Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has called on the Senate Committee on Telecommunications to pass the bill designating telecom infrastructure as a critical national infrastructure into law.
Senator Olabiyi Durojaiye, chairman of NCC, noted that the bill had been in the National Assembly for the past two years, while speaking at the sensitisation workshop on the implications of the African Continental Free Trade Agreement on the communications industry in Lagos.
According to him, vandalism of telecom infrastructure should be seen as a criminal offence.
“We want the law to be stringent on those over-ambitious citizens who believe in shortcut to wealth. We lay very expensive cables and people go and dig them up. We need to make it a criminal offence to destroy telecom infrastructure,” he said.
Durojaiye urged operators in the industry to be ready to explore the opportunities in serving over 1.2 billion people across the continent.
Mr Liman Liman, acting director-general, Nigerian Office for Trade Negotiations, said telecommunications infrastructure would require significant amount of investments both by domestic and foreign investors in order to be globally competitive.
