Just weeks after launching its third data center, known as LKK2, in Lagos, the company was honoured with the prestigious Data Center Provider of the Year award.

This recognition underscores Digital Realty’s rapid growth and significant contributions to Nigeria’s digital infrastructure, solidifying its position as a key player in the continent’s evolving tech landscape.

The timing of the award, so soon after a major expansion, speaks volumes about the company’s momentum and the market’s positive reception of its advanced facilities.

The accolades didn’t stop there. Engr. Ikechukwu Nnamani, the managing director of Digital Realty Nigeria, also received a personal honour, being named the Data Center Leader of the Year. This dual victory for both the company and its leader highlights the visionary leadership guiding Digital Realty’s strategic direction.

Nnamani, a respected figure in the telecommunications and data center industry, has been instrumental in shaping the company’s success and its commitment to building a robust and interconnected digital ecosystem in Nigeria.

Speaking to journalists after the ceremony, Engr. Nnamani expressed his profound gratitude for the awards, attributing the success to the collective effort of the entire team.

He noted that the recognition was not just for him or the company, but for the entire Nigerian technology community, which has shown incredible resilience and innovation. Nnamani emphasized that these awards serve as a powerful motivation to continue pushing the boundaries of what is possible in data center technology, ensuring that Nigeria remains at the forefront of Africa’s digital transformation.

He reiterated the company’s commitment to providing world-class infrastructure that supports the growth of businesses and empowers a digitally-driven economy.

Earlier in the event, Mr. Akin Naphtal, the Founder of the African Digital Economy Awards, praised Nnamani and Digital Realty for their significant impact. He specifically lauded their expertise in championing the data center connectivity ecosystem, noting that the company has established itself as the most connected data center in Nigeria.

This connectivity, Naphtal explained, is a crucial component of a thriving digital economy, as it enables seamless data exchange, cloud services, and enterprise solutions.

The praise from a leading figure in the digital economy space further validated the company’s strategic focus on building highly interconnected and reliable infrastructure.

This latest honour adds to an impressive and growing list of awards for Engr. Nnamani, highlighting his consistent recognition as a leader in the tech industry.

Earlier this year alone, he was also recognized with the ICT Personality of the Year at the Digital Innovation Awards (DIA), the ICT Personality of the Decade award at the Beacon of ICT (BoICT) Merit and Leadership Awards, Top 50 Most Valuable Personalities in Nigeria’s Digital Economy and Top 20 Titans Powering Africa’s Digital Infrastructure Revolution by Capacity Magazine for ITW Africa 2025.

These accolades collectively paint a picture of a leader whose contributions are consistently celebrated and highly valued by his peers and the wider industry.

The African Digital Economy Awards, now in its 10th year, serves as a vital platform for celebrating Africa’s digital champions and innovators. The event is deeply aligned with the African Union’s comprehensive digital transformation strategy, which aims to leverage technology to drive economic growth and social development across the continent.

This year’s milestone anniversary event was a powerful testament to the remarkable progress of Africa’s digital landscape, showcasing a vibrant ecosystem that has evolved from nascent tech hubs into a powerhouse of startups, digital innovators, and influential leaders like Engr. Nnamani.

The awards ceremony not only recognizes past achievements but also inspires a new generation of digital pioneers.

Digital Realty Nigeria’s dual award victory at such a prestigious event is a clear indication of the company’s rising influence and its integral role in shaping Nigeria’s digital future.

As the demand for data continues to surge across the continent, the strategic expansion and leadership demonstrated by Digital Realty and Engr. Nnamani position them as frontrunners in providing the essential infrastructure required to support this growth.

The company’s focus on connectivity, reliability, and innovation sets a high standard for the industry and ensures that Nigeria remains a key hub for digital services and investment in Africa.

With the launch, Digital Realty is further strengthening its presence in West Africa, accelerating digital transformation across the region, and expanding access to its global data center platform, PlatformDIGITAL.

Located in the nearby coastal area of Lekki, LKK2 adds nearly 2MW of installed IT capacity across nearly 13,000 square feet of data hall space, supporting the growing demand for scalable, high-performance infrastructure across Nigeria and the broader region.

LKK2 will be interconnected with Digital Realty’s existing LKK1 facility, which serves as the landing station for the 2Africa subsea cable, offering customers seamless access to the cable’s 46+ landing points in 33 countries across Africa, Europe, the Middle East, and Asia.

The integration of LKK2 with the 2Africa cable landing station at LKK1 enables businesses in West Africa to leverage low-latency connectivity and reliable access to global cloud and network services. This setup supports improved application performance and enhances access to international digital ecosystems through a carrier-neutral platform.

This new facility integrates with ServiceFabric, Digital Realty’s global interconnection and orchestration platform, ensuring low-latency, high-throughput connectivity to local, regional, and international destinations.

Through ServiceFabric, LKK2 will interconnect with LOS1, the region’s top internet peering point, and LOS2, Digital Realty’s highly connected data centers located on Victoria Island in Lagos.

Together, this ecosystem delivers robust resilience, redundancy, speed, and scale for enterprise and hyperscale customers seeking to expand into a fast-growing digital market, ensuring continuous, reliable operations.

“LKK2 is a significant milestone in our journey to support digital transformation in Africa,” said Ike Nnamani, managing director, Digital Realty in Nigeria. “Our continued investment in Nigeria and the broader African region reinforces our commitment to enabling seamless global interconnectivity and providing a future-ready infrastructure platform for local and global enterprises.”

This strategic expansion reinforces Digital Realty’s commitment to advancing Africa’s digital transformation by delivering the infrastructure and connectivity needed to support innovation and growth across the continent.

Recently ranked number one in Africa on Cloudscene’s Data Center Ecosystem Leaderboard, the company continues to cement its position as a leading enabler of the continent’s digital future.

Akinsanya Leads NiRA Team on Tour of Digital Realty Data Centre Facility in Lagos

With the exponential growth of data and the acceleration of digital initiatives across the region, LKK2 provides the additional capacity which enterprises and content providers need to grow, scale, and connect – wherever and whenever they need to.

LKK2, due to become operational later this year, will support both local enterprises and multinational organizations seeking reliable, secure, and interconnected infrastructure in Africa.

Engr. Nnamani is a prominent figure in Nigeria’s telecommunications industry. He has played a key role in bridging the digital divide by integrating technologies for practical solutions.

Under his leadership, Digital Realty, formerly Medallion Communications’ data center in Lagos has become the most interconnected facility in West Africa, serving as a major peering point for the region.

According to the organizers, Nnamani’s inclusion on the list was a testament to his unwavering commitment and substantial contributions to fostering innovation within African tech ecosystems.

Segun Oruame, Vice-Chairman of KnowHow Media, stated at the ceremony that Nnamani was recognized for his “contributions and impacts on the Nigerian ICT landscape, which have in so many ways significantly propelled Nigeria’s digital economy forward.”

This recognition was swiftly followed by the ICT Growth Impact Award in Data Centre Infrastructure, presented to him at Africa’s Beacon of ICT (ABoICT) Merit and Leadership Awards, organized by Nigeria Communications Week.

Nigeria Communications Week highlighted Nnamani’s instrumental role in establishing telecom and ICT infrastructure across numerous African countries, including Ghana, Togo, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Ivory Coast, Senegal, Kenya, Uganda, and Angola.

In a brief statement, Nnamani expressed his gratitude to industry players, especially the media, for the accolades.

He dedicated the awards to the entire Digital Realty team for their support and pledged to continue working diligently for the industry’s sustained growth.

For the past three decades, Nnamani has been a driving force in Nigeria’s digital space, particularly in interconnected services and data centers, which are now considered the backbone of the digital economy. Industry experts acknowledge his significant contributions.

“We are honored to present you with the Lifetime Achievement Award,” declared Mr. Ken Nwogbo, founder of Nigerian CommunicationsWeek, at the ceremony that highlights initiatives propelling Nigeria’s ICT sector on the global stage.

This award recognizes Nnamani’s unwavering commitment to providing innovative ICT solutions that fuel Nigeria’s flourishing digital economy.

He was one of only four individuals chosen for this esteemed honor by a meticulous selection panel.

Under Nnamani’s leadership, Digital Realty (formerly Medallion Data Centres Limited) has become the most interconnected data center facility in West Africa.

It boasts the region’s number one peering point, providing a crucial link for submarine cables, long-distance providers, fixed and mobile service providers, Over-the-Top (OTT) providers, internet exchanges, Value Added Service (VAS) providers, and global Tier 1 service providers.

Nnamani’s influence extends beyond Nigeria. Over the past 30 years, he has actively promoted the development of telecom infrastructure in several African nations, including Ghana, Togo, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Ivory Coast, Senegal, Kenya, Uganda, Botswana, and Angola.

Engr. Ikechukwu Nnamani is the Chief Executive Officer of Digital Realty Nigeria.

It’s Official! Medallion Data Centre Rebrands to Digital Realty

“When we look around, we see different people making their contributions to the African ICT sector. We know Africa is going to be Africa if we harness our technological values and go up the value chain.

