By Emmanuel Elebeke
ABUJA: Nigeria is set to host the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) Secretary-General, Doreen Bogdan-Martin, at the maiden International Submarine Cable Resilience Summit in Abuja.
The two-day summit, scheduled to commence, Wednesday, aims to foster global collaboration and innovative solutions to strengthen submarine cables, a vital component of global digital infrastructure.
The event will bring together participants from 250 countries, over 40 experts, and industry players from the public and private sectors across the globe to discuss best practices and innovative ways to protect undersea cables from cuts and disruptions.
The summit is expected to address the challenges facing submarine cables, including damage caused by human activity, natural hazards, and equipment failure. It will also focus on promoting best practices, improving cable resilience, and fostering international cooperation to protect these critical infrastructure.
The ITU has been working to enhance the resilience of submarine cables, which carry over 99% of international data exchanges.
The Minister of Communications, Innovation, and Digital Economy, Dr. Bosun Tijani, who announced this in Abuja stated that the gathering will be a testimony to the President Bola Tinubu’s government understanding and prioritization of connectivity.
He disclosed that the administration is now investing $2 billion in 90,000 kilometers of submarine to ensure even and meaningful connectivity to all citizens.
This investment, according to him aims to extend the cables into the country, ensuring that every citizen has access to meaningful connectivity.
The Deputy Secretary General of ITU, Tomas Lamanauskas, said the objectives of the summit is foster global collaboration and strengthen protection ofsubmarine cables; scure innovative solutions to protect undersea cables; promote best practices across the globe and enhance international cooperation on policies and technical advancements.
Marazau said the summit is expected to proffer lasting solutions to the digital world, ranging from the financial services and transactions, to social media, and to any businesses that use cloud services and entertainment which are currently facing undue interferences.
‘‘Our digital world really depends on submarine cables, because they carry really the bulk of the traffic and ensure that the traffic across the continents is carried around and the continents are connected digitally. “Even the traffic that goes up to the satellites, goes back to the submarine cables to be fastly carried across the globe, because that’s the technology that makes sure that across the long distances we can have very fast connections. So everything increasingly in the digital world is dependent on that. That means when disruptions happen, we really feel them.”
” This partly is what inspired these discussions here. The cuts that happened in West Africa in March last year affected 13 countries in West Africa, because the four submarine cables were cut off the coast here because of the natural causes of the underwater earthquakes.
‘‘Where this happens all around the world, just last year we also had important cable cuts in the Red Sea that basically cut 25% of traffic between Asia and Europe.
‘‘We had important cuts in the East Africa coast with a number of countries affected. We have some countries like Tonga, for example, in the middle of the Pacific, fully cut off of the world because those submarine cables were cut. So this really affects people all over the world.
“And that’s why it really is commendable that Nigeria is showing leadership not only to fix the challenges here, but also to use that to bring the world together.’’
The International Advisory Body for Submarine Cable Resilience, co-chaired by Nigeria’s Minister of Communications, Innovation, and Digital Economy, Dr. Bosun Tijani, and Prof. Sandra Maximiano from Portugal is expected to come up with a draft that will be implemented by member countries of the ITU.
