Telecom
NCC’s Maida Calls for Unified Action to Accelerate Broadband and Safeguard Telecom Infrastructure
Dr. Aminu Maida, Executive Vice Chairman of the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), has called for urgent collaboration among Nigeria’s states and stakeholders to accelerate broadband connectivity and safeguard critical national infrastructure.
L-R: Director, Critical National Assets and Infrastructure Protection, Office of the National Security Advisers (ONSA), Enebong Effiom; Executive Governor, Katsina State, Dikko Radda and Executive Vice Chairman/Chief Executive Officer, Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), Dr. Aminu Maida, during a business roundtable on broadband investment and critical national infrastructure protection hosted by the Commission in Abuja on Wednesday (October 8, 2025).
Speaking at a business roundtable held at the NCC Digital Economy Complex on Wednesday, October 8, 2025, the EVC emphasized broadband as a national imperative for economic growth, security, and digital inclusion under the theme, “Right of Way and Protection of Broadband Infrastructure – The Road to Success in Broadband Investment and Connectivity.”
Dr. Maida began his remarks by underscoring the invaluable role of connectivity across industries, citing examples from Enugu’s industrial sector to security services relying on real-time data. “When connectivity fails, opportunities evaporate, productivity stalls—and in critical situations, lives can be put at risk,” he said.
He stressed that broadband today transcends faster downloads or video calls; it is the bedrock of economic inclusion and national resilience.
According to the EVC, Nigeria’s broadband penetration stood at approximately 48.81 percent as of August 2025, with over 140 million Nigerians online. Highlighting the sector’s contribution to GDP, he cited research indicating a 10 percent broadband increase could boost GDP by 1.38 percent in developing countries.
Expanding broadband access, Dr. Maida said, would multiply economic opportunities, enabling new jobs, services, and innovation hubs across Nigeria’s states.
He referenced Rwanda and India’s success stories, where coordinated investments in fiber infrastructure and digital governance transformed their economies into emerging digital powerhouses.
The EVC lauded the leadership of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu and Communications Minister Dr. Bosun Tijani for pursuing the National Broadband Plan (2020–2025) with ambitious targets of 70 percent broadband penetration and deployment of 90,000 kilometres of fiber backbone by year-end.
To this end, the NCC has translated these goals into strategic actions despite operational challenges.
Among the NCC’s key initiatives, Dr. Maida highlighted the Critical National Information Infrastructure (CNII) Presidential Order signed in June 2024, which empowers law enforcement agencies to combat vandalism, theft, and denial of service attacks on telecom infrastructure.
The Commission, working closely with the Office of the National Security Adviser (ONSA), has operationalized this order through a Telecommunications Industry Working Group focused on site security, maintenance, and access control.
Complemented by public awareness campaigns and collaboration with judicial and security institutions, this effort has led to the dismantling of major vandalism cartels over the past two years.
Addressing the historic challenge of high Right of Way (RoW) fees—levied variably by states and often hindering fiber rollout—the EVC disclosed successes in advocacy resulting in five additional states (Adamawa, Bauchi, Enugu, Benue, and Zamfara) waiving these fees, bringing the total to eleven states without RoW charges.
Seventeen other states have capped fees at the Nigerian Governors Forum benchmark of N145 per linear meter. Dr. Maida underscored ongoing efforts to achieve uniform, predictable RoW regimes nationwide, coupled with “dig-once” coordination with public works to share ducts and plans, cutting fiber damage and civil works costs.
The NCC further strengthened investor confidence by approving cost-reflective and competitive tariff rates earlier this year, prompting operators’ collective commitment of over $1 billion in broadband rollout investments across Nigeria.
To enhance market openness, the Commission has commissioned a wholesale fiber study to facilitate backbone sharing between owners and Internet Service Providers, unlocking last-mile expansion and faster backhaul.
On transparency, the Commission expanded performance disclosures, including outage reporting, quality of service dashboards, and compliance metrics to drive accountability.
Despite these achievements, the EVC highlighted continuing challenges: from January to August 2025, Nigeria recorded 19,384 fiber cut incidents, 3,241 equipment thefts, and over 19,000 cases of denied access to telecom sites, causing prolonged outages and increased security costs.
Further obstacles include fragmented and unpredictable RoW regimes, weak coordination with road authorities, energy supply volatility, multiple taxation, and bureaucratic permitting processes.