“One man has stood up for his inspiration, for his motivation and for making us believe with a vision and strategy that Africqa can achieve this,” said Chike Onwuegbuchi, co-founder, TechCastle Foundation, the organisers of AfriTECH forum, while presenting the award to the recipient.

For over 16 years under his leadership the Digital Realty datacenter in Lagos (formally Medallion Data Centres Limited) is rated the most interconnected facility in the West African sub-region being the number one peering point for the region and boosting all submarine cables in the region, long distance providers, metro fiber providers, mobile services providers, fixed services providers, OTT providers, Internet Exchange, VAS providers, and global Tier1 service providers, amongst others.

Over 68% of all internet traffic exchanged at the Nigeria Internet Exchange takes place at Digital Realty’s datacenter in Lagos, Nigeria.

Digital Realty has recently completed its ultra-modern 1MW IT Load state of the art datacenter called LOS2 in Victoria Island, Lagos, Nigeria.

The LOS2 datacenter seats on the same campus as the Digital Realty LOS1 datacenter. Customers in LOS2 will enjoy seamless connectivity to the existing telecom ecosystem in LOS1. LOS1 and LOS2 is already seamlessly connected through diverse fiber routes to the Medallion LKK1 infrastructure (The PFE Module for 2AFRICA Submarine Cable) which Digital Realty has recently delivered to the 2AFRICA Consortium in Lagos, and also the LKK2 datacenter, a new 1.7MW IT Load datacenter that Digital Realty is currently building to support the 2AFRICA Submarine Cable in Mopo Ibeju part of Lagos state.

Plan for implementation of the Hyperscale LOS3 datacenter in Victoria Island is at advanced stage also.

Engr. Nnamani has also promoted the establishment of telecom infrastructure in several African countries including Ghana, Togo, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Ivory Coast, Senegal, Kenya, Uganda, Botswana, and Angola amongst others.

Digital Realty Nigeria CEO has won over 50 national and international awards for his contribution to the growth of telecoms and ICT industry both personally and companies he is affiliated with.

He was recently awarded the 2023 TIA Datacenter Lifetime Achievement Award at the 2023 Tech Innovation Award, 2023 Most Innovative Datacenter Personality of the Year at the Titans of Tech Award, 2023 Datacenter ICON Award at the 7th African Digital Economy Awards, the 2023 AfriTech Alliance Man of the Year, the 2022 ICT Man of the Year, as well as the Entrepreneur Personality of the Year at the Africa Digital Awards (ADA), the 2021 Outstanding Promoter of ICT for National Development Award at the Titans of Tech Hall of Fame Awards. In 2020 he was inducted into the Nigeria@60 ICT Hall of Fame by TechTV.

He was named the 2020 ICT Personality of the Year by Communications Week and was also awarded the ICT Entrepreneur of the Decade by Nigerian NewsDirect.

Engr. Nnamani holds a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Nigeria, Nsukka and a master’s degree in mechanical engineering from Tennessee State University, Nashville, USA.

In 2021 Digital Realty a real estate investment trust acquired majority stake in Medallion in a joint venture with Pembani Remgro.

Prior to being acquired in 2021, Medallion Data center operated two data centres in Lagos and Abuja.

The official rebranding of Medallion to Digital realty held on Friday, October 27th, 2023 at the Eko &Suites Hotel Victoria Island, in the beautiful city of Lagos. It had in attendance, dignitaries and leaders in Nigeria’s Telecom an IT industry converging to celebrate the new alliance and milestone in the industry.

During the rebranding ceremony Engineer Ikechukwu Nnamani, the Visioner and Founder of Medallion date center who continues in the capacity of expressed his excitement about the new alliance.

“In line with our customers and values, Medallion has now been rebranded as Digital Realty, We have made a strategic decision to align with Digital Reality and we are proud to be part of one of America’s largest Public Companies.”

For over a decade, we have been at the forefront of the Nigerian digital economy through the provisioning of carrier neutral data centre services in both Lagos and Abuja. Over that period, as a company, we have solidified our position as the “go-to” provider for fast, efficient, and cost-effective data centre and connectivity services where time to market and affordability has become essential “he said. This is a testament of our commitment to our customers and vision of being a world class organization in technology industry. Indeed, it is a new dawn for Nigeria’s telecommunication sector.” He said.

Mike Hollands, Digital Realty’s  Vice President for Market Development who was beyond excited said “It is exciting now that we are able to build and expand on the existing customers and structures  to continue to grow and expand the business and to also help make internet infrastructure in Nigeria stronger and better,” Collins said.

