*Photo: Amb. Sarafa Tunji Isola*
Moshood Abiola Polytechnic (MAPOLY), Abeokuta, on Thursday, 30 July 2026, officially unveiled Nigeria’s first enterprise-grade 10 Gigabits-per-second dedicated Smart Campus Network together with the Advanced Technological Incubation and Research Centre (ATIRC) Innovation Hub, marking a major leap in the country’s tertiary education digital infrastructure.
Keynote speaker Ambassador Sarafa Tunji Isola, OFR, former Nigerian High Commissioner to the United Kingdom (2021–2023), described the project as a moment of national significance that repositions MAPOLY, Ogun State and Nigeria on the map of global digital competitiveness.
In an address titled “Bridging the Global Divide: High-Speed Campus Infrastructure as the Engine for Nigeria’s Global Competitiveness,” Isola told the gathering that the nations that will lead the 21st century will not necessarily be those with the largest populations or deepest natural resources, but those with the fastest, most secure and most intelligently deployed digital networks.
Amb. Isola who was represented at the event said the new infrastructure goes far beyond a simple internet upgrade.
Developed in partnership between MAPOLY and ATIRC, the dedicated 10Gbps network delivers secure, low-latency, high-capacity connectivity capable of supporting thousands of simultaneous users. It creates the foundation for artificial intelligence and machine learning research, high-performance and cloud computing, cybersecurity training, Internet of Things applications, robotics, data science, digital twins, augmented and virtual reality, smart classrooms and real-time global research collaborations.
Isola praised the Rector, Architect Dr. ’Koye Jolaoso, the Governing Council under Emeritus Professor Kamaldeen Balogun, the technical team at ATIRC, and the Ogun State Government led by Governor Dapo Abiodun, CON, for creating the enabling environment that made the achievement possible within a public institution.
Drawing on his diplomatic experience, the former High Commissioner noted that universities in knowledge economies function as anchor institutions for national competitiveness.
He said a functioning high-capacity innovation hub inside a public polytechnic sends a powerful signal to foreign investors and development partners that Nigeria is not merely a market, but a partner capable of co-creating value. “Infrastructure is diplomacy by other means,” he declared.
Addressing students, Isola said the new network removes the long-standing excuse of inadequate access. “You now have the tools that your counterparts in Lagos, London, Nairobi and Bangalore possess. Bandwidth without ambition produces nothing. What this network offers is opportunity; what you must supply is discipline, curiosity and the courage to build.”
He urged academic staff to recalibrate their research ambitions and pursue international partnerships, and called on industry and investors to engage the Smart Campus and ATIRC Hub through sponsored research, internship pipelines and direct investment in emerging start-ups.
Isola further appealed to policymakers at state and federal levels, including the Federal Ministry of Communications, Innovation and Digital Economy, to study the MAPOLY model and replicate it across Nigeria’s tertiary institutions.
He stressed that the country’s global competitiveness will be decided not only in Abuja or Lagos, but in institutions that quietly build the human and technical capacity no external partnership can replace.
“We are not merely commissioning cables, routers and servers today,” Isola concluded. “We are commissioning possibility. Let this Smart Campus Network and the ATIRC Innovation Hub be remembered not simply as infrastructure switched on in July 2026, but as the moment a generation of Nigerian students was handed the tools to build a future worthy of their talent.”
The ceremony was attended by senior government officials, traditional rulers, industry leaders, development partners, the academic community, the press and students of the polytechnic.
Read the full keynote address below:
OFFICIAL UNVEILING OF THE MAPOLY 10GBPS SMART CAMPUS
INFRASTRUCTURE & ATIRC INNOVATION HUB
At Otunba Gbenga Daniel Auditorium, Moshood Abiola Polytechnic, Abeokuta, Ogun State
Thursday, 30th July, 2026
KEYNOTE ADDRESS
BRIDGING THE GLOBAL DIVIDE:
High-Speed Campus Infrastructure as the Engine for Nigeria’s Global Competitiveness
Delivered by
AMBASSADOR SARAFA TUNJI ISOLA, OFR
Nigerian High Commissioner to the United Kingdom (2021-2023)
Keynote Speaker
SALUTATION
Your Excellency, Distinguished Ladies and Gentlemen,
It is with a profound sense of honour and civic duty that I stand before this distinguished gathering today. Permit me, in the tradition that binds our public life together, to acknowledge the personalities whose presence graces this historic occasion:
His Excellency, Prince Dapo Abiodun, CON, Executive Governor of Ogun State and our esteemed host and a leader whose administration has consistently placed technology and human capital development at the centre of governance;
The Chairman of the Governing Council of Moshood Abiola Polytechnic, Emeritus Professor Kamaldeen Balogun, and members of the Governing Council;
The Rector of Moshood Abiola Polytechnic, Architect Dr. ‘Koye Jolaoso, and the entire Management team, whose vision has birthed this landmark achievement;
Traditional rulers present, including the Olowu of Owu Kingdom, Oba (Prof.) Saka Adelola Matemilola, custodians of the rich heritage upon which this modern edifice of learning stands;
Distinguished members of the National and State Assemblies, senior government officials, captains of industry, technology partners, development partners, members of the academic community, the press, and, most importantly, the students of this great institution who are the true beneficiaries of the infrastructure we celebrate today.
