In a bid to improve local communication capacity, the Minister of Communication, Mr. Adebayo Shittu, on Tuesday said Nigeria would launch two additional satellites.
Speaking at a town hall meeting in Kaduna on the one year anniversary of President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration, the minister said businesses in Nigeria were cynical of linking with the only satellite Nigeria has presently for fear of any crash.
Revealing that the legislation would compel Nigerian institutions to host their information locally rather than patronise foreign companies, he said the government would invest N2.1 billion to re-position the Galaxy Backbone Limited, which serves as the public service connectivity clearing house.
“Already, we are making efforts to get funding both locally and from foreign partners for the completion of the project.”
“Once it is completed it would be possible for government to store all its information and to be able to connect within government.”
Shittu also disclosed plans to turn Nigeria Postal Service into a conglomerate, by fully utilizing its vast assets located in 2,500 towns and cities across Nigeria.
“To allow for rural inquisitiveness in financial services, if you have your parents in the rural area without bank you can now use the post office to send money and in real time the money is being received.”
“We will also have NiPOST Insurance to take care of insurance services; and NiPOST Logistic and Transport Service.”
He said it would bring in a lot of money for the government and improve the nation’s economy.
Shittu also added that the Digital Bridges Institute located in Abuja would be turned into an ICT university and would be dedicated to producing high level manpower for the ICT industry in Africa.
