Minister Hints January 2022 Timeline For 5G Rollout In Nigeria

Nigeria’s Minister of Communication and Digital Economy, Isa Pantami has hinted that the Five Generation (5G) network will be rolled out in the country in January 2022.

He pointed out that the rollout will aid surveillance against vandalism of public assets.

The Minister disclosed this on Thursday, September 23, in Maiduguri at a Town Hall Meeting; to address vandalism of power and telecommunications infrastructure.

1st News reports that the event, organized by the Ministry of Information and Culture, was attended; by Gov. Babagana Zulum of Borno and his Deputy, Mr. Usman Kadafur, and other stakeholders.

The Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed led the other ministers; who were panelists at the town hall meeting.

Pantami said the 5G network was recently approved by the Federal Executive Council for increased connectivity.

He said while the technology would boost surveillance against criminal elements vandalizing public infrastructure across the country; other measures should be put in place to arrest them and bring them to book.

The Minister disclosed that there were over 50,000 telecommunication sites across the country; which made it difficult to man manually except through deployment of modern technology.

He also disclosed that there were about 16,000 reported outages by mobile network operators; MTN, Globacom, Airtel, and also 9Mobile – from January 2021 to July 2021.

The outages, according to him were due to fibre cuts, access denial and theft leading to service disruption in the affected areas

Pantami noted that protection of the critical infrastructural facility was key to the nation’s security, economic vitality, public health, and safety.

He decried the situation where telecoms installations that were destroyed in the attacks by terrorists, had not been replaced as a result of the lingering insecurity and tensions in parts of the North East.

As a way forward, the minister recommended continuous stakeholders buying-in and synergy among security forces.

He also urged the National Assembly to expedite the passage of the Critical Infrastructure Protection Bill for onward submission to the President for assent.