We are going to take advantage of the huge opportunity to both meet growing customer demand for connectivity in Africa and improve the internet infrastructure that serves over one billion people who don’t yet have proper access to the benefits of the Internet,” he added.

Digital Realty Trust, Inc.  headquartered in San Francisco, CA and founded in 2004 operates as a real estate investment trust, and engages in the provision of data centre, colocation and interconnection solutions.

It offers services in artificial intelligence (AI), networks, cloud, digital media, mobile, financial services, healthcare, and gaming.

In 2023, Digital realty with assets valued at $42billion has generated $4.9 billion revenue and declared profits of $ 373.3 million.

A few days before the official rebranding of Medallion to Digital realty the nation’s premier carrier neutral data center operator launched a second data center dubbed LOS2 in Lagos, situated in its Medallion Victoria island campus.

The new state-of-the-art facility offers customers an additional one megawatt of IT capacity; this will be connected to the existing LOS1 data centre, currently rated as the most interconnected facility in the West African sub-region and the top peering point for the region.

More about Digital Realty

Digital Realty brings companies and data together by delivering the full spectrum of data center, colocation and interconnection solutions.

PlatformDIGITAL, the company’s global data center platform, provides customers with a secure data meeting place and a proven Pervasive Datacenter Architecture (PDx) solution methodology for powering innovation and efficiently managing Data Gravity challenges.

The company gives its customers access to the connected data communities that matter to them with a global data center footprint of 300+ facilities in 50+ metros across 25+ countries on six continents.

Essentially, the workshop and subsequent engagement was centered around the impact of Internet eXchange Point of Nigeria and Medallion Datacenters on the ICT industry, and ultimately, the benefits of peering and interconnection to prospective organizations.

Explaining what peering and interconnectivity between various stakeholders will bring to the industry, Mr. Muhammed Rudman, the Chief Executive Officer of IXPN, noted that peering will enhance Internet connections for citizens and organisations alike, which will at the end of the day help the economy to thrive.

“Peering and interconnectivity through internet exchanges address the challenges of traffic by ensuring the shortest possible route is used to reach a given destination. It keeps traffic as local as possible, which improves performance and enables faster connections between networks, facilitating high-speed data transfer, lower latency, increased bandwidth and improved fault tolerance,” he said at the gathering that attracted over 100 stakeholders, mostly network engineers and administrators.

He also called for a concerted effort to host of content locally, stressing that doing so will provide additional revenue opportunities to local Internet Service Providers and datacenters which in turn creates more jobs and serves as a driver for economic growth.

“Nigeria cannot continue to pay money to foreign hosting companies as it constitutes capital flight, puts more strain on Nigeria’s foreign earnings, slows the growth of local data centers and delays the development of new ones,” he said.

Warning that hosting data overseas has several implications on the economy, end users, Nigeria’s security, legal and businesses, Mr. Rudman argued that if the content is hosted locally in any of the data centres, it has a direct and indirect impact on the economy in terms of job creation and revenue for the government.

Also speaking, Engr. Ikechukwu Nnamani, the Chief Executive Officer of Medallion Datacenters, asserted that the strong growth of Africa’s digital economy will drive demand for more data centers on the continent. Thus, there is a need to have more data centers to be able to accommodate the surge.

“While we call for local hosting of content and data, there is also the need to build more data centers to be able to accommodate the strong growth of Africa’s digital economy,” he said.

He said Medallion already boasts of a datacentres, which is touted as the largest Peering and Connectivity hub in West Africa with 70+ Carriers and ISPs present and accommodate 68 percent of Nigeria Internet Exchange’s traffic.

But going by the strong growth of Africa’s digital economy, it is building another datacenter with 232 racks, that has access to the initial datacenter and providers via campus connects.

Meanwhile, to boost the capacity of its increasing members and reiterate its commitment towards improving the internet ecosystem in the country,  IXPN organized a free Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) training for network engineers and administrators that attended the workshop as well as peering benefits to prospective organizations.

According to IXPN, the training was aimed at empowering its members with the rudiments and workings of the Border Gateway Protocol (BGP), which is important as a one-stop peering point for service and content providers.

Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) is a gateway protocol that enables the internet to exchange routing information between autonomous systems (AS).

IXPN is currently the Regional Internet Exchange Point (RIXP) for West Africa, with over 110 active networks interconnected, including Google, Facebook, Amazon, Microsoft, Hurricane Electric, Cloudfare, Netflix and some Mobile Network Operators (MNOs) in Nigeria.

