Pantami expresses dismay over non-utilization of Internet Service Point

Dr. Isa Ali Ibrahim Pantami, the Director General, National Information Technology Development Agency,(NITDA) has expressed his dismay on the non-utilization of the Internet Service point at the Galaxy Backbone headquarters in Abuja.

Pantami said that the need for the utilization of the Nigerian Internet Service Point for proper regulation cannot be overemphasized, as this gave room for many illegal online news, radio and television stations across the country.

He said, “It is our collective responsibility to respect the Nigeria Internet Service point in order to coordinate the activities of internet usage in the country. Many illegal online radio and television that have sprung up today is due to non-utilization of this point. Most of these online radio and television stations are being abused, use to canvass for agitations and causing disunity in the country.”

He canvassed for service improvement on the part of the service providers especially Galaxy backbone and for the company to prevail on other service providers to adopt various policies of NITDA in discharge of their services.

He said, “recently we got report from some Ministries Departments and Agencies (MDAs) complaining of poor quality of service and as the regulator of the IT in the country, I personally issued a press release on this; and we are hoping that service would soon improve.

“We are using this visit to also urge you to build on your achievements. We are proud of your recent achievement on the attainment of the ISO 2000 Certification. It is our collective success; and I believe we can still do better because, there is always room for improvement.

Commenting on the local hosting of data, Dr. Pantami said the recent event that made Microsoft to establish a data centre in South Africa is regrettable, and stressed that NITDA is working assiduously to forestall future occurrence of such action.

“We are seriously putting in place a strong data protection policy that would put a stop to such action. It will also aim at motivating service providers to host data locally. The issue of Data sovereignty is also critical; we are talking with some Ministries Departments Agencies (MDAs) to bring back their data to Nigeria. Some of them have come to our office and we gave them time frame to achieve this, because it is secure, reliable and available for us to host our data locally,” he disclosed.

The NITDA boss reiterated the need for collaboration between NITDA and Galaxy Backbone, adding that it is now compelling more than before for the two organisations to strengthen the existing relationship between them, because of the very wide scope of ICT sector as no agency can do it alone.

“We need to support each other, strengthen our relationship and advise ourselves on how to move the industry forward and deliver on our mandates to Nigerians,” he counselled.

Managing Director, Galaxy Backbone, Yusuf Kazaure, affirmed that there is still a lot to be done in Nigerian ICT sector, which requires collaborations among stakeholders.

According to Kazaure, an architect, the capacity to move the country forward is actually lacking within the highest form of government.

He acknowledged that ICT is the greatest catalyst to development, adding that Nigeria as nation need training in standards and frameworks and to move in the speed of light to catch up with technological developed countries of the world.

The DG Galaxy Backbone announced that NITDA, as a custodian of ICT in the country, should champion the call for hosting of data locally by assuring stakeholders that Galaxy Backbone has the infrastructure to host data locally.

“We are keen to make use of the infrastructure but there is need to build capacity,” he added.

Commenting on data centre and cloud services, Kazaure said Galaxy Backbone is working with Original Equipment Manufacturers, (OEMs) to comply with how to keep data in Nigeria and the recent ISO 2000 Certification was part of the effort to ensure that it provides world class services to Nigeria.

“We are very willing to adopt standards created by NITDA. We will act as laboratory to test these standards and frameworks so other service providers can emulate,” he said.