By Ijeoma Olorunfemi/Michael Ajayi
The Federal Government says it is targeting the activation of no fewer than 200 telecommunications towers in unconnected communities across the country by December.
Dr Bosun Tijani, Minister of Communications, Innovation and Digital Economy, said this on Monday at the commissioning of the new headquarters of the Nigeria Data Protection Commission (NDPC) in Abuja.
Tijani said the towers were being deployed under the government’s National Unconnected Communities Access Programme (NUCAP), which targets the deployment of about 3,700 telecommunications towers nationwide.
He said it was not part of the 90,000-kilometre nationwide fibre optic network of the government.
He said the first of the towers had been deployed at Kura village near Abuja, with deployment now extended to communities in the Niger Delta.
“Before December, at least 200 of those sites will be active. Each of those towers will serve communities of about 5,000 to 10,000 people.
“These are people that are currently unconnected. So, at the end of this project, we will be reaching over 20 million Nigerians,” he said.
The minister said the Federal Government was also working to strengthen satellite connectivity through the Nigerian Communications Satellite (NIGCOMSAT), particularly for locations that could not be reached by fibre or terrestrial telecommunications towers.
Tijani said the ICT sector’s contribution to Nigeria’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) had increased to about 21 per cent from between 16 and 18 per cent when the current administration assumed office.
He said the development had created jobs, expanded opportunities and contributed to shared prosperity.
According to him, the government is targeting a 25 per cent contribution to GDP if President Bola Tinubu’s administration secured a second term.
On the NDPC headquarters, Tijani said the property was recovered by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) and allocated by Tinubu to the commission.
He described the development as symbolic noting that an asset once associated with corruption had been converted into an institution dedicated to protecting Nigerians and strengthening trust in the digital economy.
The minister said the increasing digitisation of government services, businesses and the wider economy, as well as the growing adoption of artificial intelligence, made privacy, data governance and responsible technology use very important.
He urged the NDPC to ensure the effective implementation of the Nigeria Data Protection Act (NDP Act) and protect citizens’ personal data.
The National Commissioner of the NDPC, Dr Vincent Olatunji, said the commission had evolved from a small unit within the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) into a full-fledged data protection authority.
Olatunji said the commission began with three-office space under NITDA’s E-Government Development and Regulation Department before the Nigerian Data Protection Regulation (NDPR) was issued in January 2019.
He said the Nigeria Data Protection Act was eventually signed into law by President Tinubu on June 12, 2023, providing the commission with a stronger legal and institutional framework.
According to him, the commission has grown from occupying three rooms at NITDA, to five rooms in Maitama and 20 rooms in Asokoro, and now operates from a 56-office headquarters.
Olatunji said 98 per cent of the commission’s staffers were now certified data protection officers, while 356 Data Protection Compliance Organisations (DPCOs) had been licensed under its public-private partnership model.
He said the activities of the commission and DPCOs had contributed to the creation of more than 27,000 jobs within three years.
He further said more than 66,000 participants were onboarded through the commission’s virtual privacy academy, while no fewer than 220 training programmes had reached over 90,000 people across different sectors.
Olatunji said DPCOs had generated more than N12 billion in revenue within three years, while the wider data protection ecosystem was valued at over N18 billion.
He said the commission had established 17 data privacy clubs in universities, with 6,176 student ambassadors, and had reached more than 250,000 people through various awareness and engagement programmes.
The commissioner said the NDPC had also signed 28 memoranda of understanding with regulators, development partners and data protection authorities in countries including Canada, Morocco, Liberia, Kenya and Ghana.
He said the commission had become the leader of the Anglophone body of the Network of African Data Protection Authorities and had received recognition as an outstanding data protection authority in Africa.
Olatunji said the commission had also been nominated for three awards at the forthcoming Global Privacy Assembly in Brussels by November.
He described the new headquarters as the largest data protection office in Africa, adding that work was ongoing on the commission’s Lagos office, which he said would be commissioned before the end of 2026.(NAN)
Edited by Uche Anunne