According to Engr. Ikechukwu Nnamani, President ATCON, it is imperative for the government and players in the telecoms & ICT ecosystem to leverage on various sub-groups under the membership of ATCON to ensure and guarantee that the new Nigerian National Broadband Plan 2020-2025 is adequately positioned to deliver its ultimate purposes for the generality of Nigerians in a quicker and strategic manner.

“Traditionally, ATCON as an organization usually gives its members the opportunity to review and provide insightful approaches and solutions along with the Ministry of Communication and Digital Economy, Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), National Identity Management Commission (NIMC), Nigeria Data Protection Bureau and State Governments as to what to be done to support various programmes and projects that are earmarked for the successful implementation of the previous National Broadband Plan under past ministers”, he said.

Continuing, Engr. Nnamani said, “The strategic objectives of this very important event are to compliment the various strategic activities already embarked upon by the Ministry of Communications and Digital Economy and all the agencies under the Ministry to achieve the set target of Broadband penetration in Nigeria with great speed.

“To leverage on the wide spectrum of ATCON’s sub-groups for effective participation in the new Nigerian National Broadband Plan 2020-2025 by giving them the opportunity to access the plan and suggest various ways to speed up the realization of the established target by the government and also serve as a veritable platform to galvanize the needed input that reflect the thinkings of the telecom and ICT sector. This is an opportunity to review the relevance of the Nigerian policy environment vis-a-vis the telecom operating environment”.

TechEconomy.ng gathered that Prof Isa Ali Ibrahim Pantami, Honourable Minister, Federal Ministry of Communications and Digital Economy, is expected to deliver the principal keynote address at the event.

Also, Prof Umar Garba Danbatta, EVC/CEO, Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), Mr Kashifu Inuwa Abdullahi, Director-General/CEO, National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), Engr Aliyu Aziz Abubakar, Director-General/CEO, National Identity Management Commission (NIMC), Dr Vincent Olatunji, National Commissioner, Nigeria Data Protection Bureau and Engr. Ubale Ahmed Maska, Chair, Nigerian National Broadband Plan Implementation Steering Committee will all make presentations on the Overview of the New Nigerian National Broadband Plan 2020 – 2025 and status of implementation by their various organizations respectively.

Mr. Udom Gabriel Emmanuel, Executive Governor, Akwa Ibom State; Prof. Charles Soludo, Executive Governor, Anambra State; Senator Douye Diri, Executive Governor, Bayelsa State; Engr. Dave Nweze Umahi FNSE, FNATE, Executive Governor, Ebonyi State; Senator Hope Uzodinma, Executive Governor, Imo State; Mallam Nasir Ahmad el-Rufai, Executive Governor, Kaduna State; Dr. Abdullahi Umar Ganduje, OFR, Executive Governor, Kano State; Alhaji Abubakar Atiku Bagudu, Executive Governor, Kebbi State; Mr. Yahaya Bello, Executive Governor, Kogi State; Mr. Babajide Sanwo-Olu, Executive Governor, Lagos State; Alhaji Abdullahi Sule, Executive Governor, Nasarawa State; Mr. Dapo Abiodun, Executive Governor, Ogun State; Engr. Oluwaseyi Makinde, Executive Governor, Oyo State; Chief Ezenwo Nyesom Wike, Executive Governor, Rivers State; Alhaji Mai Mala Buni, Executive Governor, Yobe State and Mr. Mohammed Musa Bello, Honourable Minister, Federal Capital Territory and their representatives will also make presentations on what their administrations are doing in terms of Right of Way, Ease of Doing Business, National Dig Once Policy and other strategic initiatives for the actualization of digital economy in their respective states.

“The Central Bank of Nigeria has also been invited to make a brief presentation on the plan to create a special window for foreign exchange for telecom sector.

“Some banks have also been invited to react the presentation by CBN Governor on how they can increase the loan disbursement to the sector.

“Each sub-sector is an integral part of the entire ecosystem of the Nigerian telecom and ICT sector hence, there shall be paper presentations by representatives from the following Subsectors; MNOs; Submarine/Undersea Cable Operators/National Critical Infrastructure; Towers/Base Stations Providers; Internet Services Providers (ISP) – Wholesale Segment; Internet Services Providers (ISP) – Retail Segment; Satellite Operators; Manufacturers’ Representative; Over The Top (OTT) Players; Data Centre Operators; Metro-Fibre Operators; Cloud Computing; Fiber to the Home (FTTH) Operators; FINTECH/e-Commerce Operators; eGovernment Services Providers and Value Added Services Providers (VAS)”, the ATCON President said.

Disclosing this, the Lead Consulting Strategist at DigitalSENSE Africa and Group Executive Editor of ITREALMS Media group, Mr. Remmy Nweke, said Engr. Nnamani has been confirmed to chair the dual events slated for the prestigious Welcome Centre Hotels, International Airport Road, Lagos next month.

