Telecom
Telecoms Boom Leaves Rural Nigeria, Others Behind
While mobile phone usage has exploded across Africa over the last decade, transforming daily life and commerce for millions, it’s a revolution that has left behind perhaps two thirds of its people.
Poor or no reception outside the towns helps explain why the continent’s mobile penetration, in terms of the percentage of the population using the service, is far lower than previously thought, and the cost of providing that service to impoverished, sparsely populated areas remains prohibitive.
According to Reuters, in rural Sierra Leone, a country where GDP per capita is less than US$400 a year, money doesn’t grow on trees, but mobile reception can, says street trader Abass Bangura in Freetown, the West African country’s capital.
In parts of Tonkolili, a district in the centre of the country, or Kailahun to the east, it’s the only way you can get reception, he said.
“You climb stick, like mango tree, before you have network,” he said.
In South Sudan, the world’s newest state, it’s a similar story. Less than a year old, the country already has five mobile operators, and its capital, Juba, is teeming with giant billboards advertising mobile phones, but go just a few kilometres beyond a handful of fast-growing towns, and mobile phones become useless.
Multiple SIM cards help users navigate patchy network coverage and take advantage of price promotions from rival operators.
That is typical of much of the continent.
With a population of just over a billion people, Africa has over 700 million SIM cards, but with most users owning at least two cards, penetration is only about 33 per cent, according to a study released in November by industry research firm Wireless Intelligence.
“If we look at the fact that the rural population of Africa is about 60-70 per cent of the population, and if we look at the degree of penetration into the rural market, it’s very, very low,” said Spiwe Chireka of advisory firm IDC.
In Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country, there are more than enough SIM cards for everyone, but penetration is only 61 per cent, according to a last year study by research firm Informa.
The average mobile phone user in Nigeria owns an average of 2.39 SIM cards. Globally, only Indonesia is higher, with an average of 2.62 SIM cards per user.
Even in Africa’s biggest economy, South Africa, SIM numbers comfortably exceed the population, but given the number of people using multiple devices, actual population penetration is closer to 80 per cent, says market leader Vodacom.
“You’ve got a lot of people buying SIMs, but maybe not enough phones to put it in,” said Olayemi Jinadu, an executive with the Sierra Leone arm of Indian telco Bharti Airtel .
The unserved rural millions could represent another growth opportunity for Africa-focused telcos like South Africa’s MTN Group, Bharti Airtel and Kuwait’s Zain, but first they have to figure out a cost-effective way to push into sub-Saharan Africa’s remote corners.
“There’s great potential, but the big concern for us is operational costs,” said Andre Claasson, chief operating officer at Zain South Sudan.
In rural Africa, the cost of running a network tower often exceeds the revenue it reaps. Fuel is typically about 40 per cent of a tower’s operating cost, and in remote areas companies burn more diesel by bringing fuel to towers than is used powering them.
Although roughly 73 per cent of Africa’s land has mobile phone coverage, according to market research firm IDC, that still leaves vast tracts of rural Africa without network access.
Africa has 170,000 mobile towers now and needs another 60,000, according to tower company IHS Group, which at an average $200,000 each means an outlay of $12 billion.
“If you are an operator asked to spend $200,000 to build a site and another $2,000 a month to run it in an area with 500 people herding cows, it doesn’t make sense,” said Issam Darwish, IHS’s chief executive.
Average revenue per user is also low. It can vary between $1 and $10 per month, much lower than in developed markets such as the United States, which delivered ARPU of $51 last year or Britain, $27.
Bharti, sub-Saharan Africa’s third-largest telecom group, says it makes $6.40 per user in Africa, which is higher than its home Indian market, where it makes only $3.30 a month, but the cost of operating in Africa is much higher and there isn’t a comparable middle class ready and able to spend more.
“You either have a handful of people in the affluent part of the society or you have lots of people who can’t afford the services,” its chairman, Sunil Mittal, said last year.
