Nigeria’s telecommunications backbone is under siege, with the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) revealing that the country suffered 19,384 fibre cuts between January and August 2025 alone.
According to the commission, the woes of telecommunication operators within the period also included 3,241 cases of equipment theft and over 19,000 incidents of access denial at telecom sites.
The Executive Vice Chairman (EVC) of the NCC, Dr Aminu Maida, disclosed these figures on Wednesday in Abuja during a business roundtable on broadband investment and critical infrastructure protection, warning that persistent vandalism and sabotage threaten the country’s economic growth and digital future.
“These disruptions have caused prolonged outages, revenue losses, increased security costs, and delayed service restoration,” Maida said. “They demonstrate why infrastructure protection must be at the centre of our collective agenda.”
He explained that under the leadership of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu and the Minister of Communications, Innovation and Digital Economy, Dr Bosun Tijani, the Federal Government had made major strides to strengthen telecom infrastructure security.
According to him, the signing of the Critical National Information Infrastructure (CNII) Presidential Order in June 2024 now gives law enforcement agencies the executive backing to prosecute vandalism and ensure uninterrupted service delivery.
He explained that to enforce this order, the NCC has set up a Telecommunications Industry Working Group in collaboration with the Office of the National Security Adviser (ONSA) to coordinate operationalisation across networks.
Maida revealed that ONSA has successfully dismantled several major cartels responsible for the theft of telecom equipment in recent years.
He added that the Commission has rolled out an extensive public awareness campaign—through radio, TV, and community outreach—urging citizens to help protect telecom facilities within their communities.
Despite these efforts, Maida described vandalism as one of the “most persistent threats” to national connectivity and urged state governments to take infrastructure protection seriously.
“In the 21st century, a community without connectivity is invisible,” he warned. “It is cut off from education, healthcare, markets, and opportunity. Protecting our digital lifelines is now a patriotic duty.”
The NCC boss also lamented that multiple taxation, inconsistent right-of-way policies, and poor power supply continue to frustrate investment and expansion, calling for stronger coordination between federal, state, and local authorities to sustain progress in Nigeria’s telecom sector.
