NITDA Boss: Research shows transition to IPV6 will enable Nigeria tap from $10 trillion global market
By Dele Ogbodo
The Minister of Communications, Innovation and Digital Economy, Dr. Bosun Tijani, on Tuesday expressed Nigeria’s preparedness to adopt the latest global Internet Protocol Version-6 (IPV6) with capability to address all forms of cyber-insecurity and crimes in its cyber-space.
Fielding questions from journalists at the sideline of users of internet across boards, in Abuja, he said Nigeria’s migration from IPV4.3 to IPV6 signpost good news for the country because of the capability of he new infrastructure to fasttrack development in smart agriculture, education, medicine and businesses.
He said: “Aside the use of internet there are other uses which is the fact that connectivity is beautiful you get so many things from it like communicate with a lot of people and businesses and do a lot with like online banking etc etc.”
However, he underscored that there are significant technology behind it to ensure that this is seamlessly done and so the IPV6 is the latest protocol that is responsible for ensuring that the transaction that is going through online can allow authorities to identify in this sense not just for security alone but ensuring that the bad people are not using these system inappropriately and so this is the standardization all over the world.
Tijani, said: “Today, only a few countries in the world have this latest version of infrastructure… U.S, France, Saudi Arabia, UAE and just a few others are presently on IPV6.
“Nigeria is one of the first countries in Africa to migrate from version IPV4 to IPV6, which means that providers can provide better services to you and they can ensure that their systems and yours are not easily hack-able and can also ensure that the services that they provide to you are all readily available by identifying the traffic when and where it is coming from.”
These are technicalities of the system, so this is a fantastic move from
He commended the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) for its unquantified efforts and initiative in fast tracking the infrastructure, adding, NITDA is doing fantastic job and move in ensuring that the transition is brought to Nigeria and in ensuring that Nigeria is multiple steps ahead of other countries in the continent.
“We already have some of our companies that are operating on IPV6, the Minister would like to see the same standard for every critical service provider within the digital economy space.”
On curtailing cyber-crimes, he explained further: “You can’t really do cyber-security if you can’t track the sources of the traffic because the hackers or scammers are hiding under some spaces on the internet traffic to do some damage and attack but with IPV6 capability it improves the country’s capability in terms of being able to track where people are coming from and what people are doing on it and as such as ensuring that cyber space is safe.”
While also fielding questions, the DG, NITDA, Mr. Kashifu Inuwa, said migrating the new protocol does not really require humongous finance and investment, adding: “In terms of investment, it is not that it requires that huge investment because some of our devices today are IPV6 compatible, so the compatibility is already there but what is lacking is the backward compatibility.
“For example, if you have an IPV4 device it cannot access an IPV6 device, however most of the new devices are already IPV6 compatible so it is easy for us in Nigeria.
“So, what we need is strategy and policy direction because sometimes the operators don’t like that because it requires them a lot of configuration and in most of these, it is not just the devices but doing that will open up new market for us.”
The DG asserted that according to research, adoption of IPV6 will open up over $10 trillion market globally and so looking at our population in Nigeria we can create a lot of activities from it.
He added: “In doing that also, it will help us solving our cyber-security challenge because averagely today in Africa every person has 1.5 devices and here in Nigeria most of us have about 2 devices like mobile phones and laptops like other devices and more that are connected to internet.
“Because of the scarcity of IPV6, all these devices are masked and therefore they cannot be directly identified but with IPV6 it means that every person in the world can have billions of internet protocol devices available to use and so doing that will address our cybersecurity challenge.”
Inuwa, said this paper presentation on the infrastructure is to spur conversation and awareness so that people can embrace the IPV6 infrastructure, explaining that as a nation it has become overarching to fine-tune a roadmap and strategy to migrate from IPV4 to IPV6 which will lead to Nigeria’s economic activities and boom.
Additionally, the IPV6, will make Nigeria take control and ownership of its cyberspace.
