The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has flagged off a digital public campaign for protection of the Critical National Information Infrastructure (CNII) in the telecoms space across the country. This is part of the Commission’s consumer education and sensitisation initiatives.
Recall that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, August 2024, had signed and issued an Executive Order (EO) on Designation and Protection of Critical National Information Infrastructure as a pressing need to protect the country’s assets from vandalisation, theft, robbery, arson, and other dangers.
Earlier, in its bid to evolve a collaborative effort at addressing any damage to the CNII, the Nigerian Communications Commission and the Lagos State Infrastructure Maintenance and Regulatory Agency (LASIMRA) sought to strengthen their collaborative partnership to protect telecoms infrastructure with a focus on a Tower Enumeration Project across the cosmopolitan state.
The collaboration between NCC and LASIMRA has come with a commitment to enforcing penalties and ensuring high-quality Internet access for telecoms consumers in the digital ecosystem.
The agency’s visit is equally said to have marked a significant milestone in strengthening collaboration between the industry regulators towards strengthening the telecoms sector and consumers’ Quality of Experience (QoE) in Lagos State.
A delegation of the Lagos State Infrastructure Maintenance and Regulatory Agency, as a follow-up on the partnership between the two organisations, as well visited the NCC Corporate Headquarters, in Abuja, FCT, recently.
Likewise, the Nigerian telecoms industry stakeholders recently converge on Lagos for the 7th Edition of the Policy Implementation Assisted Forum (PIAFo).
The stakeholders at the forum tagged, “CNII: Strengthening Protection of Critical Information Infrastructure through Proactive Implementation and Strategic Coordination”, discussed a number of practical and efficient strategies to safeguard the estimated $75.6 billion Critical National Information Infrastructure in Nigeria.
The theme of this year’s event is, “CNII: Strengthening Protection of Critical Information Infrastructure through Proactive Implementation and Strategic Coordination”.
According to PIAFo, the recent critical stakeholder engagement on CNII protection, aimed to facilitate “a comprehensive and inclusive approach” to implementing the Nigerian Government’s CNII Order, towards ensuring the long-term safety and growth of the telecoms sector.Checks indicated the telecoms sector regulatory Commission, this week, kicked off the enlightenment campaign to sensitise Nigerian public about the collective efforts at safeguarding the CNII and other national assets with USSD messages to telecoms consumers’ mobile phones and others devices.
The Commission, in one of the sensitisation messages, stated, “Protect Nigeria’s telecoms infrastructure! They are critical national assets protected by law.”
Underscoring the significance of protecting the national information infrastructure in the telecoms environment, the NCC also said in another Short Messaging Service (SMS) that “telecoms infrastructure is a national treasure! Let’s protect it together.