Former Presidential aide, Reno Omokri and security expert, Dr Kabir Adamu, have called on African leaders to develop strategies to secure critical infrastructure key to the continent from attacks as witnessed during the recent red sea cable disruption that disrupted internet services in Nigeria and other African countries.
It would be recalled that there were multiple major submarine cable cuts in the Red Sea on Thursday resulting in service disruptions in Nigeria and some African countries, including Ghana, Cote d’Ivoire, and Liberia, as well as some parts of South Africa.
The damage disrupted internet services in the affected countries. It also affected some banks, Payment Service Banks (PSBs), schools, organisations and agent banking outlets.
Omokri, a media aide to former President Goodluck Jonathan, who called on the Federal Government to promote the patronage of made in Nigeria products, argued that only Nigerian-owned telecom giant, Globacom was not affected by the attack because of their investment. He said others were easily affected because their infrastructure is not tailor-made for Nigeria.
“Globacom was the first African telecom company to build an intercontinental submarine cable, the Glo 1 cable, which ran from Bude, a seaside rural town in north Cornwall, England and traversed seventeen countries, including Ghana, before terminating in Nigeria.
By going from Europe to the West Coast of Africa, it avoids the more turbulent but cheaper to maintain MENA region (Middle-East and North Africa),” he said.
While noting that the outage would have portended security risk for Nigeria if Globacom was also affected, he called on the government and Nigerians to patronize products and services that protect the country.
“And imagine that we were fighting a real war. Can we rely on undersea cables that could be turned off from South Africa and India? What happened in Niger after their quarrel with France? France turned off their satellite communications. This has been the rationale behind my #GrowNairaBuyNaija campaign,” he added.
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