The federal government of Nigeria through the ministry of communications and digital economy has officially written to the Nigerian Police force, giving it authority to arrest and criminlise telecom infrastructure vandals across the country, hence forth.
The letter dated 23, December 2019, stated that this was a directive from the president Muhammadu Buhari, who recognizes the importance of the protection of critical telecommunications infrastructure which are now known as critical national infrastructure (CNI) because of the important role they play in ensuring security and in the delivery of other essential services.
“The Nigeria Police Force should provide security for telecommunications towers/sites, fibre optic cables, telecommunications switch stations, backup batteries and armoured cables,” Isa Ali Pantami, the minister of communications and digital economy said in the letter.
Speaking to journalists at a briefing in Abuja last weekend, the minister said that the Office of the National Security Adviser (ONSA) was vetting content of the proposed Executive Order on Critical National Infrastructure (CNI) Protection, one of the key demands of the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) to ensure a halt to rampant vandalism of telecommunications infrastructure.
Pantami said he is confident that President Buhari will sign the Executive Order soon, but that before then, infrastructure is protected, as the police authorities have been directed to locate key telecom facilities for surveillance.
Still on telecommunications, the Minister stated, “I have written to all the governors in Nigeria on the need to comply with the National Economic Council (NEC) resolution on the Right of Way (RoW)”.
“All the Governors had agreed to the harmonisation on the RoW charges and efforts are being made to ensure the policy is respected”. The RoW charges is the levy paid to state governments for the laying of optic fibre by telecoms operators.
The Minister also declared that since the 25th September 2019, no Subscriber Identification Module (SIM) card has be used in Nigeria without being properly registered.
“You may buy a SIM card but you cannot activate it to use unless it has been properly registered, and NCC will provide biodata of any improperly-used SIM card to the police or other security agencies within 24 hours whenever it is required,” he said.
Pantami was emphatic that the Federal Government’s directive to NCC to ensure that improperly registered SIM cards are blocked, demonstrated government’s commitment to further strengthen ongoing efforts at securing lives and property in the country.
“Life is more important than material benefits of having many SIM cards in circulation, and in any case, blocking improperly registered SIM cards did not diminish the contribution of ICT to GDP,” he stressed, explaining to journalists that the Ministry was, in addition, auditing bulk spectrum allocation for validation and propriety. He noted that the exercise is not really an inquisition as earlier bandied by certain interests.
Jumoke Akiyode-Lawanson
