The Executive Vice Chairman of the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), Professor Umar Garba Dambatta, has restated the resolve of the Federal Government to pursue the development, promotion and deployment of robust and scalable data centre infrastructure in the country.
Saying that the resolve is non-negotiable, he stated the position of the government at the 4th Telecommunications Sector Sustainability Forum held in Lagos State, describing data as “the new oil for the country.”
He noted that recent huge investment in data space infrastructure, such as the laying of fibre optics cables by giant international tech players in Nigeria would create 1.6 million jobs.
Dambatta, who was represented at the event by the Head, Tariff Administration of the Commission, Dr. Sunday Atu, said that recent developments pointed to the limitless treasure within this space, adding that Africa had recently assumed a new frontier and compelling destination for global big tech players.
Speaking on the theme of the forum entitled; “Mainstreaming Data Centres in the Nigerian Digital Economy,” Dambatta also said that the Federal Government had taken laudable steps to encourage and support data centre services in the country in its drive to ensure data sovereignty.
“These include such giants as Google with its Equiano subsea fibre cable spanning 15,000 km from Portugal to South Africa with strategic landing points in Nigeria and Namibia and expected to increase connectivity more than five-fold within Nigeria while creating an expected 1.6m jobs.
“Also, Meta, the parent company of Facebook, is equally at the threshold of launching its own subsea cable called 2Africa in 2024 to connect 16 African countries at an estimated cost of $1bn. It is targeted to generate close to $36bn of economic output within 2 to 3 years of operation.
“While these no doubt portend significant socio-economic impact for Nigeria, it brings to fore the debate around digital sovereignty and the need for national policy and regulatory frameworks to further localize traffic and data,” he said.