Dr. Maida warned of the urgency, citing the accelerating global digital race driven by artificial intelligence and outsourcing movements favoring low-cost, high-connectivity environments. “If our broadband backbone is weak, our youth will be marginalized, and our economy will likely not achieve its full potential,” he said, underscoring that communities without digital connectivity today are essentially invisible.
The EVC urged governors and state authorities to partner in enforcing telecom infrastructure as critical assets; adopt 100 percent RoW waivers or at minimum NGF benchmarks with clear timelines; institutionalize coordination between public works and operators; embrace transparency in fees and processes; establish state digital infrastructure funds to attract private fiber investment; and support energy resilience through hybrid and solar power at telecom sites.
Looking ahead, Dr. Maida announced two major NCC initiatives to be launched the next day: an Ease of Doing Business Portal offering a one-stop-shop for all 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory, and the Nigeria Digital Connectivity Index (NDCI), a framework to annually measure and publish states’ digital readiness and competitiveness to enhance accountability and drive improvements.
He concluded with a powerful call to action: “The digital revolution does not wait. Let us align, invest, and protect, for the prosperity of our people and the future of our nation.” He left the audience with one final question, “Will we align—or be left behind?”
This roundtable marks a pivotal moment in Nigeria’s journey toward a digitally inclusive and economically robust future, positioning broadband connectivity and its protection as strategic national imperatives.
Association of Licensed Telecommunications Operators of Nigeria (ALTON) has declared support for the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC’s) push to promote local smartphone manufacturing in the country.
Gbenga Adebayo, chairman, ALTON,
The News Agency of Nigeria reported that ALTON described the move as a practical measure capable of accelerating broadband adoption and expanding digital inclusion across the country.
Gbenga Adebayo, chairman, ALTON, made the remarks to newsmen on Saturday while reacting to comments by Idris Olorunnimbe, chairman, NCC Board, who had earlier called for local smartphone production and innovative financing models to address Nigeria’s digital inclusion gap.
Adebayo said Nigeria must intentionally transition from being predominantly a technology consumer to becoming an innovator, designer and manufacturer of digital technologies, pointing to the country’s large telecommunications market and youthful population as the scale and human capital needed to support world-class manufacturing.
He said Nigeria’s ambition in local manufacturing should extend well beyond simply assembling imported components into finished devices.
“Our ambition should extend beyond assembling devices. We must pursue genuine knowledge transfer, research and development, product engineering, software development, semiconductor capabilities and large-scale manufacturing,” he said, adding that the goal should be producing devices and digital technologies for Nigeria, Africa and the global market.
Adebayo explained that the emergence of artificial intelligence has further strengthened Nigeria’s opportunity to become a competitive technology manufacturing hub, noting that AI is transforming product design, manufacturing, quality assurance, supply chain management, customer experience and software innovation.
He said investing in AI-enabled manufacturing would improve productivity, create high-value jobs and strengthen Nigeria’s competitiveness across Africa.
On tackling counterfeit and non-type-approved devices, Adebayo described the grey market as a major challenge affecting consumers, original equipment manufacturers and the wider telecommunications ecosystem.
He said robust local manufacturing backed by strong quality standards would provide credible alternatives to grey-market imports.
“This will strengthen consumer protection, improve network performance, retain greater value within our economy, and stimulate industrial growth,” he said, while also endorsing innovative smartphone financing, stronger device management systems and identity-enabled credit frameworks to help more Nigerians afford quality smartphones.
Adebayo said telecom operators remain ready to partner with government, manufacturers, financiers, academia, investors and development partners to build sustainable local manufacturing capacity in Nigeria.
Ayotunde Coker, managing director, Open Access Data Centres has reiterated availability of abundant capacity and world-class infrastructure in key data centres in Nigeria.
This is coming against the backdrop of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) directive to banks, fintechs, mobile money operators, and other payment service providers to host their payment transaction data generated within Nigeria on local servers from January 1st, 2027.
Mr. Coker made the assertion at a media interactive session on readiness of major data centres in the country such as Open Access Data centres to effectively host financial sector data.
“As far as readiness is concerned, we have the co-location base, the co-infrastructure basis, and interconnection capability. Indigenous cloud companies are building out, such companies like Unicloud Africa, Layer 3 within the data centres, adding cloud capability, and providing cloud solutions to local companies.
