For many years, conversations about digital infrastructure in West Africa have tended to focus on the region’s biggest economies. Nigeria, Kenya, South Africa, Ghana, and a few others often dominate the headlines, while smaller and more fragile states like Sierra Leone remain on the fringes of the continent’s digital transformation story.
But quietly, and without fanfare, a significant shift has been taking place in Sierra Leone’s telecommunications landscape—one driven in large part by the work of a Nigerian engineer, Ezekiel Kehinde Adediji, known in professional circles as Kenny.
When Adediji arrived in Freetown in 2020 to take up the role of Lead Optical Network Engineer at AFCOM SL Limited, Sierra Leone’s broadband ecosystem was still at a very early stage. Fixed broadband penetration was limited, backbone capacity was constrained, and the country’s ability to support modern digital services remained severely restricted. Businesses, public institutions, and service providers were largely dependent on legacy systems that could not meet the growing demands of a digital economy.
Over the next four years, that picture began to change in a fundamental way.
Under Adediji’s technical leadership, Sierra Leone embarked on the design and deployment of its first full-scale Fiber-to-the-X (FTTx) infrastructure. This marked a decisive break from the past. Rather than incremental upgrades, the project focused on building a modern, high-capacity optical network from the core to the access layer—capable of supporting long-term growth in data traffic, enterprise services, and residential broadband.
Industry sources familiar with the project say the scale of the undertaking cannot be overstated. It involved the planning of national and metropolitan fiber routes, the design of Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing (DWDM) and Optical Transport Network (OTN) layers, the rollout of backbone and access fiber, and the deployment of GPON systems to serve end users. Adediji coordinated these efforts while also overseeing live network operations, ensuring that service quality and network availability were maintained throughout the transition.
The impact has been significant. For the first time, Sierra Leone began to develop a broadband platform that could realistically support digital government services, enterprise connectivity, fintech operations, remote education, and other data-intensive applications that are now standard in more developed markets.
What makes this achievement particularly noteworthy is the context in which it occurred. Sierra Leone is still rebuilding from years of conflict and economic hardship, and its infrastructure deficit has long been one of the biggest obstacles to growth. In such an environment, the successful execution of a complex, capital-intensive telecommunications project requires not only technical expertise, but also discipline, planning, and the ability to build systems that can be sustained locally.
Adediji’s approach went beyond installation. He worked closely with local engineering teams, helped establish operational procedures, and ensured that knowledge transfer was built into the project. This focus on institutional capacity, rather than just physical infrastructure, has been critical to the long-term viability of the network.
Before his assignment in Sierra Leone, Adediji had already built a strong reputation in the region. He spent several years with Huawei Technologies, supporting and designing optical transmission networks across Nigeria and Ghana, and contributing to major projects for operators such as MTN, Globacom, Vodafone, and Airtel-tiGO. These projects form part of the core backbone infrastructure that carries much of West Africa’s voice and data traffic today.
However, Sierra Leone represented a different kind of challenge. It was not a case of optimising an existing system, but of helping to build one almost from the ground up.
By the end of 2023, AFCOM’s fiber, IP/MPLS, and optical transport networks stood among the most advanced telecommunications platforms in the country, significantly improving both coverage and service reliability. More importantly, they provided Sierra Leone with a credible foundation for future digital growth.
In an era when digital infrastructure is increasingly recognised as a cornerstone of economic development, the role of engineers like Adediji deserves more attention. Their work rarely makes headlines, yet it shapes the environment in which commerce, education, healthcare, and governance now operate.
That a Nigerian professional has played such a central role in repositioning Sierra Leone’s digital capabilities also speaks to a broader, encouraging trend: the rise of African technical expertise driving African development from within.
Sierra Leone’s digital story is still being written. But in the fiber routes, the transmission systems, and the quietly humming network operations centres, the influence of Ezekiel Kehinde Adediji’s work is already firmly embedded
SOURCE: THE GUARDIAN NEWS PAPER
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