EKOHOTBLOG reports that the Minister of Communication and Digital Economy, Mr. Isa Pantami, has said that the Five Generation (5G) network will be deployed in Nigeria in January 2022.
The minister, who added that the deployment will aid surveillance against vandalism of public assets, made the disclosure at a Town Hall Meeting to address vandalism of power and telecommunications infrastructure in Maiduguri, the Borno State capital on Thursday.
The event organised by the Ministry of Information and Culture was attended by the Governor of Borno State, Babagana Zulum, his Deputy, Mr. Usman Kadafur, and other stakeholders.
According to NAN, the Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, led the other ministers who were panelists at the town hall meeting.
Speaking at the event, Pantami, who was represented by the Commissioner for Technical Services, Nigeria Communication Commission (NCC), Mr. Ubale Maska, said the 5G network was recently approved by the Federal Executive Council for increased connectivity.
He added that while the technology would boost surveillance against criminal elements vandalising public infrastructure across the country, other measures should be put in place to arrest them and bring them to book.
The minister disclosed that there were over 50,000 telecommunication sites across the country, which made it difficult to man manually except through the deployment of modern technology.
READ ALSO: FG Approves National Policy On 5G Network
He further revealed that there were about 16,000 reported outages by mobile network operators – MTN, Globacom, Airtel, and 9Mobile – from January 2021 to July 2021.
The outages, according to him were due to fiber cuts, access denial, and theft leading to service disruption in the affected areas
He noted that protection of the critical infrastructural facility was key to the nation’s security, economic vitality, public health, and safety.
He decried the situation where telecoms installations that were destroyed in the attacks by terrorists, had not been replaced as a result of the lingering insecurity and tensions in parts of the North East.
As a way forward, the minister recommended continuous stakeholders buying-in and synergy among security forces.
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