NaijaWifi, $60m Broadband Project gets Makeover

A private sector driven broadband initiative NaijaWifi is to be redesigned for effective implementation, Nigeria CommunicationsWeek can now reveal.
NaijaWifi which is made up of a consortium of about 25 information and communications technology partners with an initial cost of $60million has the backing of Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) and other local financiers.
The project is expected to complement NCC’s State Accelerated Broadband Initiative (Sabi) aimed at stimulating demand and accelerating the uptake of ICT tools and services necessary for the enthronement of a knowledge society.
Nigeria CommunicationsWeek investigations revealed that the project which has the late Ndukwe Kalu as its coordinator was scheduled to be launched in April last year but could not hold as the necessary commercial agreements with some operators as well as basic infrastructure required for its launch were not in place.
Nigeria CommunicationsWeek gathered that the redesigning of the project implementation of NaijaWifi was necessitated by the death of its founding coordinator Kalu who was the arrow head of the initial project plan as well as to accommodate technological changes as well as make the project fall in line with recent developments in the industry such as the on going national fiber optic projects in the country.
The country with only 11million Internet users is in dire need of initiative such as NaijaWifi to accelerate access to Internet by greater number of Nigerians.
It was also gathered that the partners to the project appointed Biyi Oladepo to coordinate the redesigning of the project after the death of its pioneer, Kalu.
 Nigeria CommunicationsWeek learnt that the redesigned work of the project has been concluded and is waiting for a date when the redesigned document will be handed over to the partners for rectification.