By Ibiyemi Mathew and Philemon Adedeji
The Lagos State Government (LASG) has reiterated her commitment to invest in infrastructure in order to accelerate the development of the Lagos smart city initiative and the digital economy at large.
Delivering the welcome address, the General Manager (GM) of LASIMRA, Engr. (Mrs) Abisoye Coker-Odusote explained that the conference describes the efforts the Lagos state government is taking to position the state as a smart city.
She stated that the state had developed key initiatives around the utility infrastructure space and areas that can leverage by stakeholders to enhance the execution of the smart city initiatives.
Mr Babajide Sanwo-Olu, Governor of Lagos State who was represented by Dr Obafemi Hamzat, Deputy Governor of Lagos state said the administration is committed to improving on the provision of adequate infrastructure to fast-track the smart city project in order to optimise the limitless opportunity a fully digitised economy provides.
According to Hamzat, “The theme of the conference expresses the administration’s commitment to the smart city project through the deployment of cutting edge technology to bring about improved and effective governance as well as providing the necessary infrastructure to support widespread application of technology to create opportunities and enhance socio-economic growth.
“One of the key pillars of our administration’s THEMES development agenda is making Lagos a 21st century economy. We recognize that one of the basic requirements to achieve this goal is technology especially the availability of an making Lagos a 21st century economy,” he said.
The keynote speaker, Mr Adeleke Adewolu, Executive Commissioner,Stakeholder Management at the Nigerian Communications Commission in his speech acknowledged that Lagos State is clearly the hub of telecoms and technology activities in Nigeria.
He however stated that Lagos State, like the rest of Nigeria, is still far from achieving its full ICT infrastructure potentials.
According to Adewolu, the theme of the Conference, which is “Transforming Lagos State into a Smart City Hub in Africa – The Goverument’s Infrastructure Approach” is very apt since Broadband infrastructure is the backbone of Smart Cities.
“To explore this theme from the NCC’s unique perspective as facilitator of transformative ICT infrastructure, the Keynote was focused on three key areas. These are, respectively, the opportunities for Lagos State in the Nigerian National Broadband Plan; the importance of collaboration between the NCC and LASIMRA; and lessons learnt from pursuing collaboration between the two agencies.
“With particular reference to Lagos State’s Smart City objectives, the NNBP is designed to provide the requisite infrastructure backbone. Nigeria still has a huge infrastructure deficit. For instance, we need over 120,000 additional kilometres of fiber (from current figure of less than 60,000 kilometres), and about 40,000 additional Base Transceiver Stations (BTS) to meet the NNBP targets by year 2025.
“Thus, the NNBP sets out carefully developed developmental targets such as ensuring that 90 per cent of Nigeria’s 774 Local Government Headquarters (secretariat) are connected by Fibre, and that at least 10 per cent of hard to reach areas is connected by Satellite or Fixed Broadband,” Adewolu said.
On the area of collaboration, he advised the Lagos state government to key into the RoW charge of N145 per linear meter as part of NNBP implementation to encourage investments in fiber deployments and deepen opportunities for achieving Smart State and other developmental objectives.
The Executive Commissioner noted that the collaborative relationship between the NCC and LASIMRA is of importance to the telecoms industry.
“For almost five years, the NCC has co-opted LASIMRA into its Industry Working Group (IWG) on Multiple Tasation and Regulation (MTR). This has assisted to address thorny issues between our licensees and LASIMRA. Through the IWG, we have developed proactive and co-operative mechanisms to reduce friction and overlaps. This has helped our licensees to ensure seamless and qualitative services to the good people of Lagos State. Obviously, this is the way to go, and we look forward to deeper co-operation between LASIMRA and our licenses,” he said.