The Federal Government has announced that work on its planned 90,000-kilometre fibre optic network will begin within the next few weeks as part of efforts to improve broadband access and accelerate Nigeria’s digital transformation.
The Minister of Communications, Innovation and Digital Economy, Bosun Tijani, disclosed this on Tuesday after briefing President Bola Tinubu at the Presidential Villa in Abuja.
According to the minister, the government has completed the necessary resource mobilisation and contractual processes, paving the way for the physical rollout of the nationwide project.
“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,” Tijani said.
He explained that the fibre optic infrastructure will cover every state, geopolitical zone, local government area and ward across the country, significantly improving internet connectivity nationwide.
“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 added.
Tijani attributed recent growth in Nigeria’s telecommunications sector to reforms introduced by the Tinubu administration, including the designation of digital infrastructure as critical national infrastructure, telecoms tariff adjustments and efforts to harmonise taxes.
The minister also revealed that the Federal Government plans to begin deploying about 3,700 telecommunications towers from October to improve mobile network coverage in underserved communities across Nigeria.
According to him, the project is expected to provide reliable network access to more than 20 million Nigerians who currently have limited or no connectivity.
“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 further announced that Nigeria will launch a new alphanumeric postcode system on October 1, which will assign a unique address to every property in the country.
He said the new addressing system is expected to improve logistics, support e-commerce, strengthen emergency response services and enhance public service delivery.
“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,” Tijani stated.
