Panellists at the just-concluded Nigeria Information and Communications Reporters Association (NITRA) ICT Growth Conference 2.0 have emphasised the need for an urgent review of Nigeria’s state of infrastructure so as to position the country to massively reap the benefits of a digital economy as obtained in some developed nations of the world.
With the theme, ‘Creating a Digital Ecosystem in Nigeria: The Hurdles, The Gains,’ the panellists, drawn from both the public and private sector establishments, were of the consensus that infrastructure provisioning remained Nigeria’s surest pathway to building a robust digital economy.
At a second panel session during proceedings at the NITRA flagship technology conference held in Lagos and moderated by Mr Peter Oluka, the panellists agreed that efforts at building Nigeria’s digital economy cannot yield the much-desired fruit unless there is sustained commitment on the part of the government to prioritise the provision of infrastructure.
Mr Seyi Olarenwaju, the Chief Financial Officer of Medallion Data Centre said, infrastructure is going to play a vital role in enhancing digital systems in Nigeria’s digital ecosystem, noting that “if there is no infrastructure in place, there is nothing.”
He stated that since governance has now been replaced by electioneering campaigns in preparation for the 2023 general election, the incoming administration should be focused, identify a particular infrastructure, and fix it, and expressed the hope that if in this regard, power is given priority attention, a lot of things will follow suit.
Mr Kelechukwu Nsofor of Rack Centre, a carrier-neutral Tier III data centre, who spoke from a data centre provider’s perspective, said power is the key infrastructure that drives a data centre business, describing it as basically the livewire of any data centre.
According to Nsofor, “The key infrastructure that we rely on is power. Power is basically the livewire of any data centre. Unfortunately, if you go back to 1999 since we started the current democratic dispensation in the country, what has been the installed capacity in terms of power; 20 years down the line, where are we today in terms of power?
“At a point, we were generating 1600MW, today, it’s still hovering around 3000MW. Where does that leave us as an economy of over 200 million people? So, if you look at the population growth rate and try to compare it with what we are growing in terms of power, you see that there’s a total disconnect.”
He said that Nigeria is blessed with a rich reservoir of policies and knowledge expertise but expressed worries that this has not been translated to results in the country’s power industry.
“We would like a situation where the government will actually stop the lip service that goes into infrastructure like power and actually start showing serious commitment by playing a major role in the provisioning of power infrastructure,” he said.
In his contribution to the discourse, Babalola Olalekan of Phase 3 Telecoms, admitted that the government was doing enough to provide infrastructure but stated that there was a need for stronger synergy between the government and service providers.
Mr Chidi Okpala of Galaxy Backbone, in his intervention, acknowledged the fact that government understands the importance of infrastructure in growing the country’s digital economy, noting that one of the things the current administration holds dear to its heart, is infrastructure.
“Have they done all the things expected of them as government? Maybe not. But have they made some efforts in bridging the infrastructure gap? The answer is yes. But there is a whole lot of learning, a whole lot of training in trying to create that awareness, into fully understanding how this impacts the day-to-day living of everyone.
“As an organisation, what we are trying to do is to bridge that gap of understanding especially, people in leadership level in government; to let them understand this is what this infrastructure stands for, this is what it is all about. It is not just for sending emails but how it affects your life, your family, and the work that you do,” he said.
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