Operators can save money by sharing towers, but even then, some sites will never make sense without government subsidies, analysts say.
African expansion has not been cheap for telcos. Over the past five years, mobile operators have spent a combined US$16.5 billion on capital expenditure in the key markets of South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya, Senegal and Ghana, according to Wireless Intelligence.
Bharti has earmarked US$1.5 billion for capex this year, while fourth-placed France Telecom is spending US$9.3 billion between 2010 and 2015.
Spare cash is increasingly rare for debt-strapped European telecoms operators, which are cutting their dividends to cope with falling revenues and network upgrade costs in their home markets.
Some African regulators have set up funds to promote coverage, to which operators are expected to contribute.
In Sierra Leone, the Universal Access Development Fund (UADF) is yet to subsidise the cost of putting up a single mast, though it has been active for several years. The regulator complains networks do not contribute the fees they should.
“If we can’t subsidise, they’ll never erect towers there,” said Bashir Kamara, Project Manager at UADF.
Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has said that Nigeria’s internet usage reached a record 1.24 million terabytes in November 2025.
According to the latest data from the NCC, the figure rose modestly from 1.235 million terabytes in October, reflecting steady growth in digital activity across the country.
Broadband penetration in Nigeria crossed the halfway mark in November 2025, reaching 50.58 per cent, up from 45.61 per cent in January, the telecoms regulator reported.
The figure, however, falls short of the 70 per cent coverage target outlined in the National Broadband Plan 2020–2025, which expires this month.
The country had roughly 109 million broadband subscriptions by November. Growth has been uneven, hindered by infrastructure and regulatory constraints, including frequent fibre-optic vandalism that triggers 30 to 43 network cuts daily, high right-of-way fees, and declining subscriber numbers earlier in the year.
Expansion of mobile networks, particularly 3G and 4G services, alongside limited 5G rollouts in urban centres, affordable smartphones, and competitive data plans, has driven uptake.
Investments in the National Communications Backbone and private-sector initiatives have also improved access, especially in underserved areas.
While Nigeria is gradually improving digital inclusion, achieving the original broadband plan remains challenging due to high infrastructure costs, coverage limitations, and deployment hurdles.
The NCC maintains that continued investment in mobile networks and broadband infrastructure will sustain gradual growth in the sector.
Commenting on the development, some Nigerian analysts attributed the surge to the broader mobile and broadband adoption and the growing appetite for streaming, online learning and other digital services.
According to the analysts, the figures suggest that internet connectivity is no longer a luxury but a necessity for both business and leisure, underscoring the slow but steady expansion of Nigeria’s digital economy.
Bureau of Public Service Reforms (BPSR) has named the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) among the top three Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) of the Federal Government with the Best Ranking in Website Performance for 2025.
L-R: Head Special Projects, Nigerian Export Promotion Council (NEPC), Salamatu Andu; Executive Commissioner, Technical Services, Nigerian Communication Commission (NCC), Engr. Abaraham Oshadame; Director General Bureau of Public Service Reforms (BPSR), Head Customer Support Service, Galaxy Backbone, Rosemary Ehize; Secretary to the ES. Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board, Tahir Aminu at the BPSR award ceremony for top four MDAs in BPSR Website Performance and Ranking 2025 at the BPSR office on Tuesday, 23rd December, 2025.
This is coming barely three weeks after the telecom regulator was recognized as one of the top five best-performing Federal Government agencies for 2025 by the Presidential Enabling Business Environment Council (PEBEC) – a testament to the Commission’s consistency in investment in technology for ensuring efficient service delivery.
In the BPSR 2024/2025 scorecard ranking of agencies’ websites, the NCC came second in the ranking, trailing behind Galaxy Backbone Limited, which came first while the Nigeria Export Promotion Council (NEPC) clinched the third position, from a pool of 235 MDAs, whose website were evaluated.
