The Minister of Communications, Innovations and Digital Economy, Bosun Tijani has opened up on the reason for the poor communication network in the country.

The minister said that it will cost about $2bn to lay fibre optics cables across Nigeria.

Tijani stated this during an appearance on Channels Television’s Politics Today programme on Tuesday.

He also said that advanced technology, the Fifth-Generation (5G) network, exists in Nigeria.

He, however, said the infrastructure that supports the advanced technology is not everywhere in the country.

Speaking further, the minister revealed that vandalism is to be blamed for the drop calls and poor telecommunication networks in the Nigeria.

He explained that he is working on declaring telecoms infrastructure as a critical national asset to prevent vandalism.

He said, “There are times that you experience bad connection that it is simply because an infrastructure has been destroyed somewhere.

“So, one of the memos I have been working on as a minister is actually to declare telecommunication infrastructure as critical national infrastructure because there are times people go vandalise a base station, steal some of the things there, go resell.

“Every time that is done, it gets in the way of quality of connections that people get. There are times people dig the ground and they end up breaking fibre optics cables – those fibre optics cables also contribute to the quality of services that you and me get.”