Business Remarks, a leading industry platform, has successfully hosted the 7th edition of the Telecom Sector Sustainability Forum (TSSF 7.0), with a clarion call on the Federal Government, industry regulators, and private sector players to rethink Nigeria’s digital infrastructure strategy in order to attract investment and drive innovation.
The forum, held at the CitiHeight Hotel, Ikeja, Lagos, brought together industry experts, policymakers, operators, and innovators under the theme: “Rethinking Nigeria’s Digital Infrastructure Strategy to Attract Investment and Drive Innovation.”
The Chairman of the Association of Licensed Telecoms Operators of Nigeria (ALTON), Mr. Gbenga Adebayo, said the Nigerian telecom industry has performed very well in its over 25 years of existence.
Speaking at the forum, Adebayo urged stakeholders to acknowledge and tell the industry’s success story, warning that if operators fail to do so, critics will not speak for them.
He said the industry must highlight its contributions to society, education and national development.
Adebayo disclosed that operators recently provided better access to educational websites, with many more providers joining the initiative.
He noted that the world changed after COVID-19, followed by the Russia-Ukraine war and other global challenges, creating a new reality for the industry.
He called for continued collaboration among stakeholders as the sector navigates emerging realities.
The Association of Telecommunications Companies of Nigeria called for renewed focus on talent development, rural inclusion, and infrastructure investment to drive the country’s digital economy.
Ajibola Olude, ALTON’s Executive Secretary and Chief Operating Officer, stated this at an industry dialogue, saying the future of Nigeria’s digital economy depends not only on infrastructure but on opportunities created for people, businesses, and communities.
Olude stressed the need for a pipeline of skilled, industry-ready digital professionals, noting that most rural areas remain unconnected due to operators’ safety concerns. He added that the sector’s contribution to economic growth cannot be overlooked, calling for platforms to productively engage youths.
He also decried Nigeria’s high cost of capital, with interest rates exceeding 30 per cent, urging the banking sector to treat telecommunications as infrastructure of other infrastructure.
In her opening remarks, the convener of the forum and Managing Editor of Business Remarks, Mrs Bukola Olanrewaju, noted that the forum was convened to move beyond rhetoric and proffer actionable solutions to Nigeria’s persistent digital infrastructure deficit.
According to her, telecommunications had evolved beyond being an enabler of communication to becoming a fundamental pillar of Nigeria’s digital economy. However, rising infrastructure costs, foreign exchange pressures, high financing costs, energy expenses, inflation and the increasing cost of network deployment are placing significant pressure on operators and infrastructure providers.
The session featured a distinguished panel of experts who identified key challenges and proposed far-reaching solutions.
Among the challenges identified by the panelists at TSSF 7.0 was the massive infrastructure funding gap, with the panel noting that Nigeria requires approximately $100 billion over the next 30 years to close its digital infrastructure deficit, and that the country remains far from matching the digital infrastructure density of the Global North.
The panel also highlighted that upfront taxation, spectrum fees, licensing costs, and right-of-way charges consume as much as 50% of capital expenditure, leaving investors with less funds to deploy into network assets, and noted that a $10 million investor seeking $5 million in funding is often taxed before any investment is made. It was observed that despite years of advocacy for infrastructure sharing, the absence of a commercially viable policy framework, poor data on existing infrastructure, and siloed operations among industry players continue to hinder shared infrastructure adoption.
The panel noted that smaller operators and startups face prohibitive costs of capital from Nigerian banks, making it difficult to compete with established players who have easier access to funding. A significant demand-side challenge was also identified, with the panel noting that Nigeria must transition from being a consumer society to a productive society, and estimating that Nigeria is 10 to 15 years away from attaining digital infrastructure parity with the Global North.
Panelists further noted that connectivity remains concentrated in urban centres like Lagos, leaving rural areas underserved despite the United Nations designating connectivity as a fundamental right. It was also noted that past foreign exchange instability had deterred investors, though recent stability has begun to restore confidence in the telecoms sector.
