Minister of Communications Adebayo Shittu, who revealed this, said the Federal Government’s team would secure funding for the satellites through a non-interest facility from a consortium of Chinese financial institutions.
Shittu said the procurement of SAT2 and SAT3 was necessary, considering the fact that Nigeria was losing billions of dollars every year because it had only one satellite in the orbit.
He likened the situation to a car travelling from Abuja to Lagos without an extra tyre, describing the risk involved as enormous.
The minister said: “Nigerian companies and government agencies are patronising foreign satellite firms as a result of this risk for the safety of their data and security of other services provided by them, thereby exporting jobs to other countries at the detriment of Nigerians.”
The minister spoke while presenting a three-page communique issued at the end of a weeklong Fourth Regular Meeting of the National Council on Communications held at Arewa House, Kaduna.
He told newsmen that the council recommended that “stakeholders, including state governments, should henceforth purchase satellite bandwidth requirements from NIGCOMSAT Ltd only”.
Shittu said the council received a total of 76 memoranda, of which 65 were considered while it endorsed the Nigeria ICT Roadmap 2016-2019 as well as the National ICT Strategic Plan 2016-2024 for implementation.
He added that the council recommended the adoption and implementation of the e-Governance Masterplan and the creation of states computer emergency response teams as measures to mitigate cyber security threats.
