The Nigerian Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (NIEEE), the national community for electrical and electronics engineering professionals in Nigeria, has outlined how the nation can build a resilient national “digital nervous system” by integrating satellite, terrestrial and cloud technologies to connect people, infrastructure, data and public services across the country.

The NIEEE disclosed this during its diaspora chapter’s monthly webinar series 1.4, held virtually via Zoom on Saturday, August 29, 2026, themed, “Building Nigeria’s Digital Nervous System: A Framework for Converging Satellite, Terrestrial, and Cloud Assets into a National Development Platform,” highlighting the need for the West African country to move beyond isolated digital infrastructure and develop an integrated communications ecosystem capable of collecting, transmitting, processing and responding to information in real time.

This was the thrust of the presentation by Abimbola A. Ogunjinmi, a Technology Infrastructure Solutions professional and Technical Secretary, Information and Communication Technology (ICT), NIEEE Diaspora Chapter, whose more than two decades of professional experience span telecommunications networks, digital infrastructure, data centres and large-scale technology deployment.

Ogunjinmi, a Senior Member of IEEE, has worked across different generations and layers of telecommunications infrastructure, including satellite, microwave, fibre, IP and optical networks, as well as 3G, 4G and 5G network deployments.

Engr. (Dr.) Felix A. Adegboye, National President & Chairman-in-Council, NIEEE, served as Chief Host of the webinar. The session featured the participation of the Host and Chairman, NIEEE Diaspora Chapter, Engr. Wale Olaluwoye, and was moderated by Engr. Ramat Yusuf for the NIEEE Diaspora Chapter.

According to Ogunjinmi, the concept of a digital nervous system draws an analogy with the human nervous system, where the brain, spinal cord and peripheral nerves work together to receive information, transmit it, process it and trigger appropriate responses.

He said Nigeria’s digital future depends on the seamless integration of satellite systems, fibre networks, data centres, cloud technologies, identity platforms, and public service infrastructure.

Meanwhile, the webinar also underscored the complementary roles of satellite, terrestrial networks and cloud computing in creating such an architecture.

“Satellite technology can provide connectivity to communities and locations where conventional terrestrial infrastructure is difficult or expensive to deploy,” Ogunjinmi explained.

“With Nigeria’s large geographical area and significant rural population, satellite networks can serve as an important layer for extending broadband access, supporting emergency communications and providing connectivity where fibre and mobile infrastructure remain limited.

“Terrestrial infrastructure, particularly fibre-optic networks, mobile networks, microwave and other high-capacity transmission systems, would form the backbone of the national digital ecosystem.”

The networks, Ogunjinmi added, could provide the capacity and low-latency connections required for cities, businesses, government institutions, schools, hospitals and other critical services.

He, however, stressed that the debate should not be framed as satellite versus fibre or terrestrial versus non-terrestrial networks, saying that technologies should complement one another.

Ogunjinmi’s argument also draws from his professional experience across different layers of telecommunications infrastructure.

Earlier in his career at Vodacom Business, he worked on enterprise connectivity involving satellite, microwave, fibre and wide-area networks for organisations across the financial, oil and gas, telecommunications and government sectors.

He subsequently worked with Etisalat Nigeria, where he was involved in the deployment and management of fibre-optic, microwave, IP and optical transmission infrastructure.

According to him, that experience reinforces the need to view different communications technologies as complementary components of an end-to-end architecture rather than competing infrastructure choices. “The objective should be convergence,” Ogunjinmi said.

“Fibre should be deployed where its capacity and economics make sense, terrestrial wireless technologies can extend connectivity, while satellite can provide reach, rapid deployment and resilience where geography, economics or infrastructure limitations make conventional deployment difficult.

“Nigeria’s digital future will depend not on one technology working alone, but on different technologies working together as one national system.”

Cloud technology, meanwhile, can provide the computing and data-processing layer required to turn connectivity into useful digital services.

Rather than merely moving information from one location to another, an integrated cloud environment can enable data storage, analytics, artificial intelligence, digital government services and real-time decision-making.

According to Ogunjinmi, the combination of the three technology layers therefore creates a layered system: satellites extend reach and resilience, terrestrial networks provide high-capacity connectivity, while cloud platforms and data centres provide intelligence, storage and computing power.

Experts have also increasingly described the future of communications as a convergence of terrestrial and non-terrestrial networks, with satellites, ground networks and intelligent computing working together rather than operating as separate systems.

“For Nigeria, such integration could have significant implications for sectors including healthcare, education, agriculture, financial services, transportation, security, disaster management and public administration,” Ogunjinmi said.

“In healthcare, for example, reliable connectivity could support telemedicine and the movement of medical information between rural facilities and specialist centres.

