Further connecting Africa’s tech infrastructure - Pan African Towers

Pan African Towers is expanding its telecom market so that fundamental services such as education, healthcare and banking are available to every Nigerian.

According to Wole Abu, managing director/ceo of Pan African Towers Limited, “We want to scale rapidly into the next phase of our development so that we can start looking at rural solutions that would help everybody.”

Access to life enhancing services such as health, education and financial inclusion continues to be one of the greatest challenges in sub-saharan Africa (SSA).

In fact, access to broadband connectivity seems to be a luxury to most rural communities in SSA as the region is seriously lagging behind other regions across the globe, Abu says, noting that one company in Nigeria is dedicated to providing broadband penetration and connecting rural communities in SSA to the global world.

Pan African Towers is a leading telecoms infrastructure and wireless service provider in Nigeria. The company, registered in 2017 but commenced its business operations in 2018, has within two years positioned itself as a top company in the telecommunication industry and expanded its market beyond the Nigerian borders with operations in Ghana.

The company, which now has over 1000 towers in Nigeria and about 300 towers in Ghana, has developed a compelling business model coupled with the use of cutting-edge technology and powered by green renewable energy which will give various telecom network operators across Africa the much-needed support to lower costs and deliver high quality and reliable service levels across their operations.

Speaking on the occasion of his company’s celebration of two years of business operations in Nigeria, Abu says, “Our vision is not to stop because we have a pan-african vision and beyond. We also want to sell our products out of Africa. If you have the right people, funding, values and ethics, you should be able to participate in the value chain and contribute. Opportunities are so huge in Africa if we grow infrastructure.”

Pan African Towers has highlighted the need for expanded telecom coverage and in light of the recent Covid-19 pandemic, this need is more apparent than ever. “Fortyfive per cent of Africans do not have telecom coverage,” says Abu.

“Many people are excluded, and that has implications on financial inclusion, education, healthcare and other sectors. Apart from being a good business, it is also a good socialimpact business. Internet is taken for granted in many parts of the world, and when schools migrated online because of Covid-19, my heart bleeds for the millions of children in Nigeria who cannot do that. I do not think that there are hardly any kids in European countries who do not go to school because they do not have access to the internet.” For Pan African Towers, this need, signals opportunity.

“This is something I am passionate about. If you have good telecoms today, you can sit in your house and take lectures even from India. Then the boy in the rural area can access whatever the world has to offer today.”