money into the government but it needs private sector partnerships as the execution engine and that’s what we’ve been pushing in Africa.
“The key thing is that when the World Bank puts the money in, it should engage the private sector, figure out the policies that it needs to do and enable the private sector to execute them effectively and make it as open as possible.
With that, they can achieve what they are trying to achieve.” He further stressed that for the success of the project, Nigeria should learn lessons of what did not work in the past, to achieve the new broadband penetration targets with the fibre range that is required.
“Meaningful broadband is what we need, rather than just a huge set of megabits per second implementation. We need superhighway fibres. We need the distribution of these backbone that allows us then to fan out,” he added.
Inclusion
He further urged state governors to be part of the project by providing an enabling environment for infrastructure roll-out, adding, “if you are a state governor and didn’t participate in it, the state won’t grow and it’s going to impact your state.”
Earlier in his opening address, the convener of PIAFo, Omobayo Azeez, said the conference was to create a midpoint dialogue platform for digital economy stakeholders across both the public and private divides to brainstorm, exchange perspectives, clear grey areas, harmonise thoughts and create a sense of collective responsibility towards accelerating our collective prosperity through technical efficiency.
According to him, the new digital economy blueprint of the federal government does not only sustain exist – ing policy directions and tar – gets, “it also challenges us on the possibilities of attaining new frontiers with a view to accelerating our collective prosperity through Technical Efficiency.”
Last line
For the Federal Government to achieve its objective in the planned fibre optic cable project, the state governments must be ready to cooperate.