By Chinenye Anuforo
As part of its objective to build a globally competitive economy and promote digital-led growth, the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) at the weekend, facilitated the licensing of Liquid Intelligent Technologies for the provision of wholesale, enterprise and retail services.
The Chief Executive Officer of the NCC, Prof. Umar Danbatta, announced this during the official launch of the group’s operations in Nigeria.
Speaking at the launch which held in Lagos at the weekend, Danbatta who was represented by the Director of Technical Standards and Network Integrity (DTSNI) at the NCC, Engr Bako Wakil, said the objectives and goals of Liquid Intelligent Technologies falls with the mandate of the National Digital Economy Policy and Strategy (NDEPS) 2020-2030’s vision and mission transform Nigeria into a leading digital economy.
Wakil revealed that the group has built Africa’s largest cross border, independent fibre network spanning some 100,000 km, passing 3,000 cities.
“We at the NCC are happy that Liquid is expanding it’s presence to Nigeria being operational already in several Eastern, Central and Southern African countries including South Africa, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Kenya, Botswana amongst others.
We have learnt Nigeria will be Liquid’s hub into the West African region and we couldn’t be more proud in this regard”, Wakil said.
Congratulating the group, the Honourable Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Prof Isa Ali Ibraham, said Nigeria has made progress in realizing some of the targets set in the new Broadband Plan.
Ibrahim noted that as Nigeria moves to harness the potential of its digital economy through public-private partnerships and provision of an enabling environment for growth, attraction, and protection of investment in the sector, there is need for the largest economy with the largest population in Africa to leapfrog its peers in utilising digital technologies to achieve prosperity.
For his part, the Chief Executive Officer, Liquid Intelligent Technologies Nigeria, Wole Abu, said that as West Africa boasts the largest connectivity on the continent, connecting Nigeria locally and internationally, Liquid’s intelligent technology will bring the de-facto means of backhauling traffic within middle-mile networks, allowing the effective deployment of broadband networks in Nigeria and the rest of the region.
“We need Nigerian companies to not just be excellent within Nigeria, but to grow to their full potential of global excellence. We are here to enable that growth. Nigeria is already growing but I can tell you that we are here to catalyse that growth”, Abu said.
He also revealed that the group will work on some of its roll-out strategies to go into Tier-2 cities outside Lagos, Abuja and Port-Harcourt where it will drop the rate of connectivity to the internet and give people in these cities an enterprised grade internet.
“In the last two years, we have seen Nigeria benefit exponentially as businesses transformed digitally. The need now is to elevate local businesses with increased access to digital solutions that will level the playing field compared to their European and US counterparts.
In addition, the expertise we have garnered in the last two decades of partnering with businesses in other African countries will play a crucial role as we provide companies with the necessary tools to enable further growth,” he stated.