MINISTRY OF COMMUNICATIONSSPECIAL REMARKBYBARRISTER ABDUR-RAHEEM ADEBAYO SHITTU

HON. MINISTER OF COMMUNICATIONSAT THEAFRINIC
27TH PUBLIC POLICY MEETING AFRINIC-27HELD ATRENAISSANCE HOTEL
38/40 ISAAC JOHN STREET, IKEJA GRA, LAGOS

THEME: TAKING THE AFRICAN INTERNET TO THE NEXT LEVEL THROUGH
POLICY, COLLABORATION AND EDUCATION1Protocols:The Chairman AFRINIC and President of NIRA,
Members of the Board of AFRINICMr Alan Barret, CEO AFRINIC
Distinguished members of the AFRINIC Community
Other Regional Registries present,
Members of the Global Internet Community,Members of the Nigerian Internet Community,
Members of the Press Corps,
Ladies and Gentlemen.
I am delighted to join you today and it is a great pleasure for me towelcome you all to the mega-city of Lagos in Nigeria for this AFRINIC-27
Public Policy meeting, which has been carefully convened for the next few
days.
It is heart-warming to see the significant progress that your community has
made, and the great impact that your work is making, especially on thegrowth, adoption and utilization of the Internet in Africa, despite the very
many problems that face us as a continent.
I congratulate all members of the AFRINIC community for your leadershipin the African Internet Ecosystem, and your continued hard work to unite
the African Technical Community to drive the growth of the Internet inAfrica.
Coming to Nigeria for your meeting this time, will no doubt bring all ourefforts into focus, celebrate our modest achievements as a nation, and also
motivate the players to double their efforts. I am aware that in the courseof the meeting, you will have Training sessions, workshops, technicalpresentations, various working group discussions, including the AFRINIC
Government Working group, as well as special sessions for new comers.
Issues that are important to us as a people, include, and is not limited tothe following:2

Building a digital economy
We have embarked on a journey towards building a Smart Digital Nigeria
as enshrined in the ICT Strategic Road map 2017-2020. This Road map isconsistent with the Economic Recovery and Growth Plan of the Federal
Government. We envisage a knowledge-based society where our people
can consummate transactions electronically anytime and anywhere.
Accessing these services will require widely available high speed
connectivity and Smart technologies which will ultimately facilitate effective
time and resource management thus improving the well-being of ourcitizens.
The Ministry under my humble watch has attained some major milestones
in its mandate of developing the telecoms and ICT sector.
(i)Nigeria’s Active Mobile-Broadband Penetration has increased within
the space of one year from less than 10% in 2015 to 20.95% in 2016 and21.8% presently indicating consistent growth.
(ii) Nigeria’s Internet Penetration reached a milestone of 47.44% making
it Africa’s highest and 10th globally.
The bulk of these data subscribers are on 3g Technology, with a goodnumber of Telecommunication providers now offering 4GLTE services. It is
our belief, that as a nation, Broadband Internet Access should become aright of citizens, just like water and air.
Nigeria has attracted investments of over $2.2Billion in submarine cables inthe last five years. Active submarine cables into the country now include
SAT3/SAFE, GLO-1, ACE, MAINONE and WACS with many other cables
under construction.
As part of our efforts to bridge the digital gap between our variouscommunities, Government has established the Universal Services Provision
Fund (USPF) which continues to help develop the under-served regions ofNigeria, making Telecommunications available to every Nigerian.
We have invested in a data communications Satellite and the statecompany, the Nigeria Communications Satellite Company (NIGCOMSAT)

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that serves both the public and private sector, is helping to reach the very
remote parts of the country.
We do have a National Broadband Plan, and a Broadband Council that isdriving the implementation of the broadband plan. Under this plan, The
Nigeria Communications Commission is required to license new
infrastructure companies called INFRACOs to fill critical infrastructure gaps
and enable broadband services on a wholesale basis by sharing
infrastructure to lower the costs to end users.
It is expected that all these efforts will help Nigeria transition to a digitaland knowledge-based economy that gives the private sector the latitude
to innovate and makes it very easy to access Government services. We arepursuing this plan with earnest and will be glad to learn from yourexperiences.
Creating Confidence for Nigerians OnlineGovernment is aware of the difficulties faced by Nigerians in transacting
businesses online. IP addresses that are traceable to Nigerians or Nigeria,
are sometimes restricted or outrightly blocked by major e-commerce sites.
We are aware of the negative activities of some users; so, Government has
taken cyber-security with all seriousness and has enacted the cybercrime
act that leaves no hiding place for online criminals. The Economic andFinancial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has been very active in bringing many
criminals to justice in this regard.
I am pleased to inform you that we are consistently improving ourinformation systems security to increase the confidence of Nigerians andforeigners who want to do business with Nigeria online. With theabundance of talents in Nigeria, the global community stands to benefit
from our skills-force and our abundant market. It is a new Nigeria.
Transition from IPv4 to IPv6
With the ever-increasing number of new devices being connected to theInternet every day, there is a need for more addresses than the IPv4, theprimary communications protocol that we depend upon.