“In education, connected schools could gain access to digital learning resources irrespective of location. Farmers could benefit from satellite-enabled monitoring and data-driven agricultural services, while government agencies could use integrated data systems to improve planning and service delivery.

“The approach could also strengthen disaster response. When floods, storms or other emergencies disrupt terrestrial infrastructure, satellite connectivity can provide alternative communication links and help authorities maintain contact with affected communities.”

From Infrastructure Inventory to Citizen Value

However, according to Ogunjinmi, building Nigeria’s digital nervous system would require more than deploying new technology.

He said Nigeria already has significant digital infrastructure and is developing additional assets, but argued that the national conversation should increasingly move from simply counting infrastructure to determining how much economic and social value is being extracted from it.

The argument reflects Ogunjinmi’s experience with large-scale telecommunications deployment.
He later spent more than a decade with Nokia Networks and Alcatel-Lucent, working on major telecommunications and digital infrastructure programmes involving 3G, 4G and 5G networks, microwave radio systems, IP and optical networks, broadband infrastructure, data centres and thousands of telecommunications sites.

Drawing from that experience, he argued that infrastructure deployment should not be treated as the final measure of success.
“Nigeria must move from counting digital infrastructure to extracting value from digital infrastructure,” Ogunjinmi said.

“The fact that we have deployed a satellite, built a data centre, laid kilometres of fibre or connected a location should not, by itself, be the measure of success.
“The important questions should be: how much of that infrastructure is actually being used? What services does it enable? How many citizens benefit from it? And what economic and social value are we deriving from the investment?”

He pointed to NigComSat-1R, Project 774, Galaxy Backbone’s national fibre infrastructure, the Tier III data centre in Abuja, Tier IV data centre in Kano, terrestrial telecommunications networks and the proposed expansion of the national fibre backbone under Project BRIDGE as examples of existing and emerging infrastructure that could become components of a coordinated national digital system.
Ogunjinmi cited Project 774, designed to extend satellite connectivity across Nigeria’s 774 local government areas, as an example of how the focus could shift from infrastructure deployment to utilisation.

He argued that connectivity reaching a local government area should become a platform capable of supporting multiple public services rather than being regarded merely as another connected location.
“If we have connectivity in an LGA, can we use that same infrastructure to connect hospitals and primary healthcare centres, schools, National Population Commission offices, government agencies and other essential public institutions?” Ogunjinmi asked.

“Can a health facility in a remote community use that connectivity for telemedicine? Can a school access digital learning resources? Can an NPC office securely transmit information? Can citizens access government services without travelling long distances? Can a hospital in a rural community register a newborn with the National Population Commission (NPC) at birth without requiring the parents to visit an NPC office?”
“That is how we should begin measuring the value of infrastructure.” He said the same principle should apply to Nigeria’s government-owned data-centre infrastructure, including Galaxy Backbone’s Tier III data centre in Abuja and Tier IV data centre in Kano.

According to Ogunjinmi, the availability of Tier III and Tier IV facilities represents an important national asset, particularly as Nigeria pursues greater digital and data sovereignty.
However, he argued that the existence or certification of a data centre should not be treated as the final objective. “A Tier III or Tier IV data centre is an important national asset, but the tier classification is not the end objective,” he said.

“The question is: what services are running from that infrastructure? How much of the available capacity is being utilised? How many government institutions are using it? How resiliently are those services being delivered? And ultimately, how does that infrastructure improve the experience of the Nigerian citizen?”
According to him, hospitals, schools, population and identity services, emergency-response institutions, ministries, departments and agencies could increasingly consume shared connectivity, computing, storage, cybersecurity and disaster-recovery capabilities rather than building isolated digital systems.

He said this illustrates the central idea behind the proposed national digital nervous system, where satellite, fibre, mobile networks, data centres and cloud platforms function as interconnected layers rather than independent infrastructure islands.
“Imagine the satellite providing reach to a remote community, terrestrial fibre carrying high-capacity traffic where available, government data centres securely hosting the applications and information, and hospitals, schools and government offices consuming those services through one resilient architecture,” Ogunjinmi said.
“That is what I mean by a digital nervous system.”

Project BRIDGE and ‘Dig Once’

Ogunjinmi also cited the Federal Government’s Building Resilient Digital Infrastructure for Growth, Project BRIDGE, as an opportunity to significantly strengthen Nigeria’s terrestrial digital backbone.
The initiative envisages about 90,000 kilometres of new fibre infrastructure intended to significantly expand the country’s national fibre network and extend broadband connectivity across the country.

Ogunjinmi argued that the value of such an investment should ultimately be measured not merely in kilometres of fibre deployed but in the businesses, communities, schools, healthcare facilities and public services enabled by the infrastructure.
He also advocated a “Dig Once” approach to infrastructure development, arguing that telecommunications infrastructure should be incorporated into road construction, rail development, electricity infrastructure and new real-estate developments from the planning stage.

