The Digital Bridge Institute has opened a five-day EU-backed workshop in Abuja that trains regulators and telecom professionals on how to plan, deploy and govern fibre-optic networks, marking the first in-person course delivered under its new alliance with the International Telecommunication Union. David Daser, DBI's president and CEO, told participants on Monday that the institute now hosts both the ITU Academy Training Centre and the Digital Transformation Centre in Nigeria, platforms that will run similar programmes to close the country's broadband gap and accelerate 5G readiness. The course, themed "Strategic Fibre Optics Infrastructure Deployment and Regulatory Management," covers national broadband strategy, infrastructure sharing, risk management and stakeholder engagement, and ends with participants able to design their own fibre projects and policy frameworks. Ghazi Mabrouk, capacity and skills development officer at ITU, said DBI is one of 14 global academic hubs through which the union offers more than 150 digital courses annually, adding that the diversity of attendees from government, regulators and industry will enrich peer learning.
The real story is not another training event; it is that Nigeria has quietly become the ITU's regional factory for fibre-engineering talent, giving Abuja soft power over the cables that will soon carry West Africa's 5G traffic and smart-city data. Hosting one of only fourteen ITU academies worldwide positions Nigerian civil servants—not multinationals—as the first filter for who gets spectrum, rights-of-way and infrastructure-sharing deals across the sub-region.
Globally, the contest for control of next-generation internet backbones is shifting from submarine cables to national fibre networks, and the ITU is ensuring its standards—not those of the EU or China—dominate African backbones by training the regulators who write the rules. For Nigeria, the payoff is double: thousands of kilometres of new fibre can finally push broadband penetration above 50 per cent, while Nigerian consultants export their new-found expertise to Ghana, Senegal and Côte d'Ivoire under the same ITU badge.
Watch for a draft "West African Fibre Code" to emerge from Abuja within twelve months; once Nigerian-trained regulators harmonise trenching rules, rights-of-way fees and infrastructure-sharing templates across ECOWAS, the region will become a single, cheaper market for 5G builders—and Nigeria will sit at the centre of the cable map.
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