Industry leaders at the 2023 edition of the Nigerian Peering & Interconnection Forum (ngPIF), hosted by the Internet Exchange Point of Nigeria (IXPN) and the Nigerian Network Operators Group (NNOG) have called on the Federal Government to designate telecoms infrastructure as critical national infrastructure, to ensure protection and security and make it punishable by law to vandalize.

During a panel session on the theme, “Building a robust digital infrastructure ecosystem: success stories and challenges, the discussants decried the high rate of fiber cuts, and other telecoms infrastructure vandalization and urged the federal government to create regulation that designated all telecommunications infrastructure: fiber routes, base stations, internet exchanges, data centers and others as critical national infrastructure. The panel highlighted the digital divide existing in Nigeria, manifested by low infrastructure penetration and pointed out that as they invest more into infrastructure, to improve inclusion, there is need for extensive infrastructure protection.

The panel, comprising Funke Opeke, the Managing Director, West Africa at MainOne, an Equinix Company; Johnson Agogbua, CEO of Kasi Cloud Datacenters; Josephine Sarouk, Managing Director of Bayobab Nigeria; and Nikki Popoola, Sales Director at WIOCC advocated for an open-access model that supports infrastructure share in commercially viable areas while investments that would have been duplicated in same areas are made to excluded areas.

The discussants also pointed out the need for improved regulatory collaboration and processes that scale to match the size of the country and emphasized the importance of partnerships between the private sector and the government.

The panelists asserted that with improved regulation and industry collaboration, Nigeria has the potential to become a digitally connected powerhouse. They expressed their determination to work together to achieve this vision, creating a more inclusive and prosperous future for all Nigerians.