As said by him, the 2022 Nigeria DigitalSENSE Forum on Internet Governance for Development is the annual digital rights forum by ITREALMS with this year’s theme being: ‘5G: Enthroning Internet Governance for Digital Economy’ while the public presentation of the book: Sagacity of a digital revolution, comes as a sideline event meant to enrich the knowledge base of the Information and Communications Technologies (ICT) industry and is authored by Remmy Nweke, a multiple-award winning journalists.

Engr. Nnamani who also is the President, Association of Telecommunications Companies of Nigeria (ATCON), Nweke said, is known as very active in promoting forward-looking industry policies for the growth of the telecom industry across Africa working with both regulators as well as operators to achieve this goal.

He is currently the President and Chief Executive of the premier telecom body in Nigeria – the Association of Telecommunications Companies of Nigeria (ATCON) with over 100 member companies, cutting across all sectors of the telecom and ICT industry in Nigeria including Telephone Operators (PNL/Fixed Line Operators, MNOs/IDAs Operators), Infrastructure Providers (Interconnect, Data Centre Operators, Towers/Base Stations Providers); Internet Services Providers (ISP) (Wholesale Segment, Retail Segment), Value Added Services Providers (VAS), Over The Top (OTT) Players, FINTECH/e-Commerce Operators, Telecom/ICT Equipment Manufacturers, Telecom/ICT Consulting firms, and Telecom/ICT Equipment Dealers.

Equally, Nnamani recently served as an Executive Board member of Nigerian Internet Registration Association, the organization responsible for managing Nigeria’s Country Code Top Level Domain (.ngTLD).

Under his leadership at Medallion’s datacenter in Lagos, which is rated the most interconnected facility in the West African sub-region being the number 1 peering point for the region and boosting all submarine cables in the region, long distance providers, metro fiber providers, mobile services providers, fixed services providers, OTT providers, Internet Exchange, VAS providers, and global Tier1 service providers, amongst others.

He has also promoted the establishment of telecom infrastructure in several African countries including Ghana, Togo, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Ivory Coast, Senegal, Kenya, Uganda, Botswana, and Angola amongst others.

Noteworthy is that Engr. Nnamani has won several national and international awards for his contributions to the growth of telecoms and ICT industry in the global information technology space, just as he was recently awarded the 2021 Outstanding Promoter of ICT for National Development Award at the Titans of Tech Hall of Fame Awards.

In 2020, he was inducted into the Nigeria@60 ICT Hall of Fame by TechTV and named the 2020 ICT Personality of the Year by Communications Week, as well as awarded the ICT Entrepreneur of the Decade by Nigerian NewsDirect. He was named the 2019 NANS Man of the Year, 2019 Beacon of ICT Hall of Fame Award Recipient, 2019 Nigeria Telecom Industry CEO of the Year, and 2019 ICT Industry Entrepreneur of the Year.

Additionally, he was named the 2018 ICT Entrepreneur of the Year at the Beacon of ICT Award and the 2018 Africa Digital Award winner. Engr. Nnamani graced the cover of the 2018 Top 20 CEOs edition of ICT Watch magazine; and was listed in the Top 100 ICT Contributors in 15 years; the 2018 Telecom and ICT personality of the year and was the 2018 Enterprise Award by the Transformation Institute in Toronto, Canada, clinching alongside the 2017 E-Payment Man of the Year.

Engr. Nnamani holds a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Nigeria, Nsukka and a Master’s degree in Mechanical Engineering from Tennessee State University, Nashville, United States of America (USA).

Meanwhile the chairman of the Association of Licensed Telecommunications Operators of Nigeria (ALTON) Engr. Gbenga Adebayo is warming up as the reviewer of the latest book in the industry, entitled ‘Sagacity of a digital revolution’ whereas the Executive Vice Chairman, Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) Prof. Umar Garba Danbatta, would give the keynote at NDSF 2022 on the main theme.

The lifting of the ban was issued by Kashifu Inuwa Abdullahi, the chairman, Technical Committee Nigeria Twitter Engagement and Director General National Information Technology Development Agency.

Abdullahi said the approval for lifting the ban was granted after Twitter agreed to respect Nigeria’s law and culture.

He said the company also agreed to collaborate with the federal government and the broader industry to develop a code of conduct in line with global practices application in most developed countries.

Other conditions accepted by Twitter included committing to setting up an office in Nigeria by the first quarter of this year.

