Minister of Communications Technology, Mrs. Omobola Johnson
The Federal Government has said it is committed to protecting the country’s $25bn telecoms investments through legislation.
A statement on Monday quoted the Minister of Communications Technology, Mrs. Omobola Johnson, as saying this during the 2013 Edo Technology Day.
The minister specifically said the Federal Government had commenced the deliberate moves to tackle the issue of cyber insecurity headlong and shield the ICT facilities from vandalism and all forms of attacks.
She said the legislation that would categorise telecoms installations as critical national security infrastructure was being seriously considered.
The Federal Executive Council, according to the minister, has already approved a comprehensive cyber security bill that will soon be submitted to the National Assembly for passage into law after due consultation with stakeholders.
She said the bill would address the designation of ICT infrastructure as critical national information infrastructure, adding that having such a law in place “should serve as a major deterrent to individuals who are perpetrating atrocious crimes in cyber space.”
The minister said the violation of the laws by any individual or corporate would attract severe punishment.
In order to strengthen the country’s resources dedicated to combating cyber crime, the minister recalled that the Nigeria Communications Commission recently signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the International Telecommunications Union to establish a regional cyber security centre in Nigeria.
“This centre will facilitate collaboration on combating cyber threats at national and regional levels. The protection of citizen online activities will require investments in systems that reduce the possibility of identity theft to complement robust privacy laws that protect citizen information that is available online,” she said.
Meanwhile, the Association of Telecommunications Companies of Nigeria and the Association of Licensed Telecoms Operators of Nigeria have commended government’s renewed efforts to combat cyber crime and vandalism in the telecoms sector.
According to the associations, having quickly put Nigeria on the map with robust telecoms growth, telecoms installations have unfortunately become major targets in all manners of attacks.
Such attacks were listed as cable cuts and theft, generators theft at site and snatching of site maintenance equipment from the operators’ site engineers.
This, they said, had been worsened by terror attacks as witnessed in some parts of the country in 2012 where more than 30 base stations were destroyed by suspected terrorists.
Other attacks against telecoms facilities, according to them, come in form of destructions caused to underground fibre cables by road construction workers while state agencies, more often than not, also see the shutting down of operators’ sites as a routine and a measure to collect certain statutory and frivolous taxes and levies.
The National Chairman, ALTON, Mr. Gbenga Adebayo, said it would be desirable for the government to fast-track the achievement of the critical national security infrastructure status for telecoms facilities.
“Operators currently lose huge amount of money to such destructions caused to operators’ infrastructures,” he said.
He also said that the lack of legal shield for ICT infrastructures could discourage further local and Foreign Direct Investments into the country.
MTN Nigeria had said it recorded no fewer than 70 cases of vandalism/fibre cuts on its facilities in 2012.
Other telecoms companies such as Globacom and Airtel are facing similar damage to their sites and fibre cables deployed all over the country.
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