ATF 2023: Mohammed Aliyu on Bayobab's connectivity strategy across Africa

Mohammed Aliyu, Chief FibreCo Officer at Bayobab, sat down with Connecting Africa Editor Paula Gilbert at Africa Tech Festival 2023 in Cape Town, South Africa, to talk about the company's fiber and subsea cable ambitions across Africa.

Bayobab is a pan-African digital connectivity solutions company founded in 2018 by telecoms operator MTN. It was originally called MTN GlobalConnect and rebranded to Bayobab in May 2023.

Aliyu spoke about Bayobab's connectivity business which includes access to 18 subsea cables around Africa – six of which it is a major investor in, including Meta-backed 2Africa – as well as 112,000km of proprietary fiber on the continent.

Bayobab aims to expand its network to 135,000km of terrestrial fiber by 2025, and he shared growth plans in various countries across sub-Saharan Africa.

He spoke about a recent partnership with Africa50 on a fiber optic cable initiative, Project East2West, which aims to connect ten countries between the eastern and western shores of Africa.

Aliyu also shared the challenges that fiber operators face across Africa, and what regulatory changes he would like to see in the sector.