World Bank Group Managing Director and Chief Financial Officer, Anshula Kant, on Wednesday, confirmed the bank’s support for Nigeria’s plan to lay a 90,000km national fibre-optic backbone, one of the largest of such projects in the world.
She also praised what she called President Bola Tinubu’s “ambitious macro-economic reforms.”
“We are working very, very closely together with this,” Kant told journalists after talks with Tinubu at the Aso Rock Villa.
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Kant, who was accompanied by the Country Manager of World Bank Group, Taimur Samad, said, “We have a very large programme with Nigeria and, like the Minister (of Communications, Innovation and Digital Economy) was saying, one of the biggest upcoming, forthcoming projects will be in the digital space, providing digital, you know, broadband access across the country.
“And then we have projects in the agribusiness. We have projects in the agribusiness space. We have projects in the energy space. We have projects in the social protection, education, health space.”
She described Nigeria as a “very, very valuable and important partner” for the World Bank Group, congratulating the country and the President for “embarking on such ambitious reforms and staying the course.”
“They are not easy to do, but already you can see the big improvements and forward momentum that is taking place in Nigeria,” Kant stated.
She said the World Bank Group has embarked on a mission to eradicate poverty on a livable planet, which involves accelerating growth and creating better jobs for young people.
“Access to energy, access to digital services, higher productivity in agriculture, better health and education, these are our shared priorities with Nigeria,” she stated.
Kant’s visit, which is her first to Abuja since Tinubu assumed office in May 2023, came as the administration tries to stabilise the naira, curb inflation and court investment after scrapping fuel subsidies and unifying exchange rates.
The World Bank already runs a $9bn portfolio in Africa’s biggest economy, spanning power, agriculture and social protection.
Meanwhile, the Finance Minister and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Wale Edun, said Kant’s delegation discussed “the overall partnership” and, in particular, the fibre rollout, which will expand Nigeria’s backbone from 35,000km to 125,000km and is being structured as a self-financing special-purpose vehicle.
“It is geared at the sector which will make use of the facility, pay for it and therefore make the project highly viable,” Edun told reporters.
The Minister of Communications, Innovation and Digital Economy, Bosun Tijani, called the scheme “once-and-for-all” infrastructure that will ring every geopolitical zone and feed fibre “into homes, schools and hospitals.”
He said the Federal Government will take a minority stake while the private sector supplies 51 per cent of funding; the World Bank and other development financiers are expected to inject at least $500m.
“We can’t become smarter with agriculture, scale education or deliver modern healthcare without good connectivity.
“There are few investments that can add 1.35 percentage points to GDP for each 10 per cent jump in broadband quality,” Tijani said, adding that digging should start by year-end once detailed route maps are published.
According to him, presidential backing secured Federal Executive Council approval for a 90,000km national fibre-optic backbone.
Nigerians often complain about poor connectivity, but service quality is determined by the underlying infrastructure, he noted.
He said FG, therefore, intends to “fix this once and for all,” delivering fibre-based links to homes, offices, schools and hospitals.
Tijani outlined a ring design that covers every geopolitical zone and fills the gaps in each state. Once complete, he said, fibre will reach local neighbourhoods.
He noted that the World Bank is helping structure a special-purpose vehicle into which the government will invest alongside private partners, who will supply 51 per cent of the total funding.
Managed independently of government, the entity will recoup costs through user fees, making the project self-financing rather than loan-driven.
He described the rollout as an investment that “will keep giving,” because connectivity now underpins all sectors.
Nigeria’s creative economy, precision agriculture, education and healthcare cannot scale without robust broadband, he argued.
The minister said with design work finished and a public route map due within two months, ground-breaking could begin before 2025 ends.
The World Bank’s existing Nigeria programme includes $1.5bn for power-sector recovery, $700m for adolescent girls’ education and $500m for rural roads.
Kant said future projects will target agribusiness value chains and renewable energy alongside broadband.
The multilateral lender is also said to be co-designing a concessional-finance window for small and medium enterprises.