On cybersecurity, the panel observed that security is often treated as a secondary layer rather than a foundational element of infrastructure planning, noting that reputational damage, sanctions, and business continuity risks far outweigh the cost of proactive security investment.
The panel also observed that local players competing for infrastructure contracts dominated by foreign firms are often subjected to the same requirements as much larger foreign competitors, creating an uneven playing field, while noting that despite clear demand for connectivity, bottlenecks in policy, funding, and infrastructure have prevented the translation of that demand into actual investment.
A major highlight of the forum was the revelation by the Chief Executive Officer of Digital Realty Nigeria and Co-chair of the National Cloud Initiative Technical Working Group, Engr. Ike Nnamani, that Nigeria is currently losing an estimated $3.5 billion annually to foreign cloud service providers, as some government agencies have adopted cloud services over the past five years with their data hosted outside the country.
According to him, only about 30 percent of Nigeria’s approximately 1,000 government agencies currently use cloud services, with annual spending estimated at about $1 billion. If the remaining 70 percent migrated to cloud services within five years, annual government spending could rise to about $3.5 billion.
He disclosed that over 80 percent of Nigeria’s sovereign data is currently hosted outside the country, describing it as a significant national risk.
“This is the reality of the world we live in,” he said, citing the example of Iran attacking data centres in the Middle East during a recent conflict with the United States, demonstrating how digital infrastructure has become a frontline target in modern warfare.
He warned that a foreign government could issue an executive order shutting down access to Nigerian data hosted on its soil at any time, potentially crippling the country’s banking and financial systems.
“We are lucky we have not gotten to the point where we are locked out as a nation, but it can happen any day. That decision can happen any day, and suddenly you find out you can’t even go to your bank to do anything,” he warned.
He noted that no single hyperscaler, among them Amazon, Oracle, Meta, and Microsoft, operates a data region in Nigeria, forcing the country to funnel its data through submarine cables to foreign jurisdictions for processing. He emphasised that Nigeria, despite having the largest digital market potential in Africa with a population projected to reach 250 million in the coming years, has not converted that potential into reality, noting that Kenya, with a significantly smaller population, currently has a larger digital economy than Nigeria.
“We are the biggest in Africa from a telephonic standpoint, but when you check internet traffic flow, we are behind South Africa and even Kenya. The Kenyan market, as small as it is compared to Nigeria, is more digitised than the Nigerian market today,” he said.
On the National Cloud Initiative, Nnamani explained that it aims to make cloud services operational within Nigeria’s geographical boundaries, ensuring that data classified as critical, particularly financial data and information related to national security, is stored locally. He disclosed that opposition to the initiative has been fierce, with some individuals reportedly approaching the President directly to stop it.
“People actually went straight to the president to stop this initiative. Thank God, luckily, other people were also able to advise the president, and he said this must go ahead,” he said.
He noted that the initiative has developed four key pillars: regulation, implementation guidelines, governance and monitoring, and an investment guarantee document, and that under the policy, government procurement will prioritise local cloud service providers before considering foreign options, with a certification process established to ensure that local providers meet the same global standards for security and quality as international hyperscalers. He stressed that the initiative is private-sector driven, with government providing only the enabling policy and regulatory framework.
“Government is not going to run this, but it’s going to create all the enabling policies and guidelines to make it happen while the private sector takes the initiative to implement it,” he said. He called on Nigerian entrepreneurs to seize the business opportunities presented by the initiative, including cloud service provision, data migration, and system integration.
“Business is coming. There is opportunity because part of what we are doing is create that business demand so that people can invest in it,” he said.
He also addressed concerns about data security and quality, assuring that certified local providers will be held to the same global standards as international cloud companies. “Whatever you get in AWS in New York, you should be able to get from a local company in Nigeria. The same quality, the same standard,” he said.
He acknowledged that the migration process must be carefully managed to avoid disruptions to essential services. “We don’t want a situation where suddenly banking apps stop working and we have a problem,” he said.
