It is perhaps in realizing the potential impact of an inability to communicate even for one hour that the military rulers of old decreed that all of the infrastructure belonging to the then state-owned telecommunications network, NITEL, be designated as critical national infrastructure. The implication of this at the time was that no one, not even the state governments, could interfere with NITEL’s installations.
That declaration sent a strong message to those who were wont to vandalize NITEL’s equipment and facilities. Indeed, the military followed this declaration up by imposing severe punishment on those found to have stolen or vandalized NITEL’s equipment. It is safe to assume that this demonstration of a strong willingness to safeguard these critical equipment must have put off a huge chunk of those who may have been inclined to toy with NITEL’s equipment anywhere in Nigeria. Of course, state governments, local governments and federal agencies and parastatals steered clear of NITEL installations.
In today’s Nigeria, telecom companies have erected infrastructure to the tune of billions of dollars and far in excess of the facilities of the defunct NITEL. For instance, there are more than 26,000 km of fibre-optic cables laid across the country by two of the networks, MTN and Glo. There are more than 25,000 base transceiver stations installed across the country. Typically, each of those base stations would be accompanied by two generators, a diesel tank and other specialized equipment.
The huge investment notwithstanding, the country experiences regular spells of poor quality of service on the networks. Clearly, in the face of steadily growing demand, there is an imperative for continuously aggressive investment in the telecom sector.
It therefore becomes a huge paradox when these infrastructure, despite their strategic significance, are left completely unprotected by way of any deliberate policy or legislation by the central government. Today, the telecom industry infrastructure is reportedly reeling from the ugly effect of sustained equipment vandalism. Often in the process, telecom industry operatives lose their lives.
Pyramid Research, an ICT research consultancy, has determined that there are at least 500 instances at which fibre optic transmission cables are wilfully destroyed every month. Vandals have also been known to storm telecom installations with heavy duty equipment and cart away the generators and diesel tanks on site.
Across many states, telecom infrastructure have come to be seen as some form of cash cow to be selectively targeted for the purposes of raising money for government. For instance, while only state governments are statutorily empowered to charge building permit fees, many local government councils now demand of telecom companies erection permits, installation permits, telecom building permits and hordes of other spurious charges which are basically illegal. In many states, whereas tenement rates ought to be not more than N15,000 per building, telcos are typically slammed with charges in excess of N300,000 as tenement rates. The Department of Petroleum Resources has also since begun demanding petroleum dump rate tax from telecom companies on account of diesel tanks installed in their base stations and with which they fuel their generators. The National Inland Waterways Authority is also demanding right-of-way payment, in hundreds of millions of naira, for transmission cables that are laid across bridges on federal highways.
In other cases, telecom companies are requested to pay right-of-way fees on Federal Government-owned roads by the Federal Government, and again by state and local governments for the same stretch of road. The list is endless.
Government establishments have been known to unilaterally shut down telecom installations on the guise of not having paid some of these spurious and contestable taxes. When such installations are arbitrarily shut down, as has happened several times in the past, quality of service on the telecom networks takes a nosedive. Little wonder, therefore, that the Nigerian Communications Commission has since issued a warning to its peer government agencies to desist from indiscriminate sealing of telecom installations.
It is safe to assume that the end-result of the multiplicity of these attempts at milking telecom companies also manifests in the increasingly extended timelines for deploying their networks, especially as overall cost of deployment becomes impossible to predict with taxes right, left and centre.
Designating telecom infrastructure as critical national infrastructure under the exclusive oversight of the Federal Government will help to send a strong message to the various organs of government on the strategic importance of these facilities. It will send a message to potential vandals that there are possible dire consequences to their intrusion and very likely stave off some attacks. But, very importantly, it will be a protective bulwark for the telecom companies against the myriad distractions with which they have to contend in the task of providing what has been proven to be a prime driver of economic development: telecommunication services.
Perhaps equally critical is the fact that it will help to provide these companies with clearer bases for business forecasting and enable them plan better for growth and expansion, especially at a time when there is an urgent imperative for continuing investment in the telecom sector.
Mimi Ucheagwu.