I bring you warm greetings and heartfelt congratulations on this singular achievement, the one that, quite deservedly, positions Moshood Abiola Polytechnic as a pioneer and pacesetter not merely within Ogun State, but across the entire federation.
1. INTRODUCTION: A MOMENT OF NATIONAL SIGNIFICANCE
Today, Moshood Abiola Polytechnic, Abeokuta, makes history. With the official unveiling of Nigeria’s first enterprise-grade 10 Gigabits per second dedicated Smart Campus Network, alongside the Advanced Technological Incubation and Research Centre Innovation Hub, this institution does not merely upgrade its internet connection, it repositions itself, and by extension repositions Ogun State and Nigeria, on the map of global digital competitiveness.
I have had the privilege, in the course of my diplomatic career, to represent our dear country in the corridors of Whitehall, in boardrooms in the City of London, and in gatherings of nations where the currency of influence is no longer merely natural resources or population size, but increasingly, the speed, security, and sophistication of a nation’s digital infrastructure. It is from that vantage point having watched, up close, how developed economies harness connectivity as a strategic asset that I approach the theme assigned to me today: Bridging the Global Divide: High-Speed Campus Infrastructure as the Engine for Nigeria’s Global Competitiveness.
The nations that will lead the twenty-first century are not necessarily those with the largest populations or the deepest reserves of oil and gas, but those with the fastest, most secure, and most intelligently deployed digital networks.
2. UNDERSTANDING THE GLOBAL DIVIDE
The term “digital divide” has, for decades, been used loosely to describe the gap between those with internet access and those without. That framing, while still relevant in parts of our country, is no longer sufficient to describe the chasm that now separates competitive nations from those at risk of permanent economic marginalisation.
The divide of our era is a divide of bandwidth, latency, and computational capacity. It is the difference between a research laboratory in Abeokuta that can run artificial intelligence models, participate in real-time global research collaborations, and process high-performance computing workloads and one that cannot. It is the difference between a graduate who leaves university fluent in cloud computing, data science, cybersecurity, and robotics, and one who leaves with only theoretical familiarity with these disciplines, having never had the infrastructure to practise them.
Nigeria, with a median age under eighteen and one of the largest concentrations of young, ambitious talent anywhere on earth, cannot afford to be on the wrong side of this divide. The mathematics are unforgiving: nations that generate high-speed, low-latency infrastructure attract investment, incubate innovation, and export talent and technology on their own terms. Nations that do not are condemned to import solutions, export raw talent, and remain permanently at the receiving end of value chains they had no hand in designing.
3. WHAT MAPOLY HAS ACHIEVED: A CASE STUDY IN DELIBERATE AMBITION
What we unveil today is not a modest incremental upgrade. It is, by every credible account, the first deployment of its kind by any public tertiary institution in Nigeria which is a dedicated, enterprise-grade 10Gbps network delivering secure, low-latency, high-capacity connectivity capable of supporting thousands of simultaneous users across this campus.
This infrastructure, developed through the partnership between MAPOLY and the Advanced Technological Incubation and Research Centre, does more than move data quickly. It creates the enabling substrate for an entire ecosystem of twenty-first century capability, including:
Artificial intelligence and machine learning research and experimentation;
High-performance computing and cloud computing services;
Cybersecurity training and applied research;
The Internet of Things, robotics, and data science;
Digital twins, augmented and virtual reality applications;
Smart classrooms, e-learning platforms, and collaborative research with institutions across the globe.
This is precisely the kind of infrastructure investment that separates institutions that merely teach about the future from institutions that actively build it. I commend the Rector, the Governing Council, and the technical team at ATIRC for the boldness of this vision and the discipline of its execution. I commend, too, the Ogun State Government, under the leadership of His Excellency, Governor Dapo Abiodun, CON for the enabling environment and support that has made such an ambitious undertaking possible within a public institution. This is a demonstration that government and technical partnership, properly aligned, can deliver world-class outcomes even outside the wealthiest capitals of the world.
