By Chimezie Godfrey
The Federal Government has commenced stakeholder consultations on the proposed Ministerial Advisory Council for Cybersecurity Coordination, with top officials warning that Nigeria’s expanding digital economy now faces a more complex wave of cyber risks driven by artificial intelligence, rising connectivity and deeper reliance on digital infrastructure.
The first stakeholder session took place in Abuja on Wednesday, bringing together actors from government and the private sector to discuss the structure, focus and expected mandate of the council, which is intended to provide a platform for information sharing, coordinated readiness and policy alignment across the country’s digital ecosystem. The ministry had announced earlier in April that the council would serve as a collaborative national mechanism for collective cyber resilience.
Minister of Communications, Innovation and Digital Economy, Dr Bosun Tijani, said the gathering was the first of what could be two or three rounds of engagement before the council is formally constituted. He said government wanted broad input from stakeholders so that the body would emerge as a practical and active mechanism rather than a symbolic structure.
“This is meant to be the first stakeholder engagement, to help us understand how we can start to collectively work together to move our country forward,” he said. “My goal is to see whether we can have at least two to three stakeholder engagements before we actually inaugurate or constitute this advisory council.”
Tijani said the case for such a platform had become stronger because Nigeria’s digital growth was accelerating. He pointed to improvements in internet access, mobile connectivity and telecommunications coverage, but noted that broadband penetration remained lower than desired, making the need for meaningful digital access still a work in progress.
He said, “Nigeria has made significant progress. We don’t talk about this enough,” adding that the gains recorded since telecom liberalisation should be recognised alongside the remaining infrastructure gap. According to him, “the biggest challenge for us as a country is still the fact that broadband penetration, which is really where you find meaningful access, is still at about 45 per cent.”
The minister said the current administration’s larger economic ambition was tied to digital infrastructure, insisting that no country could build a serious modern economy without meaningful connectivity. “The reality is that the world we live in today, it is nearly impossible to actually build a $1 trillion economy, or any serious economy for that matter, without ubiquitous connectivity,” he said.
He disclosed that Nigeria was investing in fibre expansion, new telecom towers and satellite upgrades as part of efforts to close connectivity gaps across states and rural communities. Recent ministry and NITDA materials have also highlighted fibre deployment, satellite upgrades and broader public digital infrastructure as key building blocks of the government’s digital economy strategy.
But Tijani said digital expansion also meant greater exposure to cyberattacks. “The stronger your digital economy becomes, the more cyber attacks you’re going to witness,” he said. He urged stakeholders to understand that the issue before them was not whether cyber threats would emerge, but whether the country had the capacity to respond in a coordinated way.
“The question is whether Nigeria is prepared to respond with organized, coordinated national resilience,” he said. “That solution is not going to be a largely militarized approach. It has to be a collaboration.”
He explained that the proposed council would help bring different actors into one trusted framework to identify risks earlier, align policy responses and improve readiness. “This is not meant to duplicate any of the things that are happening,” he said. “This is meant to empower us and give us a platform for all of us to come together.”
NITDA Director-General/CEO, Kashifu Inuwa Abdullahi, said the urgency of the initiative lay in the fact that cybersecurity had changed dramatically in the era of artificial intelligence. His current title is listed by NITDA.
“There will never be a more perfect time to have this council than now, because cybersecurity in the age of AI is a different animal,” Inuwa said. He noted that AI was not only transforming productivity and innovation, but also changing how cyber threats are created, delivered and scaled.
According to him, “the attack today could be attack on AI or attack by AI,” explaining that organisations are increasingly deploying AI agents internally, which could become dangerous if manipulated or hijacked. He also said attackers now have access to more advanced tools that make cyber intrusions faster, more adaptive and harder to detect.
“Today we are experiencing zero-click phishing attacks. We have AI-generated malware that is becoming smarter and polymorphic, which is very difficult to even identify,” he said. “And ransomware today, we have AI-automated ransomware, AI systems that will take your system, even negotiate the ransom.”
Inuwa added that deepfakes and AI-enabled social engineering were becoming major concerns because they undermine confidence in audio, video and virtual communication channels. “We are also having sophisticated AI social engineering,” he said. “The deepfakes that we can hardly detect or identify, to differentiate between AI-generated audio, video and so on and the real one.”
He maintained that cyber defence could no longer be handled by single organisations acting independently. “It’s not something we can address in isolation,” he said. “The only way is for us to work and deepen the synergy between government and private sector.”
Inuwa said the logic was simple: “No one will be protected in isolation. We are as strong as our weakest link.” He referred to recent incidents in which one institution became an entry point into wider systems, saying this showed how interconnected the digital environment had become.
Also speaking, the Executive Director, Digital Exploration and Technical Services, Galaxy Backbone Limited, Olumbe Akinkugbe, said the organisation’s role in the proposed framework would be shaped by its existing responsibility as shared ICT infrastructure provider to federal Ministries, Departments and Agencies. Public reports have recently referenced him in that role.
He said Galaxy Backbone already supports many government platforms and tools through a Security Operations Centre that manages and monitors critical services used by MDAs. “All the ICT services that are normally supposed to be procured by the various MDAs actually are being provided by Galaxy Backbone,” he said.
On infrastructure protection, Akinkugbe said the company relies on collaboration with security institutions, including the Office of the National Security Adviser, the DSS and the Armed Forces, especially because many of the systems in question now fall under critical national infrastructure.
“Galaxy Backbone is not a security services organization,” he said, “so for us to be able to achieve that, we work extensively with the security services.” He said security must also include internal controls, particularly around identity, authentication and access to sensitive systems.
“Your first line of defence is usually your people,” he said. “It’s important that we know who they are, they’re properly identified, and we’re also able to track and manage them.”
Tijani told participants that the consultation process would remain open and that suggestions from stakeholders would influence the final shape of the council. He said government wanted the platform to be broad, active and useful, not limited to a narrow circle.
“We’re not looking for just five, 10 elite groups,” he said. “I think this is going to be an active, large council.”
He added that all submissions from the session would help shape the final framework. “Everything you’re going to share in this room today will be documented and will shape the way in which we put the council together,” he said.
What do you think about this?
Drop your opinion in the comment section.
FOLLOW US & Share this with someone who needs to see this.