Speaking on the ban lift and what to expect from Twitter under the terms spelt out by the government was Engr. Ikechukwu Nnamani, president of the Association of Telecommunication Companies of Nigeria (ATCON), said the most important thing is that Nigerians that depend on Twitter for their businesses or a means of socialising now have access to the platforms and others that still exists.

“It is a welcome development and I’m personally happy that we’ve been able to make progress on this,” he told Arise News during an interview.

Nnamani said that in terms of the cost, the reality is that no one was happy with this, “not even the federal government. If you engage with them like I did, I got first-hand information on what the challenges were from regulators and security agents”.

“It goes beyond monetary challenge though people did suffer financial loss; there were other issues that needed to be tackled which have now been resolved.

When asked what it cost the federal government of Nigeria – the cost of goodwill from the public and also just a betrayal of basic democratic tenets like freedom of expression, Nnamani responded thus:

“At one point, there were some serious national security issues that needed to be addressed. There is the social part, as I said, people tweeting and the rest of it, But indeed, the problem was deeper than what was presented to the national public, especially from the national security standpoint.

“There are other social networking platforms being used by Nigerians, and the biggest challenge with the Twitter situation was that before the ban, there was no direct means of communication between Nigeria as an entity and Twitter as a company unlike other platforms where issues and challenges that bothered on national security were met and discussed as it comes up and addressed in general public through the right channels.

“That wasn’t the case for Twitter and the federal government or any organisation within Nigeria that has the right to either speak on behalf of Twitter or approach Twitter on behalf of the government. It’s more complicated than issues made known to the general public.

When asked if he supported the Twitter ban, the President’s response was outright No.

“No I wasn’t. Which is why the moment the ban came into effect, I had to go to Abuja to find out what exactly was going on since our members at ATCON were given instructions?

“Two things came out of that meeting of several engagements. One was a better understanding of what the challenges were and immediately that became clear, we went about looking for how to resolve the challenge, which as I said it’s unfortunate it took so long but eventually, we got to that point.

“So even when you talk to the people in government, they will in all sincerity tell you this is not a route they wish they had to take but there was just no other way around at that time to get things resolved, that is the reality of the matter. Nobody is happy about it, even those in government will tell you the same but there was no other way at that time to resolve the issue at stake until we finally got to this point.

As data providers, the anchor sought to know how the companies’ funds were depleted due to massive losses from data sales from this.

Secondly, was any agreement really reached in the end? Was this about Twitter paying taxes? Has Twitter been registered as a Nigerian entity and what are the tax filings?

To this end, Nnamani said, “You’re correct in your analysis but the only point you’ve still not appreciated is the national security aspect of this. Once it involves National security, money takes the secondary position and that’s the reality of it. For us, it’s not just about losing money but ensuring that the National Security issues that were at play were adequately addressed.

“So we can’t, just for the sake of money, ignore national security challenges. No country or people do that. As much as we are not happy as service providers, we understood that there was some national security and that is why offline or in private, we did everything possible to ensure that this was resolved as soon as possible.

The Anchor pointed out that probably more threatening stuff has been done on the likes of Facebook as while the ban went on Twitter, more national security threatening stuff was going on Facebook and the over personal app like WhatsApp.

But in a swift response, Nnamani said the difference between the situation of Twitter and other platforms mentioned is that there is a medium and channel under which issues that are flagged are addressed.

“That did not exist with Twitter before now but we are hoping that going forward, that mechanism will be there.

“You can’t just stop people, not just in Nigeria but all over the world, people can, for any particular reason, put out information that either might be accurate or are not ideal.

When asked if that exists for Facebook, he said: “The difference here is that Facebook and other operators are registered here in Nigeria and today there is a channel and today, even if you as an individual flags something that isn’t right to Facebook, there is a channel for you to flag it and for Facebook to look at it and as long as it’s within their policies, they can take it down.

“That is different from what existed in the past for Twitter, that channel or platform was not there and what needed to be done was literally to create that mechanism where that can be addressed.

“People can always put out stuff in real-time but part of the necessity is the ability to accurately know where to report it if it means not to be online and for people to do what needs to be done within the various platforms to address it.

“It is what it is, you can’t stop these things because they are real time situations but then the most important thing is — what is the fallback mechanism to address these issues when they come up?

“Unfortunately, as at the time the challenge with Twitter came up, there was nothing like that which as I said, I’m hopeful that going forward, those mechanisms will be there. You can’t be 100% accurate, that’s the reality of it, people will still do stuff for whatever reason but then there should be a mechanism to address it in such a way that you protect the right of people to free speech but at the same time, as they always say, free speech is not the right for you to spread lies or create problems when it should not be so. There has to be a balance in all these things.

