The Nigerian telecoms industry suffered a total of 19,384 fibre cuts between January and August 2025. This is according to a statement by the Executive Vice-chairman of the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), Aminu Maida, on Wednesday.

At a roundtable discussion organised by the commission in partnership with the Ministry of Finance, World Bank and the Nigeria Governors Forum, Maida expressed concerns over increased attacks on telecoms infrastructure. He added that the activity had remained a threat to digital economy growth and national security.

During the same period, the telecoms industry recorded 3,241 cases of equipment theft, according to the NCC boss. Also, over 19,000 cases of denials of access to telecom sites were recorded, which resulted in prolonged shutdown.

Vandalisation of telecoms infrastructures has caused repeatable financial loss to mobile network operators and disruption in internet connectivity nationwide. By extension, these vices are negatively impacting essential services, including banking, healthcare, education, and security.

Telecoms infrastructure, such as towers, fibre lines, base stations, and data centres, has been classified as Critical National Information Infrastructure, CNII. However, the operations are increasingly targeted by vandals, thieves, and uncooperative communities.

Two months ago, the NCC boss raised an alarm that the industry records over 1,100 fibre cuts, 545 cases of access denial, and nearly 100 thefts. While calling for urgent intervention, Maida explained that these are not just statistics but represent service disruptions for millions of Nigerians and losses running into billions of naira.

“Other key challenges include poor power supply, bureaucratic delays in Right-of-Way approvals, growing cybersecurity threats, and security risks in conflict-prone regions. The sector cannot thrive where technicians are attacked and operators rebuild the same fibre lines every week,” he added.

In the same light, MTN Nigeria announced that it suffered 760 fibre cuts nationwide in July 2025, bringing its total tally to over 5,478 incidents as of that time. At the end of June 2025, MTN had suffered 4,700 cuts, bringing the total to about 13,700 incidents in 18 months.

Data from NCC revealed that telecoms services were severely disrupted in at least nine states (Rivers, Katsina, Lagos, Enugu, Benue, Anambra, Imo, Abia, and Akwa Ibom) across Nigeria in June 2025, following multiple incidents of fibre cuts. And this affected all four MNOs: MTN, Airtel, Globacom and T2mobile (formerly 9mobile).

Read More: MTN’s 5,478 fibre cuts in 2025 signal an urgency for Nigeria’s CNI enforcement.

Efforts to save telecoms infrastructure from vandalism 

The NCC Vice-chairman, during the discussion, shared progress on its move to protect telecoms infrastructure. He said that the office of the national security adviser (ONSA) has dismantled cartels behind the persistent sabotage of fibre-optic infrastructure across the country.

In addition, Maida noted that the collaboration with the NSA to tackle the menace faced by the industry is already yielding desired results. 

“Together, these disruptions have caused prolonged outages, revenue losses, increased security costs, and delayed service restoration. They demonstrate why infrastructure protection must be at the centre of our collective agenda,” Maida said.

He shared that the commission is enforcing stricter compliance with critical national infrastructure (CNI) protection orders. Recall that President Bola Tinubu signed the policy in 2024 as part of the move to enforce security standards for telecom sites and promote the digital economy.

The NCC boss mentioned that the poor communication between public works agencies and operators has worsened fibre damage nationwide. Also,  federal contractors didn’t know how to reach mobile network operators, with contractors repeatedly cutting cables during road construction.

“There was no coordination mechanism. We’ve now created a working group with the Ministry of Works to share early notices and prevent fibre cuts that can bring down entire states,” he explained.

Maida said that NCC will soon publish real-time data on network outages and launch a ‘Digital Connectivity Index’. The data will rank each state’s performance on broadband coverage, affordability, and resilience.