By James Ogunnaike, Abeokuta
The President Bola Tinubu-led federal government has concluded plan to deploy 90,000 kilometres of fibre optic broadband across the country, to improve digital technology in the country.
The Senate Committee Chairman on ICT and Cyber Security, Senator Shuaib Afolabi Salisu, who disclosed this at the opening ceremony of the 2025 Press Week of the Nigeria Union of Journalists, Ogun State Council, said studies have confirmed that any 10 percent increase in fibre penetration in the country, would lead to a minimum of two percent increase in GDP growth.
Salisu also disclosed that the National Assembly is also working on a bill tagged “the National Digital Economy and E-government Bill to improve the digital technology in the country.
He said, “This government under President Bola Tinubu, is going to deploy 90,000 kilometres of fibre optic broadband across the country, not just in some states, not just in some local governments; there is no ward that will not have fibre optic presence”.
“The country is at the cusp of a revolution. In 1998/1999, when we liberalised the telecommunications sector, a number of organisations didn’t believe in the potential of Nigeria; they were asking questions: how many people would make phone calls in Nigeria? Particularly we were transiting from an environment, we only had a government behemoth NITEL. But what had happened? MTN, Airtel and a number of other organisations that took advantage of Nigeria, today MTN about a few weeks ago, we went to commission the biggest MTN Data Centre in Africa”.
“Twenty-five years down the line, we are about to have yet another revolution in our digital communication space”.
“Imagine, if you deploy more technology. And it is very easy to fathom. Just imagine, we have fibre optic in all our wards. I just came back from the UN General Assembly with Minister of Digital Economy Dr. Bosun Tijani, we went to preach this to investors to come and invest in Nigeria. We don’t want this to just be government infrastructure alone, we want it to also have private sector so that it can have the corporate governance”.
“We are doing the infrastructure. And from the legislative angle, we are also coming up with the National Digital Economy and E-government Bill. The digital economy was contributing less than one percent in 1998/1999. Today, it is close to 20 percent. But that is not yet the full potential. The full potential will come when this bill is passed into law and therefore, a number of analogue laws that are still holding back electronic transactions in the country will be replaced with this omnibus law, that would say if you want signature, it’s is either physical or digital; you want document in its original form, it’s either physical or electronic”.
“And to complement that, we have a National AI Strategy and the unique way that Nigeria has developed its AI Strategy has been recognised globally; Nigeria is ranked as one of the first 10 countries with AI Strategy in the world. And what did we do? We created a portal and we asked Nigerians who are AI experts, no matter which part of the world you are, to be part of this. We have what we called AI Collective and we developed that AI Strategy; it’s the most robust AI Strategy that any country, particularly in Africa, could have”.
Speaking on the theme of the week-long programme, “The Future of Journalism: Navigating AI and Objective Reporting”, Salisu charged the journalists to make AI as an enabler, not a replacer.
While stressing that AI has the potential of increasing the incidence of quackery in journalism,
he said Mass Communication and journalism training institute must embedded technology into their curriculum.
He added “for those already practising who have not had the opportunity of going back to school to learn, they must also have continuous capacity building and I’m going to partner with NUJ Ogun State Council on the deployment of technology and AI”.
“Journalists must also self-regulate. I’m the Chairman of Senate Committee on ICT and Cyber Security, and we are in the process of repealing and enacting a new Cyber Crime Law in the country. There is always this tension between the freedom of expression and national security. But journalists, particularly professional journalists, whose training requires them to pass their news stories through many gatekeepers; now those gatekeepers may not be there physically again.
“We must also ensure that we create the standards, code of conduct. When people go online, they must know that this publication is being run by professional journalists rather than publications that are being run by those who are pretending to be journalists”.
In his keynote address, the Ogun State Head of Service, Mr Kehinde Onasanya, noted that Nigeria lacks clear regulatory guidelines on disclosing AI-generated content, including images, audio, and video.
He urged the leadership of the union to publish a widely adopted code of practice to address AI.
In his speech, the Chairman of the council, Wale Olanrewaju. noted that the council has recorded milestones progress and development in less than three years.
Olanrewaju stated that AI has changed the way news are gathered, processed and disseminated.
“As a union, our responsibility is to prepare our members not just to adapt, but to lead in this new reality. We must ensure that technology enhances our credibility rather than diminish it,” he said.
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