MINISTER of Communication and Digital Economy, Mr Isa Pantami has disclosed that the Five Generation (5G) network will be deployed in Nigeria in January 2022.
The minister disclosed this on Thursday in Maiduguri at a Town Hall Meeting to address vandalism of power and telecommunications infrastructure.
The event, organised by the Ministry of Information and Culture, was attended by Gov. Babagana Zulum of Borno and his Deputy, Mr Usman Kadafur and other stakeholders.
The Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed led the other ministers who were panelists at the town hall meeting.
Pantami, who was represented by Mr Ubale Maska, Commissioner for Technical Services, Nigeria Communication Commission, said the 5G network was recently approved by the Federal Executive Council for increased connectivity.
He said while the technology would boost surveillance against criminal elements vandalising public infrastructure across the country, other measures should be put in place to arrest them and bring them to book.
The minister disclosed that there were over 50,000 telecommunication sites across the country, which made it difficult to man manually except through deployment of modern technology.
He also disclosed that there were about 16,000 reported outages by mobile network operators – MTN, Globacom, Airtel and 9Mobile – from January 2021 to July 2021.
