(Ecofin Agency) - The government of Nigeria approved the second phase of the National Information Communications Technology Infrastructure Backbone project (NICTIB II), which concerns the extension of the optical fiber connectivity to the country’s northern parts.

The project benefited from a facility of $328 million raised from China’s Exim Bank by Galaxy Backbone Ltd (GBB), the public provider of information technology and shared services.

“When we bring the network, we will try to distribute it to all the cities so that wherever you are, you can use the fiber. We were able to pull the fiber cables from Lagos to some parts of the South-South, we came to South East (Enugu), Calabar, and Port Harcourt. We came to Makurdi, Nasarawa State, and Abuja,” said Mohammed Abubakar, MD of GBB.

“The NIPTIP II is focusing on the hinterland, that is towards the northern parts of the country. We will roll-out this particular Backbone infrastructure from Abuja to Plateau, Gombe, Bauchi, Maiduguri, Kano, and the Northwest,” he added.

The Chinese company Huawei Technologies Ltd will deploy the optical fiber cable. A memorandum of understanding to this effect was signed with Galaxy Backbone Ltd on 3 September 2018 in Beijing, China, on the first day of the Beijing Summit of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC).