Nigeria’s Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting Wednesday approved the phase 2 & 3, for the provision of free broadband in about 48 additional Higher Institutions, additional 6 markets and 20 Nigerian airports.
The project, TechEconomy gathered, will cost the sum of N24.20 billion.
The projects are equally distributed in 6 zones, according to Professor Isa Pantami, the Minister of Communications and Digital Economy who tweeted this using his verified Twitter account:
“@ProfIsaPantami attended the FEC meeting today, where he got the approval of 2 memos as phase 2 & 3, for the provision of free broadband in about 48 additional Higher Institutions, additional 6 markets and 20 Nigerian airports. The projects are equally distributed in 6 zones”.
https://twitter.com/ProfIsaPantami/status/1641167347196076033
The Minister later spoke to State House Correspondents, and confirmed thus:
“In each geopolitical zone, you have around three airports. In the south-west, we have Lagos and Ondo. For the south-east, we have Anambra and Enugu.
“For the south-south, we have Port Harcourt and Akwa Ibom. For the north-central we have Abuja and Ilorin. In the north-west, we have Kano, Sokoto and Kebbi. For the north-east we have Yola, Maiduguri and Gombe.”
The minister said 43 institutions will benefit from the project.
In 2022, the council approved N17.4 billion for a related project across higher-learning universities, micro, small and medium enterprises across the country.
“So, this one is the second phase of the project. And in the first memo approved today, we have 20 airports, both domestic and international,” the minister added.
“And in addition, we also have 43 institutions of learning. So in total, 63 institutions are going to benefit and the price for this is N18.95bn.
“The second memo is for the provision of broadband to selected markets. Six markets are going to benefit from this and the price is N5.25 billion.”
Although details of the higher institutions are unknown as at the time of filling this report, however, TechEconomy can report that over 16 million passengers passed through Nigeria’s airports in 2022.
The total number of passengers that passed through Nigeria’s airports in 2022, increased to 16, 172, 433, higher than the 15 million passenger movement in 2021, according to statistics released by the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA).
Nigeria has 32 airports, 26 of which are operated by the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN), and five of which are functional international airports.
The Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airports, Abuja has facilitated the movement of 25.96 million passengers between January 2016 and December 2022, data from the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria also has shown.
The statistics showed that 12,931,396 domestic passengers were recorded on arrivals while 13,031,601 departed on domestic departures in the seven years.
In 2016, the airport had 3,264,233 passengers, comprising of 1,643,206 arrival and 1,621,027 departures, according to this report.
Broadband, particularly wireless broadband, is becoming increasingly indispensable to the interoperability of police, fire, health and other government entities that protect the public in both day-to-day and crisis situations.
This involves rapid disaster response systems, effective early warning and public alert systems, disaster preparation programs, remote security monitoring and backup systems for public safety communications networks.
Available statistics on the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC’s) website, broadband penetration in Nigeria increased to 48.49% in February 2023.
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