The Federal Government plans to procure two new satellites for the country. This will bring the number of satellites launched by the country thus far to seven.
There have been criticisms from naysayers, who have cited the apparently exorbitant cost of getting the backup satellites as the reason for their opposition to it. But Minister of Communications, Mr. Adebayo Shittu, has argued that the decision to have the new satellites built was in fact based on cost considerations. The alternative to using data service provided by local satellites, he said, was getting such service from foreign satellites- precisely what most Nigerian businesses utilizing data services have been doing. The problem with this, the minister pointed out, is that it has led to a huge capital flight.
“The amount of money that goes out in keeping Nigeria’s data in foreign satellites runs into billions of dollars”, Mr. Shittu said while answering questions from the press in Kaduna recently. “So, if we can do the needful, we need just about $550 million to acquire two new satellites”.
He explained that funding for the project would be provided by China’s NEXIM Bank; the satellites would also be built in the Asian country.
Since 2003, Nigeria has launched five satellites into space, for purposes ranging from meteorological and agricultural monitoring, to communications. The National Space Research Development Agency (NSRDA) has worked with foreign partners to get Nigeria’s space program running. The launch of the satellites, though controversial, is often pointed to by officials at the agency, as evidence that they are on track to develop a decent space program to meet the country’s needs in various areas.
Although Nigeria has one communications satellite in orbit- the NigComSat-1R –most data service users still depend on data service from foreign satellites. This state of affairs is what government says it wants to change.
“When this is done, we can beat our chest and say nobody should take their money outside for purposes of storing data”, Mr. Shittu said.