BPSR deployed 14 evaluation criteria in include MDA’s website compliance with .gov.ng domain name, appearance and aesthetics (look and feel) of the website, content, relevance to MDAs mandate/government policy and the website’ structure.
Others include website’s responsiveness (device compatibility), security, load time, usability/ease of navigation, availability/uptime, functionality, interactivity, accessibility and capacity building.
The recognition was announced at the official release of Federal Government 2024/2025 Scorecard Ranking for MDAs’ Website held at the Federal Ministry of Finance Auditorium in Abuja on Monday (December 22, 2025) while the award presentation took place at BPSR’s Office on Tuesday (December 23, 2025).
The award, which is an important index metric of the National e-Government Masterplan for determining the Nigeria e-Government Status, was received by the Commission in recognition of its commitment to maintaining a world-class website that enhances service delivery to the citizens.
Receiving the award on behalf of the Executive Vice Chairman of the NCC, Dr. Aminu Maida, the NCC’s Executive Commissioner, Technical Services, Abraham Oshadami, appreciated the BPSR for the recognition, describing the award as “another encouragement for the Commission to be a better public service institution leveraging digital platforms such as our web presence to enhance public service delivery to our various stakeholders, thereby implementing the Federal Government’s Ease of Doing Business policy direction.”
While presenting the award to the NCC, alongside other two agencies, BPSR’s Director-General, Mr. Dasuki Arabi, commended the top three for their proactive decisions in maintaining world-class websites, which are compliant with the Federal Government’s policy direction in effective and efficient service delivery to the citizens.
According to the DG, the 2024/2025 MDA’s websites’ ranking represents a collective effort of federal public institutions in Nigeria to be transparent, accountable and open in governance, as well as a confirmation to align with global best practices in service delivery to the citizens.
Developed about six years ago, Arabi said as a result of the annual ranking, more public institutions have indicated readiness to embrace reforms, and align with the policy direction of the current administration’s Renewed Hope agenda on improve governance for effective service delivery, as introduced by His Excellency President Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
“The ideals of harnessing and deploying technological tools for service delivery has become imperative following the COVID pandemic, and distortions of socio-economic system of nations, culminating in the evolution of competitiveness, cost effectiveness, and agile governance.
“As engine room of governance, it behoves on us in the public service to perform our statutory duties and we must put in place technological innovations and standardized websites to operate services as well as deliver service needs to citizens,” he said.
The Scorecard exercise, he said, is part of the BPSR reform broader function of conducting research on reform implementation efforts and presenting ‘best practice’ models to the entire Public Service, and to among others, improve access to government information, facilitate seamless financial transaction, eliminate corruption and cyber theft, as well as facilitate access to government services.
Speaking on the rigorous nature of the exercise that produced the top three winners, the DG said “in the past few weeks members of the Scorecard Jury drawn from inter-Ministerial Agencies, had worked tirelessly to mill websites of selected MDAs through a rigorous process of enduring criteria for the ranking and the outcome had also passed through a quality assurance mechanism to validate the outcome.”
Taiwo Oyedele, Chairman of the Presidential Committee on Fiscal Policy and Tax Reforms, has dismissed reports that bank accounts not linked to a Tax Identification Number (TIN) will be frozen or automatically debited from January 1, 2026.
Taiwo Oyedele
Oyedele described the claims as false and misleading, warning Nigerians against panic over misinformation surrounding recent tax and financial reforms.
In a post on his X handle Tuesday morning, he wrote: “Don’t let anyone manipulate you. Your bank account is safe. Misinformation makes you panic and fear a reform that is designed to help you.
“When they tell you that your account will be frozen or automatically debited from January 2026, ask them for the evidence in the new law. Be wise.”
He stressed that no provision in the new tax laws authorises the freezing of bank accounts, adding that the rumours are part of widespread misrepresentation of the reforms.
The committee chairman reiterated that the reforms are intended to simplify Nigeria’s tax system and ease the burden on ordinary citizens, not to impose punitive measures on bank customers.
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