Prof Muhammad Bello Abubakar- Chief Executive of Galaxy Backbone (GBB), custodian of the Nigerian government’s ICT infrastructure and shared services provider-is a critical thinker with the ability to untie knotty situations. His vision is to make GBB and its ICT infrastructure become the “new goldmine as oil and gas are now.” Additional to this revenue angle is the need to protect our infant digital industries in the e-commerce sector such as e-commerce companies like Jumia and Konga and others.
A man with strong leadership and management skills, Prof Abubakar is man who understands the power of partnerships at achieving goals. This he brews at the GBB now to give the agency more heft, and by extension the Nigerian economy.
“Galaxy Backbone is committed to looking for innovative ways to collaborate with other ICT companies. We are not here to compete, but to enable our partners and customers achieve more through the digital infrastructure services we offer them”. Says Abubakar.
He is a game changer who has brought much transformation into the Nigerian digital space and expanded opportunities for business to thrive as far as the raft of what have been undertaken by GBB is concerned. And his being at the helm of this agency of the Federal Ministry of Communications and Digital Economy has been a blessing to Nigeria. as he has breathed efficiency and global reckoning for the government’s technology company.
The Federal Government set up Galaxy Backbone in 2006. It is a technology company set up to help organizations in government utilize ICT better and in a more productive manner in such a way that the benefits and opportunities available in adopting technology is effectively utilized. This responsibility is not only meant for organizations in Abuja but for the whole of the country. So, it was given the mandate and responsibility of actualizing the National Information Communications Technology Infrastructure Backbone (NICTIB) project of the federal government aimed at connecting the 36 states of the country with high-speed fibre optic cables that will create job opportunities across the country and improve the standard of living of the people.
In that wise, it provides to public and private organizations mainly Internet connectivity for video conferencing, local and wide area networks (LANs and WANs), hosting services and cyber security. It also provides services in project management, capacity building and related consultancy services. GBB leverages its own infrastructure and people spread across the country to provide these services to organizations in both public and private sectors.
Prof Abubakar resumed office in January 2020 as the Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer of Galaxy Backbone (GBB). A professor of Petroleum Geosciences with more than twenty years experience spanning academia, oil and gas exploration research, development and innovation institutions. He is a strategic thinker with strong leadership and management skills. He has an impressive exposure to global best practice in the field of energy.
Before his appointment as MD/CE of GBB he was the Executive Director and a Principal start-up for the establishment and development of the National Centre for Petroleum Research and Development of the Energy Commission of Nigeria, where he spearheaded a cutting edge research that developed the conceptual exploration model deployed in the successful oil and gas exploration in the frontier basin of the Northeast Nigeria. He was also a Research Consultant to NNPC on oil and gas exploration. His ICT training background in high end Cisco Academy Networking certification no doubt has equipped him for the leadership of the GBB. Thus he is well suited to head an agency like the GBB.
This professor of Petroleum Geosciences is a model of the fact the we need someone with critical thinking and the ability to navigate our public service through the stormy waters of this century to be at the helm of any central agency if there are ever going to be a chance to move forward.
He is an example of what heads of institutions and agencies of government should now be doing in their policy roles. These are to identify the needs and the problems in the public and come up with the appropriate policy actions to address these things.
As soon as he settled in office, Abubakar began work to implement the two policy frameworks guiding the mandate of the agency. The first is the National Digital Economy Policy and Strategy, launched in November 2019. The second is the Nigeria National Broadband Plan of 2020-2025, launched in March 2020. Both were launched for the Federal Ministry of Communications and Digital Economy by President Muhammadu Buhari. The twin policies were coupled to accelerate growth and modernization of the Nigerian economy.
The two policies provided the framework for digital-led growth strategy for the Nigerian economy.GBB is currently preoccupied with operating an IT-based network that provides network connectivity to MDAs of government, saving government cost of maintenance and securing and protecting its data.
Apart from doing these, Prof Abubakar is at the forefront of taking the GBB to a global reckoning where it can be the primary competitor to all ICT providers in Nigeria and the West Africa sub region, in the long run, for he envisions GBB and its ICT infrastructure become “the new goldmine as oil and gas are now.”
He is also passionate about protecting our infant digital industries especially in the e-commerce sector. Right now, Nigeria’s two leading e-commerce companies, Jumia and Konga have started facing stiff competition from global giants like eBay and Amazon. The role of GBB would therefore be to ensure hardware infrastructure to foster rapid growth of this area.
