Infrastructure
Policy Statement
The government, through National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) shall establish and develop a National Information Infrastructure (NII) 'backbone' as the gateway to the Global Information Infrastructure (GII) interconnecting it with State Information Infrastructure (SII) and the Local Information Infrastructure (LII).
Objectives
To provide leadership direction and vision to guide IT infrastructure development.
To provide equitable access to all users and stakeholders.
To guarantee the privacy, integrity, accuracy, confidentiality, security, availability and quality of personal information.
To create an ubiquitous and affordable technology with an "open standard" approach, scalable and capable of adapting to changes.
To provide a reliable and secured gateway to the Global Information Infrastructure.
To stimulate the creation and sharing of national and international knowledge.
To encourage private sector investment in IT particularly in Information Infrastructure.
To ensure that interoperability and openness are promoted through the utilization of efficient, high-capacity and multi-media technologies.
To promote electronic trade, business and commerce.
To facilitate the opening of overseas markets for Nigerian businesses and enterprises.
To encourage the private sector to invest, design, deploy and operate independent information infrastructure
To close the continuous widening gap, with its attendant grave consequences between the rich and poor nations; otherwise known as the digital divide
To pursue and attain cultural diversity.
To empower the citizenry to better compete in the information societies.
Strategies
Government will establish a National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) that will foster the development and growth of IT in Nigeria. NITDA will in part be funded from the taxes levied on imported IT equipment.
National IT Backbone
Declaring the establishment of NII as a fundamental national mission.
Planning, designing and configuring a scalable National Information Infrastructure Backbone (NIIB) to achieve a minimum capacity of 2.5Gbps, using combination of optical fibres, satellite communications and wireless technology.
Adopting the open system approach in selecting an appropriate, easy-to-use and scalable Information Infrastructure Technology over a long period.
Involving through consultations, the IT Professionals, Experts, Universities and Research Centres, industries and business enterprises in the establishment processes.
Promoting high bandwidth physical connectivity using broadband technologies as effective pipelines for large and multi-media applications.
Using existing facilities such as power grids and Railways infrastructure to enhance the creation of NII Backbone.
Encouraging the private sector, through relevant incentives to build interfacing NII of fibre transmission systems designed strictly to provide transmission capacities on lease basis to service providers essentially for data transmission and not primarily for telephony.
Ensuring that the entire country is linked by Information network systems by the year 2005.
Utilizing private sector investment.
Establishing a "Backbone By Anyone" Project for a period of 5-8 years through tax-free incentives to accelerate and encourage investment in the development of NIIB.