In his presentation, the Chief Operating Officer, WTES Group, Mr. Chidi Ajuzie, noted that broadband penetration remains around 57 per cent despite mobile penetration of about 90 per cent.
He identified capital starvation, right of way crisis, and regulatory fragmentation as major obstacles to fibre rollout.
He said some states still charge as much as N10,000 per metre for right of way against the agreed N145, describing it as upfront taxation that discourages investment.
Ajuzie called for a transition from treating right of way as an immediate cash crop to a model recognising its long-term economic multiplier effect.
He cited India’s BharatNet model, which laid 690,000 kilometres of rural fibre, as a working example for Nigeria.
On spectrum, he urged a shift from upfront fees to output-based models, arguing that the $800 million raised from 5G auctions could have been deployed into infrastructure.
He projected that open access fibre, digital public infrastructure, and local cloud could add 15 per cent to GDP by 2030, potentially contributing $300 billion to $400 billion to the digital economy.
The Central Bank of Nigeria has already issued a directive effective January 1 requiring financial data to be hosted locally, with other regulators expected to follow with similar directives. The initiative projects that Nigeria’s data centre capacity will grow from approximately 50 megawatts of IT load to about 200 megawatts over the next five years, with the plan for Nigeria to become the regional digital infrastructure hub for West Africa, serving neighbouring countries with cloud services hosted locally.
The National Cloud Initiative’s technical working group, co-chaired by a representative from Microsoft, has developed detailed data classification guidelines that determine which categories of data must be stored locally and which can remain offshore, with data related to national security and financial matters classified as mandatory for local hosting.
In proffering solutions, the panel recommended that the first regulatory barrier to be removed should be upfront taxation on spectrum, licensing, and right-of-way charges, so that investable capital can be channelled into network assets and business growth, urging the National Economic Council and state executive councils to critically address this given its 50% contribution to CAPEX.
The panel projected that Nigeria needs 10 to 15 years to close its digital infrastructure deficit, but agreed that industry and government must work collaboratively to shorten this timeline as much as possible.
The panel emphasized the need for massive investment in digital literacy, digital skills, and education, including AI, machine learning, and cloud computing, to transform Nigeria from a consumer society into a productive society. It called for a clear policy framework governing infrastructure sharing, better data on existing infrastructure, and improved industry orientation to eliminate siloed operations, noting that colocation is now the norm in telecoms but commercial terms remain a major headache.
Smaller ISPs were advised to avoid huge upfront capital expenditure on robust AI systems and instead adopt pay-as-you-go service models for observability and security solutions that grow with their customer base. Operators were urged to treat security as a foundational layer of infrastructure, not an afterthought, emphasising change management, configuration documentation, supervision, and compliance with frameworks from the NCC and CBN, and also stressing the importance of business continuity planning.
The panel called on the government to create accommodating policies for local players, noting that it is unfair to subject small local firms to the same requirements as large foreign competitors. It noted that Nigeria’s pitch to investors should focus on its large market size, proven return on investment, successful exit cases, and policies that encourage capital repatriation.
The panel also noted that recent economic stability has begun to restore investor confidence, and urged the government to continue making policies that safeguard investments and encourage growth.
It further noted that Nigerian operators are not far behind their global counterparts, with increased fibre rollouts, fibre-to-the-home, and network innovation, and encouraged operators to focus on customer experience and adopt scalable solutions.
The 7th edition of the Telecom Sector Sustainability Forum (TSSF 7.0) concluded with a consensus that Nigeria’s digital infrastructure deficit is both a challenge and an opportunity.
Panelists agreed that with the right policies, targeted investment, infrastructure sharing, digital skills development, and a robust cybersecurity framework, Nigeria can unlock new industries, empower startups, and achieve connected prosperity across all regions.
Business Remarks reiterated its commitment to sustaining the conversation and driving actionable outcomes through subsequent editions of the forum.