Why is this? The growth of e-commerce has been quite impressive in Nigeria because of the surge in telecom investments and smartphone purchases which have fueled growth in internet usage from 20% in 2009 to 41% in 2014. Sometimes ago, it was reported that Nigeria has the largest online market particularly for apparel and footwear in Africa, which was envisioned to grow from US$104 million in 2014 to US$1,077 million in 2019, due to the activities of trusted e-commerce sites (online retailers), like Jumia and Konga.
This development can only be sustained if GBB work is supported with a sense of deliberate purpose. Hence GBB’s National ICT Infrastructure Backbone (NICTIB) project is being scaled up.
Prof. Abubakar highlighted the status of this project in an interview with the media. Phase one of the NICTIB project covered about 13 states, including the FCT. It started from Lagos, covered many states in the South East and South-South. The fiber-optic backbone of the Galaxy Backbone came from the landing point in Lagos, to Onitsha, extended to Akwa Ibom and Rivers, it came to Enugu, Benue State and then Nasarawa, through Lafia, Akwanga and then into Abuja, which is now the backbone that we have”.
To facilitate and deliver this service more effectively in the South Eastern region of the country, GBB went into partnership with Interra Networks and launched STORM; a Fibre Network and Data Hosting platform that would leverage its infrastructure in the delivery of services in Enugu, Anambra, Imo, Ebonyi and Delta States. Through this relationship, services will get to end customers faster and more effectively. GBB’s commitment to the customer and its awareness that it cannot reach across to everyone on its own is prompting these new initiatives at partnering with the right partners in delivering its services.
The second phase of the project commenced this year and is currently well on its way. At the end of this second phase, GBB will have connected 21 additional states in addition to the 13 states it had earlier covered in phase one.
GBB’s contribution to the deepening of broadband penetration in the country and the enhancement of Nigeria’s digital economy is worth commending and one to be encouraged by organizations, State Governments, Ministries, Departments and Agencies across the different sectors of the Nigerian economy.
The organisation is investing heavily in cyber security solutions to ensure that anytime an organization or individual is on its platform, the security of its data is guaranteed. GBB maintains a critical Infrastructure that is essential to the development and sustainability of Nigeria’s digital Economy. Through this infrastructure its position in enabling organizations is strengthened.
One of the major achievements of Prof Abubakar is his decision to strengthen the operations of GBB’s regional offices. He is convinced that GBB cannot attain its mission without empowering the regions hence this initiative. This necessitated the appointment of a Group Head to manage these regions, spread across different parts of the country. The regional offices will ensure more effectiveness in the delivery and resolution of issues.
Equally important are the customer and stakeholders. Customer centricity is at the core of GBB’s values and reorganizational focus. In 2021, GBB organized the very first Customer Appreciation Day aimed at thanking and recognizing the efforts of all the organizations that have contributed in one way or the other to the development and successes achieved by Galaxy Backbone. The Customer Appreciation Day was the first since its inception and was well attended by GBB’s customers in Abuja and across a number of other states in the country. At that event Prof. Abubakar thanked customers for contributing immensely to GBB’s business and success and committed to addressing all issues that were discussed during the event.
A lot more attention is being paid towards customer satisfaction and operational excellence which include partneerships. From 2020 to date, not less than 10 partnerships and collaborations with the private sector have been achieved. Such collaborations include with DataSixth, SHELT Global Limited and Palo Alto on cybersecurity, Interra Networks and BCN on connectivity, Zadara on data centre and cloud services, Yahlink on satellite connectivity, New Waves in hosting services; all in addition to the enhanced collaboration with Huawei, MainOne and so on. These collaborations will further enhance public-private sector partnership, drive down the bandwidth price for the benefit of the end-user, contribute to the GDP of the nation and improve the standard of living of the citizens.
Indeed, Prof Abubakar has put GBB on a strong footing. This gives the institution a lot of resiliency. No wonder, early this year, when ICT and telecommunications organizations experienced an outage on its infrastructure, GBB ably rose to the occasion. The incident tested the tenacity of its facilities, its service reliability and its ability to manage customer experience. Most importantly, the outage tested the competence of the team at Galaxy Backbone, GBB. In all of these, the organization stood tall, as it resolved the outage and brought back the operations of the affected organizations to full normalcy.
What is critical is to have a partner who will be there to guide them through whatever challenge that could come up and resolve it promptly and adequately. This is what GBB continues to demonstrate in the lives of its customers and other stakeholders, as it deepens e-commerce and digital economy in Nigeria.
