2025: PIN plans expansion into six countries, dangles collaboration, training for digital inclusion – ITREALMS

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The Paradigm Initiative Nigeria (PIN) has advanced plans to expand operations into some six African countries in the coming year, 2025, reports ITREALMS.

Disclosing this at a media end of year session in Lagos, the Executive Director, Paradigm Initiative Nigeria, Mr. Gbenga Sesan, said that their goal is to expand to 50 African countries by 2028, but for the 2025 short term goal, PIN will strive to focus on three targets, namely expansion, collaboration and training.

According to him, for the expansion in the next 12 months, PIN will dedicate time on having physical presence in at least six African countries, although he did not mention the names of the anticipated six countries but optimistic its achievable.

Sesan also said that PIN intends to work collaboratively with more Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) where they operate, stressing, for instance, they have advanced collaboration with the Nigeria Police Force (NPF) to engage recruits at the Police Colleges nationwide on digital rights of citizens and how best to build that in their workload.

In addition, he said they are planning to engage prosecutors in the Ministry of Justice to better understand their roles in the defence or otherwise on relevant statutes, capable of advancing their work.

Further, PIN Executive Director, accompanied by the Chief Operating Officer, Mrs Nnenna Paul-Ugochukwu and Communications Officer, Kenneth Oyiniyi, pointed out that they would be conducting more media training in the coming year to underscore digital inclusion in the media space and enable them to enhance reportage of the industry.

Earlier, the COO, Mrs Nnenna Pual-Ugochukwu traced the humble beginning of PIN to a cyber cafe in Ajegunle as a non-profit organisation that thrives in shaping policies, defending rights and building capacity in the digital environment towards a digitally inclusive and rights-respecting world.

Till date, PIN, she said, has regional offices in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Kenya, Nigeria, Senegal, Zambia, Zimbabwe to name a few, stressing they are working to connect under-served African youth with improved livelihoods through digital inclusion and digital rights programmes.

Some of the programmes, ITREALMS gathered include the Life Skills, ICT, Financial Readiness, Entrepreneurship (LIFE) training initiatives to name a few.

Chuks Egbune/DoP

Telecom infrastructure: Airtel laments 1022 fibre cuts in 9 months, stresses need for CNI inclusion - ITREALMS

ITREALMS: 

Acclaimed leader in telecommunications sector, the Airtel Nigeria, laments the 1022 fibre cuts on its infrastructure in the last nine months, stressing the need for inclusion of telecom in the Critical National Infrastructure (CNI) by the Federal Government (FG), reports ITREALMS.

The Director of Corporate Communications & Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), Airtel Nigeria, Mr. Emeka Oparah, told ITREALMS that the declaration of telecoms infrastructure as Critical National Infrastructure (CNI) by FG would assuage the quality of services by telecom operators.

As said by him, Airtel alone recorded some 1022 cases of fibre cuts in nine months, that is, between July 2019 and 11th of February, 2020.

In addition, he explained that 405 cases of the fibre cut were as a result of road rehabilitation activities by construction workers while 617 cases were due to vandalism.

Airtel urged FG to quickly come to the aid of telecoms operators in the country as these activities have resulted in unprecedented dropped calls, poor network quality, network congestion and poor user experience for telecommunications subscribers across the country.

He also urged the federal and state governments to hasten the approval process for right of way for fibre deployment as well as quicken the Environmental Impact Analysis (EIA) approval process, noting that these actions would help solve the problem of network congestion and network failure.

Also speaking during the briefing, the Vice President, Network Operations, Airtel Nigeria, Dr. Adedoyin Adeola, lamented that telecoms installations across the country are repeatedly vandalized, stolen, bombed and destroyed with reckless abandon, creating myriad of problems for the network operators as well as the telecommunication consumers.

“Telecoms operators are plagued with so many problems ranging from security issues to illegal signal boosters. While a network provider is working hard to restore a fibre cut due to vandalism or activities of road construction workers, it also has to deal with illegal signal boosters, which interfere with network quality and operated by unlicensed operators.

“Then, all operators would have to wait endlessly for Right of way approvals, EIA approvals and other approvals. Also, telecoms installations are huge targets for thieves who cart away with inverter batteries, generators, diesels in addition to the other daily and long standing problems of multiple taxation, community issues and all,” he said.

Dr. Adeola also highlighted the efforts telcos are making to remedy the situation despite the harsh operating climate, stating that steps are being taken to improve surveillance across telecoms fibre routes; proactively engage with construction companies and communities; and enlisting the support of security agencies to access sites/telecoms infrastructure in flash points or troubled areas, among many others.

He also called on the government to urgently declare fibre routes as critical National Assets, contain the security challenges Country-wide and improve public power availability and quality.

Chuks Egbune/DoP

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