Technology Experts Push for Nigeria’s Critical Infrastructure Needs

Emma Okonji

Participants at the just concluded NITRA ICT Growth Conference 2.0, which held in Lagos, have stressed the need for the review of Nigeria’s state of infrastructure so as to position the country to massively and reap the benefits of digital economy. 

Panelists who spoke at the conference were of the consensus that infrastructure provisioning remained Nigeria’s surest pathway to building a robust digital economy.

At the second panel session, which was moderated by the Editor of TechEconomy.ng, Mr. Peter Oluka, panelists agreed that 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.

Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of Medallion Data Centre, Seyi Olarenwaju, said infrastructure would 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.”

He advised the incoming administration to be focused, identify a particular infrastructure, and fix it, and expressed the hope that if in this regard, power is given priority attention, a lot of things will follow suit.

Kelechukwu Nsofor of Rack Centre, a Carrier-Neutral Tier III Data Centre, who spoke from a data centre provider’s perspective, said power remained the key infrastructure that drives data centre business, describing it as basically the livewire of any data centre.

In his contribution to the discourse, Babalola Olalekan of Phase 3 Telecoms admitted that the government was not doing enough to provide infrastructure, but stated that there was a need for stronger synergy between the government and service providers.