Beneath the Surface BY Dakuku Peterside
The race to 6G is not just an engineering contest; it is a quiet referendum on which societies will set the pace of human connection, productivity, and security in the next decade. Nigeria—and much of Africa—faces a critical crossroads. One path is familiar: incremental investments, ad hoc policy, fragile pilots, and the hope that market forces alone will pull us forward. The other path is deliberate: a national roadmap that treats connectivity as infrastructure, research as strategy, spectrum as statecraft, and partnerships as leverage. The United Arab Emirates has offered a glimpse of what this second path looks like in practice. India is establishing itself as a 6G hub with the Bharat 6G Vision, while Saudi Arabia is emerging as a 6G hub through strategic infrastructure investments and innovation-driven initiatives. Embracing a proactive 6G strategy could bring a wave of optimism and hope for a brighter, more connected future.
When the UAE, working with researchers at New York University Abu Dhabi, pushed a pilot 6G terahertz experiment to a headline 145 gigabits per second under controlled conditions, it did more than set a speed record. It showcased a philosophy: plan early, experiment openly, learn fast, and align actors—regulator, industry, academia—around a shared horizon. Their regulator was quick to add the necessary caveat: this is not commercial 6G, and consumer deployment remains a 2030s story. Yet the point stands. The UAE’s trial and its national 6G roadmap show how a country can convert foresight into first-mover advantage long before mass rollout. They are rehearsing the future so they can perform it on opening night.
Nigeria can do the same—if we choose. Our economy is broad, our market deep, our entrepreneurs inventive. Innovation needs support to succeed, and it is one area we can do better. 6G will not arrive as a single technology; it will arrive as an ecosystem that fuses communications and sensing, runs on AI-native networks, and stretches into terahertz frequencies that demand new radios, new devices, new backhaul, and new security practices. It will privilege countries with fibre in the ground, power at the edge, and people trained to design, deploy, and defend complex systems. Without proper planning and continuous investment, we’ll enter the 2030s with outdated infrastructure from the 2020s. Let’s stay committed to strategic planning and ongoing investment to prevent this risk.
The question, then, is not whether we can afford to plan for 6G. It is whether we can afford not to. A nation that depends on efficient ports, trusted payments, resilient grids, secure borders, and precision agriculture cannot treat ultra-reliable, low-latency connectivity as a luxury item. The same is true for inclusive growth: the further 6G pushes computation and analytics to the edge, the more essential it becomes to ensure rural coverage, device affordability, and digital literacy. If we ignore these layers now, we will inherit a faster network that reproduces old divides. However, with strategic planning and investment, 6G can revolutionise these sectors, improving efficiency, security, and inclusivity.
A reflective strategy starts by acknowledging our present. Nigeria’s 5G rollouts are underway but uneven. Fibre gaps limit what even the best radios can do. Electricity reliability remains a stubborn bottleneck that quietly taxes every digital ambition. The operation and maintenance of the extensive infrastructure required for 6G networks are constrained by inadequate and unreliable power supply. Our universities house bright minds yet often lack well-funded applied research programmes, stable pathways into industry labs, and access to advanced Radio Frequency equipment. We have cybersecurity talent and startups, but the institutions that must protect critical infrastructure do not drill often enough for the worst-case scenarios a hyperconnected era will bring. None of these is a reason to relent; they are the very reasons to act.
Acting means setting a vision that reaches beyond procurement cycles: secure, inclusive, AI-native 6G that creates jobs, lifts productivity, and anchors digital sovereignty. It means building a delivery architecture—a time-bound mission office reporting to the highest levels, an advisory council that mixes universities with operators and OEMs, quarterly scorecards the public can read. This delivery architecture will ensure the 6G development plan is executed efficiently and transparently. It means rules that make experimentation routine rather than exceptional: exploratory terahertz licenses, sandboxes for joint sensing-communications, and spectrum sharing for research. It means showing up in standards bodies not as spectators but as contributors, so our needs and constraints are reflected in the systems we will one day buy at scale.
