Information and Communication Technology (ICT) experts have said that Nigeria may miss the benefits of a digital economy unless it reviews and rejigs its infrastructure. The experts who spoke at the ICT Growth conference organized by the Nigeria Information Technology Reporters Association (NITRA) agreed that infrastructure provisioning remained Nigeria’s surest pathway to building a robust digital economy.
While noting that nothing may be achieved between now and next year until after the next elections, they advised the incoming administration to identify a specific infrastructure and fix it. Specifically, they want the government to focus on power, as this plays a significant role in the ICT and every other sector of the economy.
According to the experts, efforts at building Nigeria’s digital economy cannot yield the much-desired fruit unless there is sustained commitment on the part of the government to prioritise the provision of infrastructure.
What they are saying
Speaking as one of the panellists at a session themed “Creating a Digital Ecosystem in Nigeria: The Hurdles, The Gains”, the Chief Financial Officer of Medallion Data Centre, Seyi Olarenwaju, said infrastructure is going to play a vital role in enhancing digital systems in Nigeria’s digital ecosystem, noting that “if there is no infrastructure in place, there is nothing.”
Kelechukwu Nsofor of Rack Centre, a carrier-neutral Tier III data centre who spoke from a data centre provider’s perspective, said power is the key infrastructure that drives a data centre business, describing it as basically the livewire of any data centre. “The key infrastructure that we rely on is power. Power is basically the livewire of any data centre. Unfortunately, if you go back to 1999 since we started the current democratic dispensation in the country, what has been the installed capacity in terms of power? 20 years down the line, where are we today in terms of power?
“At a point, we were generating 1600MW, today, it’s still hovering around 3000MW. Where does that leave us as an economy of over 200 million people? So, if you look at the population growth rate and try to compare it with what we are growing in terms of power, you see that there’s a total disconnect.”
He said that Nigeria is blessed with a rich reservoir of policies and knowledge expertise but expressed worries that this has not been translated to results in the country’s power industry.
“Now, tying that to Rack Centre and indeed the data centre space, we have been generating our own power in the last nine years that we have been operating. And we’ve been fully in control of generating that power now. As we look to expand, we are also looking at ways where we can continue to generate power or do it more cost-effectively.
“We would like a situation where the government will actually stop the lip service that goes into infrastructure like power and actually start showing serious commitment by playing a major role in the provisioning of power infrastructure,” he said.
In his intervention, Chidi Okpala of Galaxy Backbone acknowledged that government understands the importance of infrastructure in growing the country’s digital economy, noting that one of the things the current administration holds dear to its heart is infrastructure.
“Have they done all the things expected of them as government? Maybe not. But have they made some efforts in bridging the infrastructure gap? The answer is yes. But there is a lot of learning, and a lot of training in trying to create that awareness, into fully understanding how this impacts the day-to-day living of everyone.
“As an organisation, what we are trying to do is to bridge that gap of understanding especially, people in leadership level in government; to let them understand this is what this infrastructure stands for, this is what it is all about. It is not just for sending emails but how it affects your life, your family, and the work that you do,” he said.
