The Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Bosun Tijani, has disclosed that 11 states have responded to the federal government’s request to waive the charges for Right of Way (RoW) to facilitate broadband infrastructure expansion.
According to a statement from the Presidency, the Minister revealed this on Monday after President Bola Tinubu received the Digital Economy report of the participants of Senior Executive Course 46 National Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies (NIPSS), Kuru.
Part of the eight-point recommendations of the report include the need for the Federal Government to encourage states to waive the Right of Way fees on deployment of telecoms infrastructure.
The RoW debacle
Reacting to the recommendation, Tijani said 11 states have done that and expressed optimism that all states in the Federation would comply with this initiative before the end of the second year of the Tinubu administration.
- RoW is a fee that telecom operators pay state governments for permission to dig up the roads and install telecom infrastructure, such as fibre optic cables that carry internet traffic.
- However, inconsistencies in these fees across states have hindered investments in internet infrastructure, leading to slower or unreliable internet services for subscribers.
- Before now, only seven states were known to have waived the Right of Way charges for telecom operators.
- These include Zamfara, Katsina, Anambra, Kebbi, Nasarawa, Bauchi, and Adamawa.
Other recommendations
The report also recommended that the President issue an Executive Order mandating all MDAs to migrate to the OneGov.ng portal.
- It advocated adopting a Quintuple-Helix Model to promote the digital economy, youth empowerment, and sustainable job creation.
- Other recommendations were promoting long-term funding for the 3MTT scheme, accelerating the transition from IPv4 to IPv6, establishing Digital Health Innovation Hubs across Nigeria, and developing a preventive maintenance application for the nation’s automotive industry.
Reacting to some of the other recommendations, Tijani stated that the country is on track to become one of the first in Africa to migrate fully from IPv4 to IPv6.
- He added that in 2024, the federal government approved a $2 billion investment into 90,000 kilometres of fibre optic cables to ensure nationwide broadband coverage.
- This project will have the third-longest fibre network in Africa, following South Africa and Egypt.
- According to the Minister, the project has made significant progress, with support from the Ministry of Finance and a $500 million commitment secured by the World Bank.
The President’s response
Responding to the report of the participants, President Tinubu directed the Minister of Communications and Digital Economy to coordinate with the group and present their recommendations to the Secretary to the Government of the Federation and the Head of the Civil Service for streamlined implementation.
Emphasising the importance of youth empowerment through innovation and digital skills development, President Tinubu said:
“At the core of our administration is youth empowerment. We cannot relent on that, and we need everyone’s collaboration.
“I have listened carefully to your recommendations and the thorough work you did. We will continue to engage the Institute as a resource centre and Think Tank.
“As Nigeria’s foremost policy Think-Tank, you have highlighted the overlap of some government agencies, and we’ll look at that.”
What you should know
Despite government efforts to set the fee at a standardised N145 per linear meter, disparities remain in many states, with some, like Ebonyi, charging up to 69 times more than others, like Ekiti, which has the lowest RoW cost.
GSMA, the global body for mobile operators, estimated that if charges for RoW were reduced in all states to the agreed level of N145 per metre, it would reduce the cost of national network rollout by around 15%.