Most of all, it means bringing research and deployment into conversation. Flagship 6G labs can focus on terahertz radios, AI-driven RAN and core, edge security, and energy-efficient networking. University–industry consortia can align doctoral work to Nigeria’s most complex problems—oil and gas safety with integrated sensing, smart logistics across ports and dry ports, fintech fraud prevention at the edge, precision farming in the Middle Belt, disaster response along floodplains, and telemedicine for underserved regions—so that proofs-of-concept become pilots and pilots become markets.
Infrastructure is the quiet hero of every wireless leap. We will need more than towers: long-haul and metro fibre to carry the surge of data; regional edge zones to keep latency under ten milliseconds for critical services; reliable power, including mini-grids and renewables, to harden sites against outages; and smarter backhaul—optical where density justifies it, high-capacity microwave and satellite integration where it does not. Rights-of-way reform and “dig once” policies can cut costs and time. Data centre incentives can attract operators while mandating energy efficiency and robust security. If we build these layers well, 6G radios will have something worthy to ride on.
Talent is the multiplying factor. A 6G Academy network can connect universities, polytechnics, and industry labs around shared curricula: RF and terahertz fundamentals, AI for networks, cybersecurity, semiconductor basics, and field engineering. This network will play a crucial role in developing the skills and knowledge needed for 6G development. Scholarships and apprenticeships can create pathways into real projects, and the TVET programme of the Federal Ministry of Education is relevant. Diaspora expertise—our great, underused advantage—can be woven into visiting-scholar programmes, co-supervised theses, and standards contributions.
Financing this agenda requires imagination as much as money. R&D tax credits, matched grants, and spectrum-fee holidays for testbeds are levers within reach. Blended finance—development banks, sovereign wealth funds, infrastructure bonds, and well-structured PPPs—can share risk on fibre and edge build-outs that unlock enterprise demand. Even diaspora bonds can play a niche role if the projects are transparent, audited, and tied to clear milestones that people can see and feel.
Any reflective plan must dwell on ethics and security. 6G’s sensing capabilities promise safety and efficiency—and a new surface for misuse. Privacy-preserving analytics, transparent governance of lawful access, zero-trust architecture, continuous red-teaming, and supply-chain assurance are not afterthoughts; they are preconditions for trust. Build the guardrails early, test them often, and communicate them plainly. The surest way to slow technology adoption is to roll it out faster than public confidence can catch up.
Timelines should discipline hope. By 2028, we can fiberise priority corridors and industrial clusters, light up regional edge zones, graduate the first cohorts from a 6G academy network, and demonstrate cross-border pilots with ECOWAS partners—an “ECOWAS 6G corridor” for harmonised roaming, shared testbeds, and pooled procurement. As the 2030s open, we can pre-commercialise use cases that demonstrate clear business value and social returns, while scaling inclusion programmes that keep the door open to every community.
What would success look like? Success would be a network of Nigerian labs publishing credible research, our engineers co-authoring standards, our ports cutting turnaround times because sensors and analytics work in real time, rural clinics diagnosing with remote expertise because latency is finally low enough, farms deploying precision irrigation at scale, and startups building products for our problems and exporting them. Success would be citizens who notice that their digital life is faster, cheaper, and safer—and who trust it because the rules are clear and consistently applied.
The UAE has not “arrived” at 6G; it has committed to the journey and is travelling well. That is the lesson worth borrowing. Speed records are not the point. Alignment is the point: a regulator who signals, a carrier who experiments, a university that co-creates, a government that orchestrates and invests for the long term, and a public that can see progress in quarterly daylight. Nigeria can choose this alignment. We can build the fibre and the power, the labs and the testbeds, the skills and the safeguards. We can step into standard rooms with informed positions and into boardrooms with viable business cases. We can insist that the next generation of networks is a platform for national transformation, not just a faster way to stream video. If we do, we won’t merely avoid digital lag; we will reclaim technological agency. In a world where connectivity is destiny, that may be the most crucial sovereignty of all.
•Dr Dakuku Peterside is the author of bestsellers, Leading in a Storm and Beneath the Surface.
