Anywhere Nigeria’s cyber revolutionary, Ms Funke Opeke, looks in the country, she notices missed opportunities and seeks ways to address them. That’s how the Founder and CEO of MainOne Cable Company, on, return to Nigeria in 2005, after 20 years of a successful telecoms career in the United States that climaxed with her becoming an executive director with the US largest wireless provider, Verizon Communications in New York, was shocked by the low level of internet connectivity in her country of birth. During her short stint as former Chief Technology Officer of MTN Nigeria, she was busy about how to disrupt the system.
The 58-year-old cerebral lady left her comfort zone to toy with the idea of running a 7,000-kilometre undersea high capacity cable submarine from Portugal to Lagos, Nigeria. Despite the initial skepticism expressed about the ambitious project, Opeke, through her company, MainOne, delivered the internet services and broadband to Nigeria and seven other West African countries. She has since brokered other mega deals in the Nigerian telecoms industry and even spread her tentacles to other African countries. When Google comes to Nigeria, it is Opeke they talk to, and when the University of Lagos was thinking about a broadband network on campus, it is MainOne with whom they partnered. While those in the know have been insinuating that she has the backing of a famous billionaire banking investor, Fola Adeola, which makes her soars easily, the lady has not left anyone in doubt of her sagacity as a telecoms maven. Just last week, the Ile-Oluji, Ondo State-born woman pulled another big deal with the launch of her company’s “Digital Lagos: Broadband for All” campaign initiative to enable the digital transformation of Lagos State through deployment of ubiquitous broadband infrastructure across the state. The new broadband project, inspired by the vision of Lagos State new Governor, Babajide Sanwo-Olu, who noted presciently that technology will improve the rule of law, education, ease of doing business and government processes of Lagos, will involve the investment by MainOne of over N25 billion over the next two to three years to develop critical fiber optic infrastructure to enable broadband services across the state.
To date, Opeke has led her company to invest over N120 billion funded by leading African banks and has proven its capabilities in expanding and densifying localized fiber networks in neighboring Ogun and Edo states by deploying almost 1,000 kms of fiber in partnership with Facebook to expand broadband access and connect government institutions and other areas of interest. As the licenced InfraCo for Lagos zone, the resulting network to be built by MainOne would provide essential connectivity to critical state institutions, cover over 300 government agencies, up to 10,000 state CCTV locations, telecom operators and ISPs, public Wi-Fi hotspots, Smart City components/IoT devices, in addition to enterprises. Last year, Forbes listed Opeke among the 50 World Top Women In Technology.