4. A DIPLOMAT’S PERSPECTIVE: WHAT THE WORLD REWARDS
Permit me to draw from experience beyond our shores. In my years of service representing Nigeria in the United Kingdom, I observed a consistent pattern among nations that had successfully transitioned into knowledge economies: they treated digital infrastructure not as a utility to be procured when convenient, but as strategic capital, comparable in importance to roads, power, and ports.
Universities in such economies function as anchor institutions for national competitiveness. Their laboratories are wired into global research networks; their students collaborate in real time with peers on other continents; their innovation hubs attract venture capital precisely because the underlying infrastructure gives investors confidence that ideas conceived on campus can be prototyped, tested, and scaled without the friction of inadequate connectivity.
Foreign investors and development partners are, in my direct experience, acutely attentive to signals of institutional and national seriousness. A functioning, high-capacity innovation hub embedded within a public polytechnic sends precisely such a signal. It says to the world that Nigeria is not merely a market to be sold to, but a partner capable of co-creating value. This is how global competitiveness is actually built not through declarations alone, but through the patient assembly of the physical and digital scaffolding upon which innovation depends.
Infrastructure is diplomacy by other means; it is the most persuasive argument a nation can make for its own seriousness.
5. IMPLICATIONS FOR STUDENTS, STAFF, AND THE WIDER COMMUNITY
To the students of Moshood Abiola Polytechnic, I say this: the infrastructure unveiled today removes an excuse that has, for too long, been available to Nigerian graduates, the excuse of inadequate access. You now have the tools that your counterparts in Lagos, London, Nairobi, and Bangalore possess. The responsibility that comes with this gift is considerable. Bandwidth without ambition produces nothing. What this network offers is opportunity; what you must supply is discipline, curiosity, and the courage to build.
To the academic and research staff, this infrastructure invites a recalibration of ambition. Research that was previously constrained by connectivity limitations which are international collaborations, large dataset analysis, participation in global academic consortia is now within reach. I encourage the Polytechnic to actively pursue partnerships with universities and research institutions abroad, leveraging this new capacity as a credible platform for joint research and knowledge exchange.
To industry and investors present today, this Smart Campus and the ATIRC Innovation Hub represent fertile ground for partnership whether through sponsored research, internship pipelines, or direct investment in start-ups that will inevitably emerge from this ecosystem. Nations do not develop through government effort alone; they develop through the alignment of government, academia, and private enterprise, each playing its distinct role with competence and good faith.
6. A CALL TO SCALE: BEYOND THIS CAMPUS
What we celebrate today at Moshood Abiola Polytechnic must not remain an isolated triumph. It must become a template. I respectfully urge policymakers at the state and federal levels, including the Federal Ministry of Communications, Innovation and Digital Economy, to study this model closely and consider its replication across Nigeria’s state and federal tertiary institutions.
I also urge the private sector and our development partners to recognise that investment in campus-level digital infrastructure yields returns far beyond any single institution. Every polytechnic, college of education, and university equipped in this manner becomes a node in a national network of innovation and a stronger claim to relevance in the global digital economy that awaits none of us.
Nigeria’s global competitiveness will not be decided in Abuja alone, nor solely in Lagos. It will be decided in institutions such as this one, quietly and diligently building the human and technical capacity that no external partnership can substitute for. What Ogun State and Moshood Abiola Polytechnic have demonstrated today is that ambition, properly resourced and competently executed, can produce a national first, right here in Abeokuta.
7. CONCLUSION
Your Excellency, distinguished guests, we are not merely commissioning cables, routers, and servers today. We are commissioning possibility. We are declaring, in the clearest technical language available to our era, that Moshood Abiola Polytechnic, Ogun State, and by extension Nigeria, intend to compete not to be spoken for, not to be left behind, but to stand, fully equipped, at the frontier of global innovation.
Let this Smart Campus Network and the ATIRC Innovation Hub be remembered not simply as infrastructure switched on in July 2026, but as the moment a generation of Nigerian students was handed the tools to build a future worthy of their talent. May this institution continue to lead, and may other institutions across our federation find in this achievement both inspiration and a practical roadmap.
I thank the Management and Governing Council of Moshood Abiola Polytechnic for the honour of this invitation, and I congratulate every hand; technical, administrative, and political that laboured to bring this vision to reality.
Thank you, and God bless the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
Ambassador Sarafa Tunji Isola, OFR
Nigerian High Commissioner to the United Kingdom (2021-2023)