THE Federal Government has reviewed delivery time for Nigeria’s $2 billion National Fibre Network Project from five years to three years.
   
The Minister of Communications, Innovation and Digital Economy, Dr. Bosun Tijani disclosed this.
   
The project popularly known as Project BRIDGE national fibre optic rollout, target deployment of a 90,000 km backbone and expand total network infrastructure to 125,000 km, connecting 40 million people who remain without Internet access in the country.
   
Tijani, speaking at Semafor’s ‘The Next 3 Billion’ event in New York, at the ongoing 81st UNGA, said that the 90,000-kilometre fibre network is now expected to be completed within three years.
   
The acceleration means Nigeria is seeking to build one of the largest expansions of fibre infrastructure on the continent in a substantially shorter period than originally envisaged.
   
The World Bank has committed $500 million to BRIDGE, while the African Development Bank approved another $200 million in April 2026.
   
The project is being structured around a special purpose vehicle intended to attract private capital alongside development-finance funding.
   
The scale of the rollout is significant because Nigeria’s connectivity problem is no longer simply a question of whether a mobile signal reaches a location.
   
The Federal Government is increasingly focused on what Tijani described as “meaningful connectivity”, reliable, high-speed access that enables people and businesses to use digital services productively.
   
“What we do not have is meaningful connectivity, the sort of connectivity that you truly need to be able to benefit from the sort of innovation that we’re seeing,” Tijani said at the New York event.
   
Project BRIDGE is intended to provide wholesale, open-access fibre infrastructure that telecom operators, internet service providers and other digital businesses can use to extend services into underserved markets.
   
Checks showed that physical cable laying and ground construction are slated to begin in late 2026 (Q3/Q4). Initial duration is five (2026 to 2030).
 
As such, going by Tijani’s declaration and review, Project BRIDGE is expected to be delivered by 2028 into early 2029.