4I have been informed that IPv6, has been designed as an evolutionary
upgrade to the Internet Protocol and will open a pool of internet addresses
which is mega times larger than the total pool of about 4.3billion IPv4addresses. This means that the total number of possible IPv6 addresses isvirtually inexhaustible in the foreseeable future.
We recognize the fact that the uptake is still low in Nigeria and that thereis the need to step up awareness of and capacity building in this regard.
The Ministry of Communications supports initiatives that improve theaccessibility of services and encourages the use of equipment and services
that would be compliant with IPV6.
Government has established the National IPv6 Council to provide
leadership and strategic planning for IPv6 implementation in Nigeria. TheInternet Exchange Point of Nigeria announced a few months ago that it
had successfully migrated its network to IPV6.
Nigeria needs IPv6 to get our huge population online, we need it urgently
as we embrace advancements such as our Smart city initiatives. IPv6 is thefuture of networks globally and a key communication enabler for building
an Internet of Things (IoT).
I want to charge AFRINIC, NiRA and other relevant organizations to stepup the awareness and advocacy campaign to ensure that ISPs,
telecommunications operators, Banks and educational institutions among
others migrate to IPv6. There should be more awareness and capacity
building through organizing seminars and trainings incorporating IPv6 into
our tertiary education curriculum. Government will provide some profit
incentives to the Internet Industry to encourage them to deploy IPv6
based Infrastructure.
Internet GovernanceWe recognise the fact that Internet governance includes more thanInternet naming and addressing. It also includes other significant public
policy issues such as critical Internet resources; the stability, security,safety and continuity of the Internet; and developmental aspects andissues pertaining to the use of the Internet. Definitely, developing these5policies will require wide public consultations with all stakeholders. I am
pleased that you will do a lot of these in the course of the next few days.
We acknowledge, as a nation, the bottom-up multi-stakeholder, consensusbased principles on which your community operates, and we did nothesitate as a nation, to set up and give NIRA the necessary support tooperate with the same guiding principles to manage the nation’s Top Level
Domain, the “.ng”.
I was made to understand that NiRA will continue its efforts to engage theindustry in a multi-stakeholder approach to develop plans that include
forward looking capacity building efforts, awareness programmes andassessment of relevant technologies all around its mandate.
Child Online safety
As a multicultural and deeply religious nation, we have the moral
responsibility to protect our culture, youths and other vulnerable groups onthe Internet.
We take the issue of Child online safety very important and will continue
to do all that is necessary to ensure that our youths are engaged in theright direction and without exploitation or cyber bullying.
It is important that we use the Internet as a tool to drive the education of
our people and assure their socio-economic advancement in an inclusivemanner. The task of improving the lives of the vulnerable and theunderprivileged is not for the Government alone, it is for all stakeholders.
Internet for All
The Internet is no doubt critical to Education, Health, Agriculture and manyother sectors of our economy. I have no doubt; we are making progress
though slowly. We cannot but embrace the 21st century IP concept tolearn and impact our generation as we move along.
Many still don’t have access to the Internet. When people get connected,
they can achieve extraordinary things. The Internet belongs to everyone.

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Continue the public and stakeholder engagements that will facilitate thegrowth and adoption of the Internet as a tool for enhancing the quality oflife of our citizens. We welcome positive ideas that will bring development
and growth to Nigeria through ICT.
At the just concluded 5th meeting of the National Council on
Communication Technology held in Katsina State, NITDA and NiRA copresented a memo on effective and efficient utilization of Nigeria’s countrycode Top level domain (ccTLD.ng) resource at both the public and private
sectors. Council endorsed that all public sector corporate and noncorporate entities in Nigeria must embrace the local content initiatives ofgovernment by conducting their official businesses through robust website
platform that end with (.ng).
Conclusion
Our focus is on the need to uplift the lives of the people of Nigeria inparticular and African in general. In this respect we are encouraged by theconsiderable demand that exists in Africa, and beyond, to utilize affordable
ICT solutions in everyday life.
Your meeting in the next days should further explore ways for African
nations to quickly leverage the Internet to achieve a better life for ourcitizens. I eagerly await the recommendations which I strongly believe will
add a lot of value to the implementation of our ICT road map.
In closing, I would like to acknowledge the efforts of NiRA in hosting thismeeting. I would like to thank the organizers for inviting me to be a part ofit. I wish all the participants good luck and may you have enriching andfruitful meetings.
I thank you all for your kind attention

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