Such coordination, he said, could reduce repeated civil works, right-of-way challenges, deployment costs and accidental fibre cuts while creating infrastructure corridors capable of accommodating Nigeria’s future digital requirements.
“We should not celebrate kilometres of fibre simply because they have been laid, VSAT terminals simply because they have been installed, satellites simply because they have been launched or data centres simply because they have been commissioned,” he said.

“We should measure the citizens, schools, hospitals, businesses and government services that become more accessible, productive and resilient because those investments exist.”

CBN Data Localisation Deadline

Ogunjinmi, who holds degrees in Electronic and Electrical Engineering, Business Administration and Information and Telecommunication Systems from institutions in Nigeria, the United Kingdom and the United States, and whose academic and research work spans telecommunications, cybersecurity, artificial intelligence and critical digital infrastructure, urged the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to exercise caution over the January 1, 2027 implementation deadline and to re-evaluate its feasibility against the readiness of Nigeria’s data-centre and digital infrastructure ecosystem.
While describing the policy direction as a positive step towards strengthening Nigeria’s data sovereignty, he argued that its implementation should not simply be viewed as a question of where data is physically stored, but as part of the broader architecture of national data sovereignty, cybersecurity and infrastructure resilience.

“The policy direction is good, and there is a strong case for Nigeria to have greater control over its critical data,” Ogunjinmi said.
“But before the January 1 deadline, we need to satisfy ourselves that the infrastructure available locally can provide the level of resilience, data security, availability and operational assurance that financial institutions currently obtain from the offshore and hyperscale environments where critical workloads may presently be hosted.”

He noted that highly resilient digital infrastructure can involve multiple geographically separated data centres, interconnected through multiple physically diverse network paths, alongside redundant power systems, backup infrastructure, disaster-recovery environments and failover mechanisms.
According to him, the objective is to ensure that the failure of a server, network path, data centre or even an entire geographic location does not necessarily result in disruption to critical services.

“If one data centre becomes unavailable, where does the workload go?” Ogunjinmi asked.
“If a fibre route is cut, do we have another physically diverse path? If an entire facility becomes unavailable, can another site continue providing the service with minimal disruption?

“For critical financial workloads, these are questions that should be answered as part of our readiness assessment.”
He also raised the issue of how data-bearing equipment is managed throughout its lifecycle, arguing that data security does not end with locating a server within Nigeria.

Ogunjinmi noted that leading hyperscale environments can operate stringent controls over failed storage devices and other data-bearing equipment, including secure sanitisation and, where required, physical destruction to prevent sensitive information from leaving controlled environments.
“If a storage device containing sensitive financial data fails, what happens to that device?” he asked.

“Who takes custody of it? Can it be taken outside the facility for repair? How is the information sanitised? Is the device physically destroyed where required? Who verifies the process, and where is the audit trail?
“These may appear like operational questions, but they become national security and data-sovereignty questions when we are talking about critical financial information.”

According to Ogunjinmi, data residency should therefore not automatically be equated with data sovereignty.
He said physically locating information within Nigeria addresses one dimension of sovereignty, but policymakers must also consider who controls the infrastructure, who can access the data, who controls encryption keys, where backups reside, how equipment containing sensitive data is maintained and disposed of, and whether the entire lifecycle can be independently audited.

He therefore called for a comprehensive assessment of Nigeria’s data-centre and cloud ecosystem ahead of the deadline and, where the assessment identifies material gaps, a reconsideration of the implementation timeline to allow those gaps to be addressed.
According to Ogunjinmi, the objective is not to abandon or weaken the localisation policy, but to ensure that institutions are not compelled to migrate critical financial workloads from highly resilient environments into infrastructure that may not yet provide comparable levels of security, availability and operational resilience.

“Data localisation is an important objective, but localisation without equivalent resilience and security could simply exchange one category of risk for another,” Ogunjinmi said. 
“Nigeria’s data-sovereignty ambitions must be matched by infrastructure capable of supporting them.”
NigComSat-1R Replacement

Ogunjinmi also drew attention to the lifecycle of NigComSat-1R, Nigeria’s geostationary communications satellite.
He noted that the satellite, launched in December 2011 with an original design life of about 15 years, is reaching the end of its original design-life window.
According to him, reaching the end of a satellite’s design life does not necessarily mean that it will suddenly stop functioning, but it makes replacement and continuity planning increasingly important.

“NigComSat-1R reaching its design-life window does not mean the satellite suddenly switches off,” Ogunjinmi said.
“It may continue to operate beyond its original design life, but as an infrastructure asset ages, questions around performance, reliability and continuity become increasingly important.

“We should therefore not wait for significant degradation or failure before ensuring that replacement capacity is available.”
He noted that NigComSat-1R represented an investment of about $250 million when it was launched in 2011, adding that replacing such an asset today could require substantially greater investment given changes in technology, satellite capability and costs.

