Nigeria’s push to deepen broadband penetration and digital inclusion received a boost in 2025, as MTN Nigeria expanded network coverage to 93.7 per cent of the population.

MTN Nigeria

According to the company’s just-released 2025 Sustainability Report, the company invested N2.7 billion in social-impact initiatives that reached more than 534,000 people.

The company says the improved coverage, up from 93% in 2024, was driven by the continued rollout of base stations across rural and underserved communities.

This included the deployment of 229 integrated renewable, solar-powered rural telephony sites under its Project Zero initiative. Broadband penetration across MTN’s network footprint reached 90.1%, while 4G population coverage remained stable at about 82%.

And there’s more. The Nigerian Communications Commission says MTN Nigeria accounted for more than half of the country’s active GSM connections in 2025, serving approximately 89.64 million active mobile lines.

The CSR footprint of the company also expanded last year. MTN Foundation’s increased recipients rose to more than 534,000.

The programmes in 2025 spanned community infrastructure, maternal healthcare, youth empowerment and digital access. Under its STEM scholarship scheme, 300 students studying science and technology disciplines in public tertiary institutions received scholarships worth N300,000 annually through graduation.

The company also continued its Scholarship for Blind Students and Top-10 UTME Scholarship initiatives, while distributing more than 25,000 learning devices in partnership with state governments.

Another focus for the year was child online safety as MTN Nigeria’s ‘Help Children Be Children’ in response to growing concerns around online grooming and exposure to harmful digital content.

The initiative includes school sensitisation programmes, parental workshops and collaborations with civil society organisations.

On the flip side, the company disclosed that it spent more than NGN1 billion on infrastructure repairs and security interventions following 9,218 fibre cuts recorded nationwide during the year, incidents linked largely to vandalism and theft of telecoms assets.

Telecommunications subscribers across Nigeria have regained access to emergency airtime lending services as major operators, Airtel Nigeria and Globacom, restored the platforms following the suspension of the Digital, Electronic, Online or Non-Traditional Consumer Lending (DEON) Regulations 2025 by the Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission.

USSD

The restoration followed a Federal High Court order restraining the commission from enforcing the regulations pending the determination of a suit challenging its authority over telecom-based airtime lending services.

Confirming the development on Monday, Chairman of the Wireless Application Service Providers Association of Nigeria (WASPAN), Ayo Stuffman, said the services had resumed on both networks.

“As we speak, the services in question are already active on Airtel and Glo,” he said.

The return of the services is expected to provide relief to millions of subscribers who rely on emergency airtime advances for communication and small-scale business activities.

Industry estimates place the annual airtime lending market at more than N400 billion.

The FCCPC had earlier introduced the DEON Regulations 2025 to regulate airtime lending platforms, arguing that the services fall within the scope of digital consumer credit.

The commission said the move was aimed at protecting users against alleged abuses, including unfair lending practices and data privacy violations.

According to the FCCPC, it had received over 11,000 consumer complaints relating to digital lending operations.

However, stakeholders in the telecommunications sector opposed the regulations, maintaining that airtime advances are telecom value-added services and not conventional consumer loans.

The dispute intensified after Justice A. Allagoa of the Federal High Court in Lagos issued an order stopping the enforcement of the framework.

Reports also indicated that contempt proceedings were initiated against the Executive Vice Chairman of the FCCPC, Tunji Bello.

In a statement issued on Friday, FCCPC Director of Corporate Affairs, Ondaje Ijagwu, said the commission suspended implementation of the regulations in obedience to the court order.

“As a law-abiding institution, the commission, in deference and in obedience to the rule of law, hereby suspends the implementation and enforcement of the DEON Regulations 2025,” the statement said.

Despite the suspension, the commission indicated plans to challenge the ruling, stating that its legal team had been directed to contest both the court order and the competence of the suit.

Industry stakeholders said the development had restored temporary stability within the telecom sector but warned that uncertainty surrounding the regulatory framework could affect investor confidence and long-term sector growth.

Chairman of the Association of Licensed Telecommunications Operators of Nigeria (ALTON), Gbenga Adebayo, had earlier called for clearer regulatory boundaries and greater policy predictability within the industry.

Observers say the outcome of the court case will shape the future regulation of Nigeria’s growing digital credit and airtime lending ecosystem.

According to Kaspersky telemetry, the number of NFC-based attacks on Android smartphones aimed at stealing victims’ funds have surged by 188% in the first four months of 2026, compared with the same period in 2025.

From January to April 2026, Kaspersky cybersecurity solutions blocked 35,600 attacks of different Android malware families that use NFC techniques, including SuperCard X, PhantomCard, NGate, as well as other malicious modifications of NFCGate tool, compared to over 12,300 attacks blocked during the first four months in 2025.

According to Kaspersky, users in Russia face NFC relay mobile threats more often, nevertheless Kaspersky experts note that users in other regions — especially in Latin America and Europe — also encounter NFC-based attacks. At the end of 2025, Kaspersky predicted an increase in the number of attacks on NFC payments in 2026.

At the moment, there are two main schemes of NFC-based attacks:

Direct NFC. Fraudsters contact victims via messaging apps and, under the guise of verifying users’ identity, trick them into downloading malware that is disguised, for example, as a financial application. Victims are then prompted to tap their bank card to an infected smartphone, as well as to enter the card PIN. As a result, the card data is handed over to the attackers.

Reverse NFC. Scammers send users a malicious application and, using social engineering techniques, persuade them to set this application as a primary contactless payment method on their compromised smartphones.

Such application generates an NFC signal that ATMs recognise as the scammers’ card. Victims are then persuaded to go to an ATM and deposit funds into a ‘secure account’ using their infected phone. In reality, the scammers receive the victims’ money.

“While previously attackers relied on ‘direct NFC’ scheme, now the ‘reverse NFC’ appears more common,” comments Sergey Golovanov, chief security expert at Kaspersky.

“The danger of a newer, more sophisticated scheme is that this type of fraud is harder to detect and fight against, because victims themselves transfer money to the attackers’ accounts and such transactions are hard to distinguish from legitimate ones.

“We do not rule out that NFC relay malware itself continues to evolve and geography of attacks will expand. That’s why this threat should be further closely monitored.”

“The first publicly reported attacks that used a modified legitimate NFC tool occurred in late 2023. Those attacks were primarily detected in Europe. Then users from Russia and other regions faced similar mobile malware attacks.

Later it became known that cybercriminals packaged NFC relay malware into malware-as-a-service (MaaS) offering, potentially simplifying access to malicious tools for other attackers. NFC relay campaigns demonstrate how threat actors adapt and reuse new methods to steal users’ funds,” added Dmitry Kalinin, cybersecurity expert at Kaspersky.