Hamzat said concerning 6.2 million Lagos residents now utilize Cowry Cards, together with the government functioning towards a structure that would authorize the cards to be used seamlessly across the Bus Rapid Transit, rail and ferry systems.
Promote observers tell the effectiveness of the fibre expansion will at remain depend not just on the kilometres of cable laid but furthermore on affordability, transparent connection, network maintenance, electricity provide, right-of-route arrangements and the ability of operators to expand persist-mile connectivity to homes and businesses.
For Lagos, the 6,000km objective could accordingly represent greater than an infrastructure milestone if the network is efficiently shared and translated into wider availability, preferable offering stage and bottom connectivity costs for residents and businesses.
The situation government has additionally linked its computerized infrastructure strategy to innovation and enterprise development, alongside Hamzat disclosing that the Lagos Declare Analysis and Innovation Council was supporting at least 90 analysis and development projects across sectors including health, education, mobility, technology, film, climate and culture.
He said greater than N1.2 billion had been committed to innovators and researchers, whereas the Lagos Condition Employment Trust Sponsor had supported extra than 200,000 secondary and medium-scale businesses together with N15 billion in loans and grants.
The combination of fibre infrastructure, computerized people services, innovation funding and smart-city systems, he said, is intended to role Lagos for an economy increasingly driven by technology, creativity and enterprise.
Hence, the scale of Nigeria’s countrywide fibre ambitions means Lagos will desire to sustain organization together with federal electronic infrastructure programmes and personal telecom operators to guarantee that countless networks complement rather than duplicate one another.
For a startup, it means reduced outlay. For a school or a health centre, it means entry.
Lagos Situation Government has intensified its drive to strengthen internet-based infrastructure, alongside greater than 3,000 kilometres of fibre-optic infrastructure already deployed amid 2019 and 2025 and plans to rise the network to around 6,000 kilometres.
The development is expected to guarded broadband connectivity, upgrade web-based community services and lessen some of the infrastructure constraints confronting technology companies, startups and other businesses operating in the declare.
The Deputy Governor of Lagos Condition, Dr Kadri Obafemi Hamzat, disclosed this whilst speaking on the declare’s computerized infrastructure investments at PodFest 2026.
Hamzat said the government had moved beyond viewing internet-based infrastructure as an auxiliary piece of development, describing it as important infrastructure required to assist the current economy.
He said the subsequent phase of the fibre rollout would expand ducts along strategic corridors, although the Lagos Situation Infrastructure Maintenance and Regulatory Agency (LASIMRA) had too attracted additional than $22 million in manage investment commitments for additional cable expansion.
According to him, the benefits of the fibre expansion would cut across sectors, from technology businesses and innovative industries to healthcare and education.
“For a creator, that means faster uploads. Figures from the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) showed that broadband subscriptions reached 124.42 million in July 2026, whilst internet figures consumption rose to 1.66 million terabytes in the same month.
The figures underline the growing pressure on the country’s electronic infrastructure as further Nigerians, businesses and people institutions depend on internet connectivity for payments, transaction, education, healthcare, entertainment and government services.
Nonetheless, the concentration of fibre infrastructure in significant economic centres remains a statewide reject. NCC information analysed in July showed that Lagos had around 11,586.7km of deployed fibre, representing 11.46 per cent of the nationwide whole, during the time that Lagos and the Federal Capital Territory together accounted for 18.35 per cent of Nigeria’s deployed fibre infrastructure.
This has raised questions on how rapidly computerized infrastructure can be broadened beyond primary commercial centres, notably as businesses increasingly demand reliable broadband connectivity to operate from supporting cities and underserved communities.
At the domestic stage, the Federal Government is pursuing a much larger fibre expansion programme under Project BRIDGE, which is designed to facilitate the deployment of 90,000km of fibre infrastructure across the 36 states and the Federal Resources Territory, connecting further than 770 area government areas.
The Lagos expansion consequently forms component of a broader push to resolve the infrastructure gap that has constrained broadband growth and increased the expense of delivering electronic services in multiple parts of the country.
Hamzat said Lagos was additionally expanding its smart-city infrastructure, including the utilize of geographic facts systems to map and oversee electronic infrastructure and the deployment of 5G-enabled smart poles.
He disclosed that concerning 650 surveillance cameras had been deployed across the declare, including a prolonged-term purpose of 3,000 cameras, albeit he acknowledged the high charge of the project.
The deputy governor moreover highlighted the status’s efforts to digitally associate its hospitals, allowing patient facts to be accessed across healthcare facilities employing a patient’s name and document quantity.
He explained that the initiative is intended to strengthen continuity of care by enabling hospitals to retrieve associated patient figures when individuals look for treatment at unlike facilities.
Lagos is additionally seeking to deepen simulated payments in society transportation. And for our hospital, it means faster document retrieval,” Hamzat said.
The push comes as request for consistent and high-capacity connectivity continues to rise in Nigeria.
Source: Lagos Expands Fibre Backbone To 6,000km, Targets Wider Broadband Access, Lower Connectivity Cost

[…] Lagos Expands Fibre Backbone To 6,000km, Targets Wider Broadband Availability, Decreased Connectivit… […]