Ogunjinmi, however, argued that the scale of the required investment should not prevent the government from developing a sustainable financing and operating model for the next generation of Nigeria’s communications satellites.
“Government needs to find a workable model that ensures Nigeria continues to maintain sovereign communications satellite capability in orbit,” he said.

He also stressed the strategic importance of protecting Nigeria’s orbital and spectrum resources coordinated through the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), warning that such resources should not be taken for granted.
“This is not only about replacing a satellite,” Ogunjinmi said. “It is also about continuity of national capability and ensuring that Nigeria continues to make effective use of the orbital and spectrum resources available to it.”

He said sovereign satellite capability remains important to Nigeria’s digital infrastructure because satellite connectivity can support broadband, government communications, emergency response, broadcasting and connectivity to locations where terrestrial infrastructure is unavailable or disrupted.
According to him, it could also serve as an important resilience layer within the proposed national digital nervous system, providing alternative connectivity when terrestrial fibre or other communications infrastructure is disrupted.

Ogunjinmi therefore called for urgency in Nigeria’s replacement-satellite programme to avoid a potential gap in sovereign satellite capability.

MDAs Should Utilise Government-Owned Infrastructure

Against this background, Ogunjinmi also questioned the level of utilisation of some government-owned digital assets and called for greater use of infrastructure operated by Galaxy Backbone Limited and NIGCOMSAT.
He argued that it would be contradictory for government to invest substantial public resources in satellite capacity, fibre networks, Tier III and Tier IV data centres, cloud platforms and other shared digital infrastructure while ministries, departments and agencies procure equivalent services elsewhere where government-owned infrastructure is technically capable of meeting their requirements.

“Government cannot invest substantially in national digital infrastructure and at the same time allow that infrastructure to remain underutilised while its own institutions purchase equivalent capacity elsewhere,” Ogunjinmi said.
“If we have invested taxpayers’ resources in building these platforms, government should be one of their anchor customers.”

He said government institutions should first determine whether existing sovereign infrastructure can satisfy their technical requirements before seeking equivalent services elsewhere.
“The first question should be: can our sovereign infrastructure meet this requirement?” he said.

“Where it can, government institutions should use it. Where it cannot, let us identify the capability gap, document it and invest in fixing it.”
Ogunjinmi, however, stressed that prioritising government-owned infrastructure should not mean accepting inferior service.

He said providers such as Galaxy Backbone and NIGCOMSAT must themselves demonstrate appropriate levels of availability, cybersecurity, capacity, resilience and service quality.
According to him, greater utilisation would improve the economic return on public investment while generating operational experience, demand and revenue that could enable government-owned infrastructure providers to continually strengthen their capabilities.

The approach, he said, would also help government identify precisely where its infrastructure falls short rather than continually investing in new assets without sufficiently measuring the utilisation and performance of those already deployed.
Integration Remains the ChallengeOgunjinmi said building Nigeria’s digital nervous system would ultimately demand interoperability, cybersecurity, reliable electricity, adequate broadband infrastructure, skilled manpower, effective regulation and sustained investment.

The challenge, he said, is to create an architecture in which different networks and platforms communicate seamlessly while ensuring that citizens’ data and critical national infrastructure remain secure.
NIEEE promotes professional competence through the design and development of sustainable electrical and electronic engineering solutions for the benefit of society and the environment. 

Against this background, Ogunjinmi said the Diaspora Chapter webinar is particularly significant because engineers and technology professionals in Nigeria and the diaspora are well positioned to contribute technical expertise, global experience and innovative solutions to the country’s digital infrastructure challenges.
Ultimately, the vision of a Nigerian digital nervous system, he said, is about creating infrastructure that does not merely connect devices but connects people, institutions, machines and information in ways that allow the country to sense challenges, process information and respond faster.

He pointed out that with the right combination of satellite, terrestrial and cloud technologies, supported by resilient data centres, cybersecurity, reliable power, interoperability and appropriate governance, Nigeria could move towards a more connected, intelligent and resilient digital economy.
The message from the webinar is clear: Nigeria’s digital future will depend not on one technology working alone, but on different technologies working together as one national system.

“Ultimately, the success of that system should not be measured by the infrastructure we can count, but by the value we can extract from it to improve the lives of Nigerian citizens,” Ogunjinmi said.
Ogunjinmi is a Senior Member of IEEE and a Fellow of the Institute of Management Consultants. He is an alumnus of Ladoke Akintola University of Technology, Nigeria; the University of Strathclyde, United Kingdom; and Ohio University, United States.

His professional and research interests focus on the convergence of telecommunications, cybersecurity, artificial intelligence and critical digital infrastructure, and how these technologies can be integrated to address real-world development challenges.