Nigeria’s Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Dr. Bosun Tijani, has disclosed that in furtherance of the Federal Government’s ongoing efforts to enhance the quality of telecommunications services nationwide, the government and the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) have opened discussions targeted at protecting submarine cables and other digital infrastructure.
Tijani, who made this disclosure on Wednesday in a blogpost via his verified social media account, stated that the parley with the ITU was partly due to the recent undersea fibre optics cables damages that disrupted telecommunication services across the West African subregion..
Tijani expressed his optimism about the full restoration of telecom services in the country based on his discussions with the ITU Deputy Secretary-General, Tomas Lamanauskas, in Geneva, over the damaged undersea cables
The Minister stated in the blogpost: “Following the recent cuts to submarine cables off the coast of West Africa, I spoke about my desire to initiate dialogue on building resilience in our digital infrastructure.
“So, I was pleased to meet with Tomas Lamanauskas, the Deputy Secretary General of the ITU, in Geneva, today (Wednesday) to kickstart action on organising regional and global efforts for the protection of submarine cables and other digital infrastructure.
“The Deputy Secretary-General and I discussed the review of global laws with relevant government and private sector stakeholders to ensure the enhancement of global digital resilience plans.
“We also spoke about building investment models for expanding Broadband penetration on a global scale, with Nigeria’s Broadband Alliance and Fibre fund as potential case studies for other global markets.
“As an immediate action point, we will be engaging African countries and partners at a stakeholder round-table in Abuja, to chart a path towards building resilience in our digital infrastructure, which remains a critical backbone for national development”, Tjjani added
It would be recalled the Nigerian Communication Commission (NCC) had last week alerted telecoms consumers about disruption in voice and data services due to subsea cable cuts in the Atlantic Ocean offshore Cote d’Ivoire, along the coast of West Africa, which seriously took toll on digital transactions and Internet communications for millions of individual and corporate consumers of digital services nationwide.
However, the telecoms industry regulatory commission notified consumers on Monday this week that Mobile Network Operators (MNOs) were gradually working to fully restore telecommunications voice and data services.