“The other key thing with the directive is that it sends a signal to the world that data sovereignty localization is key. And will also trigger the global providers to bring their own scale of cloud in here in time, which is good for building our digital infrastructure scale”.
The CBN directive signed by the Director of the Payments System Supervision Department, Rakiya Yusuf, also introduced new market structure rules, beneficial ownership disclosure requirements and systemic oversight measures for payment service operators.
According to the apex bank, the reforms became necessary following the rapid expansion of electronic payments and digital financial services across the country.
The CBN said it had observed “significant structural developments within the Nigerian Payments ecosystem, characterized by rapid growth in electronic payments, increasing adoption of digital financial services, and the emergence of operators with substantial market presence across key payment activities.”
It noted that while the growth had improved innovation, efficiency and financial inclusion, it had also created concerns around market concentration, operational dependence, ownership transparency and the storage of critical payments data.
To address these concerns, the regulator ordered all financial institutions facilitating payments in Nigeria to ensure that transaction data generated within the country are stored domestically.
The circular stated, “All Financial Institutions and participants facilitating payments within Nigeria shall ensure that payments transaction data generated within Nigeria are stored and managed in Nigeria in accordance with data protection laws and regulations applicable in Nigeria.”
It added that “all affected Financial Institutions shall fully comply with this requirement effective January 1, 2027.”
The move is expected to strengthen regulatory oversight, enhance data sovereignty and ensure that sensitive payment information remains within Nigeria’s jurisdiction.
It also aligns with broader efforts by regulators globally to localise critical financial data and reduce reliance on offshore infrastructure.
Nigeria’s telecommunications sector recorded further growth in April 2026 as active mobile subscriptions increased to 188.01 million, while broadband penetration rose to 55.67 per cent, according to the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC).
The latest industry statistics released by the commission showed that active telephony subscriptions rose to 188,009,171 in April from the previous month’s figure, raising the country’s teledensity to 86.73 per cent from 85.67 per cent recorded in March.
The report indicated sustained expansion in access to telecommunications services, driven by increasing demand for mobile voice and data services across the country.
According to the NCC, MTN Nigeria retained its position as the largest operator with 96,391,419 active subscribers, accounting for more than half of the country’s total mobile subscriptions.
Airtel Nigeria followed with 64,670,018 subscribers, while Globacom recorded 23,178,597 subscribers.
9mobile had 3,538,021 active subscribers during the period.
The commission’s data also showed continued migration by consumers to faster broadband technologies.
It said fourth-generation (4G) technology remained the dominant mobile network platform, accounting for 54.41 per cent of total network connections in April, up from 53.76 per cent in March.
Similarly, fifth-generation (5G) technology continued its steady growth, with market share increasing from 4.20 per cent in March to 4.34 per cent in April.
However, the share of second-generation (2G) subscriptions declined to 35.93 per cent from 36.74 per cent, reflecting a gradual shift away from legacy networks to higher-speed broadband services.
The report added that the third-generation (3G) segment remained relatively stable, accounting for 5.32 per cent of total connections compared with 5.30 per cent recorded in March.
It further showed that of the total subscriptions, 154,347,260 were on mobile GSM networks, while fixed wired internet subscriptions stood at 156,662.
Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) services accounted for 220,166 subscriptions.
The NCC also reported significant growth in broadband subscriptions, which increased to 120,684,625 in April from 117,710,397 in March.
Consequently, broadband penetration improved to 55.67 per cent from 54.30 per cent recorded in the previous month.
The commission attributed the increase to continued investment in broadband infrastructure and growing adoption of high-speed internet services by households and businesses.
Despite the growth in broadband subscriptions, total internet data consumption declined slightly during the month.
According to the report, internet usage fell marginally to 1,414,848.70 terabytes (TB) in April from 1,422,764.54TB recorded in March.
The report suggested that while more Nigerians were gaining internet access, overall data consumption remained relatively stable.
The NCC noted that the telecommunications sector continued to play a critical role in the nation’s economy, contributing 9.19 per cent to Nigeria’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in the first quarter of 2026.
It added that sustained investment in broadband infrastructure, wider deployment of 5G networks and improved quality of service would further accelerate digital inclusion, innovation and economic growth in the country.
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