Nigeria Will Invest N6Bn on Fibre Optic Cable Coverage – Minister

…says rising inflation others, reasons for 50% tariffs increase

By Tom Okpe

Minister of Communications, Innovation and Digital Economy, has informed that, the 50% increase by telecommunication companies in the country was caused by inflation and rising operation cost, saying that the country is ready to invest N6bn on Fibre Optic Cable, FOC coverage.

Bosun Tijani stated this while responding to questions at the 2025 budget defence session by the joint House of Representatives and Senate Committees on Communication, at the National Assembly Abuja, on Tuesday.

He also said the move was in tandem with broader economic patterns, where tariffs lead to higher consumer prices as a result of additional costs on imported goods adding that, tariffs act as a sales tax, causing a one-off price increase rather than sustained inflation.

The Minister further stressed that the Federal Government is planning to invest, and deploy 90,000 Kilometres of FOC to expand the country’s capacity from 35,000 Kilometers to 125,000 Kilometers.

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According to him, the planned deployment of more Fibre Optic cable is an initiative aimed at fostering growth in critical communication sectors in the country.

He said: “Outside South Africa and maybe Egypt, perhaps Tunisia, a lot of countries have a serious deficit in cable. This is going to become a big business. We want Nigerian companies not only to lay in Nigeria, but become companies that will provide these services for neighboring countries as well.

“And we want our people to become employees that will go out and do this work. We have seen more companies like South Africa’s being off the back of global business. They can now create security.

“So, this is something we focus on. On security, we have seen problems. You cannot secure a society, if you don’t have strong communications.

“And what most people don’t pay attention to is that historically, we’ve left investment of telecommunications infrastructure to private companies. And these private companies will only go to where they can make money with. In fact, they use a data set, which is called night-time satellite data, which will look down on the economy at night.

“And they will see where light exists, and that’s where they will put their money. Because those lights, for them, indicate economic activities.

“The Ministry is underfunded. It’s not as funded as NCC. So the ministry, each time, they’re unable to actually track all the people that are using, all the people that are meant to pay on time.

“They don’t have appropriate software to do the tracking. So because of this, they’re unable to spend the money. We know that this ministry, outside of the agency, can actually generate much more revenue if we have the resources to chase up on those things.

In his remark, the Co-Chairman, Senate Committee on Communication, Senator Shuaib Salisu, highlighted the contribution of the communication sector to the economic growth of the nation.

He stressed the need to review the 2025 proposed budget of Ministry to enable it to deliver its mandate effectively and efficiently.

The Committee therefore adopted a motion requesting the Committees on Appropriation to consider upward review of the Ministry’s 2025 budget.