President Bola Tinubu has released an official gazette designating telecom infrastructure as critical national information infrastructure and making it a criminal offence for anyone to wilfully destroy such infrastructure in the country.
The Minister of Communications, Innovation and Digital Economy, Dr. Bosun Tijani disclosed this on Wednesday.
According to him, the gazette, ‘Designation and Protection of Critical National Information Infrastructure Order, 2024’, is a significant step that would strengthen and protect investments in the ICT sector by reducing incidences capable of damaging the operations and functionality of the country’s technological systems, infrastructure, and networks.While thanking the President for releasing the official gazette, Tijani said the security and protection of the Critical National Information Infrastructure (CNII) is a priority for the administration.Criminal offence
The Minister added that designating telecom infrastructure as CNIIand would help improve the quality of telecoms services, which has often been affected by disruption and intentional damage.
“This gazette now makes it an offence to wilfully damage assets such as telco towers/sites, switch stations, data centres, satellite infrastructure, submarine & fibre optic cables, transmission equipment, e-government platforms, databases among many others,” he said.
Tijani said the government would continue to work to create an enabling and supportive environment and policies for the digital economy to thrive.
Source : https://nairametrics.com/2024/08/22/tinubu-releases-official-gazette-to-criminalize-destruction-of-telecom-infrastructure-in-nigeria/