Abstract:
This paper presents the characterisation of critical
infrastructures in Nigeria as an initial step towards development of
a framework for the uniform designation of an infrastructure as a
Critical National Information Infrastructure (CNII) in Nigeria.
Notably, there is no globally acceptable criteria for the designation
of an infrastructure as Critical National Infrastructure (CNI) or
CNII. However, there is a consensus that CNIs are vital for a modern
society, and drives economic growths and national prosperity.
Although there are similarities in such infrastructures worldwide,
every nation determines the value to attach to each CNI depending
on its developmental goal, priorities and the level of dependency on
such infrastructure. In Nigeria, there is no publicly available
information on the categorisation of infrastructures as CNI or CNII.
The mythological approach adopted was document scan, analysis
and synthesis of publicly available information on CNI and CNII of
some selected countries, followed by a comparative analysis. Five
countries were selected from each of the six continents based on
population size and adoption of Information and Communications
Technology (ICT). The findings revealed that about 90% of the
countries studied categorised energy, transportation, water,
communications and health as sectors of CNI. Conceptually, based
on the outcome, CNIs in Nigeria were characterised into twelve
critical sectors. This initial study forms the first step towards
development of a framework for the correct designation of an
infrastructure as a CNII in Nigeria as opposed to arbitrary
designation.
