Nigeria is weeks away from breaking ground on what could become one of its largest digital infrastructure projects, as the Minister of Communication, Innovation and Digital Economy, Bosun Tijani, says the ministry will soon begin laying a 90,000-kilometre fibre optic cable network across the country.
Speaking in the presidential villa after a meeting with President Bola Tinubu, the Minister said the meeting was to brief the President on critical projects being undertaken by the ministry.
He also added that the sector has seen significant growth under President Bola Tinubu’s administration.
Tijani attributed recent growth in the telecommunications sector to reforms introduced by the Tinubu administration, including the designation of digital infrastructure as critical national infrastructure, telecoms tariff adjustments, and tax harmonisation.
According to him, the government had concluded resource mobilisation and contractual processes for the nationwide project, clearing the way for physical deployment.
“We’re now at the point where, in a few weeks’ time, we should start to lay those fibre, so people will start seeing us around the country deploying the fibre. This is going to transform Nigeria for good,” the minister said.
He said the project would extend fibre optic infrastructure to every state, geopolitical zone, local government area, and ward.
“This is a project where every state, every geopolitical zone, every local government and every ward in this country will be covered with fibre optic cables, which will transform the quality of connectivity,” he said.
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The minister also said the government plans to begin deploying about 3,700 telecommunications towers from October to improve mobile network coverage in underserved communities.
He said the project, approved by the president, is expected to provide connectivity for more than 20 million Nigerians currently without reliable network access.
“Before the end of the year, we’ll also start to deploy close to 3,700 towers. It’s taken a lot putting this project together, raising the capital for it, but we are at a point where we should now start deploying around October,” he said.
Tijani also announced that Nigeria will launch a new alphanumeric postcode system on October 1, saying it will assign a unique address to every property in the country.
According to him, the alphanumeric postcode is unique because “it allows us to have unique addresses for every property. That will change the game significantly for Nigeria in terms of the delivery of public services”.
He said the system would improve logistics, boost e-commerce, enhance emergency response, and strengthen public service delivery.
