The Federal Government has reaffirmed its commitment to supporting homegrown telecommunications innovation and small-scale businesses, describing them as critical to Nigeria’s economic rescue and growth.
Special Adviser to President Bola Tinubu on Economic Matters, Tope Fasua, gave the assurance in Abuja at the Esdiac Global Media Parley and stakeholders’ engagement at the weekend.
Fasua said the Tinubu administration is intentional about empowering entrepreneurs in the communications sector and ensuring that Nigerian-built solutions receive adequate policy support to scale.
He noted that Nigerians have consistently complained about exorbitant charges for international calls and unreliable eSIM services while travelling.
Recounting his personal experience, Fasua said he bought a very expensive eSIM at the Abuja Airport while traveling to Bangkok, which worked in London but failed in Bangkok, offering little value for money.
He expressed optimism that Esdiac’s locally built platform would be cheaper and more reliable, adding that he had already downloaded the app to test it himself.
“If it tells you that you can make a call abroad for 13 Naira, believe him that you can make it for 13 Naira. As against the big behemoths like MTN, Glo and others, you probably would pay over 200 Naira per minute,” Fasua said.
He urged Nigerians looking to cut communication costs to embrace the platform, describing it as the next level for communication driven by Nigerians who understand the back-end of technology.
Speaking earlier, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Esdiac Global Systems Limited, Mr. Austin Ugbebor, said the platform is proof that world-class telecom products can be built and sustained in Nigeria.
Lead Infrastructure and Security Engineer, Daramola Olugbenga, said Esdiac was designed from the ground up as a statement of local capability, leveraging existing global technologies but building a proprietary, highly scalable backbone.
“From Esdiac, we have done it, and we are still doing it with Nigerians. This is a big statement that we can do it,” Olugbenga said, adding that the system was initially dimensioned for one million concurrent calls.
He disclosed that the architecture was built to prevent mid-call drops despite network fluctuations, ensuring that once a call starts, it runs to the end with crystal-clear quality even on poor data or bad Wi-Fi.
On data sovereignty, both speakers stressed strict compliance with the Nigeria Data Protection Act and NCC regulations, noting that all Nigerian user data is stored and processed in Nigeria.
“We authenticate your access to the platform using the SIM, and we ride on our own backbone, which is mainly here in Nigeria and also in the US. We are very careful that data here are not transmitted outside the country,” Ugbebor said.
Olugbenga added that as a paid product licensed by both the NCC in Nigeria and the FCC in the United States, Esdiac cannot share user information with third parties without user approval or a court order.
Beyond consumer calls, Esdiac also unveiled an AI-driven business version with interactive agents capable of answering calls, making bookings and holding conversations when human agents are unavailable, positioning it as a legacy product first released in 2016.
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