Odewale Abayomi Joseph
Physical and digital infrastructure goes hand in hand. You can’t develop digital infrastructure in isolation. It needs physical infrastructure to thrive. Here is a case study.
For instance, Nigeria’s recently botched cashless policy is akin to the image below. The government is talking of implementing a cashless economy when millions of Nigerians are unbanked. You are talking of implementing a cashless economy when Nigeria generates a paltry and epileptic 5,000 MW for 200 M population, what will they use to power their payment and transaction gadgets? Some locations (interior rural areas especially) in Nigeria couldn’t have access to the internet. At a time Nigeria couldn’t boast of a nationwide internet coverage and internet penetration yet, the country is brandishing cashless economy implementation. Our situation is just like putting the cart before the horse.
Another scenario, a country without constant power supply but planning to adopt electric trains and cars.
The image below depicts the metaphor of Nigeria pushing technological infrastructure while a vital physical infrastructure needed to accommodate technological infrastructure is neglected.
Development is in stages. For us to meet up with the digital technology demands, it behoves on us to accelerate and massively improve our physical infrastructure, thereafter, we can be in a vantage position to push for advanced technological infrastructure which utmostly need physical infrastructure to thrive.
