President Bola Tinubu has taken a significant step to protect Nigeria’s telecom infrastructure by releasing an official gazette designating it as critical national information infrastructure.
This move makes it a criminal offense to wilfully destroy or damage telecom infrastructure, including telecom towers, fiber optic cables, and data centers.
Dr. Bosun Tijani, Minister of Communications, Innovation, and Digital Economy, praised the President’s action, stating that it will strengthen and protect investments in the ICT sector, reduce incidents of damage, and improve the quality of telecom services.
The gazette, ‘Designation and Protection of Critical National Information Infrastructure Order, 2024’, prioritizes the security and protection of CNII, making it an offense to damage or destroy assets crucial to the country’s technological systems, infrastructure, and networks.
The Minister added that designating telecom infrastructure as CNIIand would help improve the quality of telecoms services, which has often been affected by disruption and intentional damage.
“This gazette now makes it an offence to wilfully damage assets such as telco towers/sites, switch stations, data centres, satellite infrastructure, submarine & fibre optic cables, transmission equipment, e-government platforms, databases among many others,” he said.
Tijani said the government would continue to work to create an enabling and supportive environment and policies for the digital economy to thrive.
The move addresses the persistent attacks on telecom infrastructure, which have resulted in significant financial losses and disruptions to services. Stakeholders have been calling for this designation for years, and the government’s action is seen as a positive step towards creating an enabling environment for the digital economy.