Flashing back to Garba Shehu, presidential spokesman’s statement talking about shared sacrifices during the Twitter ban, the anchor sought Nnamani’s view regarding the gains from this seven months lock down of the microblogging site and what is the guarantee that those agreements that have been reached will be met by Twitter?

“I’m talking about gains in the last 24 hours since Twitter became active again in Nigeria? I’ve seen that the hate speech you’re talking about or Garba Shehu is talking about has even multiplied. Anti-government rhetoric has skyrocketed on the same Twitter. So what is the Nigerian government going to do? Ban Twitter again? And will ATCON support such a move?”, he asked.

Nnamani, said “…as I said earlier, we never supported even the first ban but rather than complain about it we went about looking for ways it could be resolved which eventually was done.

“With respect to your question before the last, in terms of hate speech and the rest being out there, the expectation is that these things will be flagged and Twitter will do something about it.

“But remember, the fact that you report something does not mean Twitter immediately has to take steps without investing or finding out if what reported is actually true or not.

“So there is a mechanism to address this which is going to be a work in progress but I can assure you today there is no part of the world where you have these things 100% in control and Nigeria is not going to be an exception, it’s just going to be a work in progress and more importantly, we expect that people, even if you have a challenge with the government, three things you must do — put out only what is accurate, there’s no need for fake news or something that is not accurate but you put it out there just to hit up the politics or make people agitated.

“Secondly, use the proper channel to air whatever grievance you have. Thirdly and most importantly, we must all be open for engagement no matter the positions we take in any subject matters, there must be room for people to talk about it in an honest and realistic way.

“The second major is that people are already back online and they will continue to tweet just as they use other social media platforms, the only good thing we have out of this is that at least, now there are some potential opportunities for better relationship between Twitter as an organisation and Nigeria as a country.

“This has to now dwell potentially on what could be some of the gains. The fact that they will open up operations again in Nigeria is again because whether we like it or not, Nigerians will be employed, they will probably pay taxes in one form or the other and this will be good for the economy as well as the country.

“But the ability to abide by the agreement and all, I will leave that to Twitter to address. I’m not in position to address if they will abide by the agreement or not. That should be a question we should be posing to Twitter and hopefully get a response from them. But I do hope that whatever agreement has been reached, both parties respect it so that we don’t go back to this situation in the future.

Continuing, he said “The first that I may add to some of those other gains is that two things happened; one of it may not be in Favour of Twitter but it actually happened — there were some local Nigerian-based platforms that came up as alternatives to Twitter which helped in terms of local content development and others.

“My encouragement is; as much as people are used to Twitter, they should continue to use those localised contents that have been developed and can offer similar service as long as we want to continue promoting local contents and they are efficient and serve their needs.

“The other part of it which is also very critical is the reality that now people are aware, there’s that consciousness that things like this could happen and on both sides I expect that there will be improvements in how businesses are done on both sides of the fence.

The anchor also asked the president of ATCON, if the caveat of National security were posed to the members to shut down internet services in the country, would they comply?

His response: “If it’s National security, you’re obliged by virtue of your operating license to do it. It’s covered within your operating license that you have to do that as long as it’s National security.

“My candid opinion is that we should move on and focus on other stuff. Two other parts of it without again trying to stick to any numbers, you just quoted two numbers and I wouldn’t want to be throwing a third number to add to the numbers you already have. Chances are none of those numbers may be accurate; it may be higher or lower. But irrespective of what the number is, the reality of the matter is two things — during the ban, people that genuinely use it for that business could not do that is not something anybody is happy about. We hope we never get to that point where this happens again in the future.

“The second point that is also very important is that people tend to forget that when people didn’t use Twitter, especially those that needed it for genuine reasons, they moved to other competing platforms. So, some of them were still able to achieve some of their business objectives. The gains of those other platforms may have actually translated to Twitter’s loss In terms of financial numbers. It’s not an exact science, but it is very good to put these things in clear perspective.

“Thirdly, which people don’t seem to appreciate or understand, but again, is not extremely necessary now that we’ve crossed this particular bridge, some people even within Nigeria were still able to access Twitter services by using VPN.

“It wasn’t because the government was ignorant of the fact that this was going on or there was no medium to prevent people from doing that but in the spirit of trying to resolve the issue while not totally killing the business of people, some of those things were still allowed to co-exist even within the ban.

“The reality is we should look back at this as something we do not wish to happen again, not just about Twitter but it could be another platform tomorrow. What are the lessons learnt? How could we prevent this from happening again in the future, which should be the focus for now”.

You can WATCH the Interview HERE.