Mr. Abraham Oluwambe, the chief executive officer of Lifinet, has urged that reduced right of way charges for telecommunications operators should be included in the implementation of the recently passed Critical National Information Infrastructure (CNII) Order.
The federal government recently designated telecoms and ICT assets in the country as critical national infrastructure to guarantee their safety and protection through the passage of the Cybercrimes (Prohibition, Prevention, Etc,) Amendment Act 2024.
While addressing select journalists in Lagos on Tuesday, Oluwambe, a telecoms expert in the Internet Service Provider (ISP) space, said the effective implementation of the CNII provision should not just protect deployed assets but also guarantee seamless rollout of more backbone infrastructures for digital economy drive.
He said: โThe passage of the CNII is commendable and with it, we hope to see a respite from incessant attacks on our infrastructure. Operators have suffered huge losses dealing with theft, vandalisation of telecoms and ICT facilities or arbitrary shutdown of our sites by state agencies.
โMore importantly, I believe achieving reduced right of way charges and imposition of different taxes on operators in the course of rolling out services should also be a major consideration in implementing the CNII.
โIf there is any bottleneck that should be removed to accelerate the rate of bridging digital access gaps in Nigeria, it should be RoW abolition at best or its reduction to a reasonable amount, at least.โ
He added that inflated RoW charges that remain a major challenge in many states of the federation is inimical to investment appetite in the ISPs space, thus, creating a barrier against robust connectivity in the hinterlands and remote areas.
โThe new CNII regime isย expected to lead to safety of telecoms facilities and protection of operations of telecoms companies, given thatย the advocacy to have the Bill passed lasted moreย than a decade.
โNow that it has been passed, stakeholders must work in tandem with the Office of National Security Adviser (ONSA), the body saddled with the implementation tasks, to make the passage count for something.
โAs they do this, the industry must payย close attentionย toย the issue of right of way charges imposed by state actorsย so thatย our state leadersย can be made toย see things differently.
โAย city that is well connected is where businesses will move intoย and thrive; andย what is made by the stateย from the charges of RoWย will laterย come in asย biggerย revenues for the state as taxesย from the successful businesses.โ