Telecoms: Bridging Nigeria’s Critical Infrastructure Protection Gap

Nigeria’s telecommunications sector is increasingly central to economic output, government revenue and financial transactions, even as persistent infrastructure disruptions expose a gap between the country’s legal designation of telecoms as critical national infrastructure and the mechanisms available to protect it.

The Designation and Protection of Critical National Information Infrastructure Order 2024, gazetted by President Bola Tinubu in June 2024, designated telecommunications towers, base stations, fibre optic cables, data centres, submarine cables and internet landing points as Critical National Information Infrastructure.

The Order also provides criminal penalties for interference with designated infrastructure.

However, the Critical National Information Infrastructure Protection Plan required by the Order has yet to be published, while the Trusted Information Sharing Network established under the framework has yet to be fully operationalised.

The implementation question assumes greater significance as telecommunications becomes more deeply embedded in Nigeria’s economic architecture.

According to the NBS Q2 2026 GDP report, the broader information and communication technology sector recorded N6 trillion in real output. Telecommunications accounted for 9.72 per cent of total real GDP, contributing N5.20 trillion during the quarter.

The sector is also a significant source of government revenue.

MTN Nigeria recorded N2.9 trillion in service revenue in the first half of 2026, up 25.9 per cent year-on-year, while data revenue rose 38.4 per cent to N1.7 trillion.

The company remitted approximately N622 billion in taxes, duties and levies during the first half of 2026. Its payments to federal and state authorities reached N878.7 billion in 2025, compared with N764 billion in 2024.

Airtel Africa reported 47.5 per cent constant-currency revenue growth from Nigeria for the financial year ended March 2026.

The relationship between telecommunications and financial services has also deepened.

NIBSS processed N1.07 quadrillion in electronic payment transactions over the benchmark year, while its Instant Payments platform processed 11.2 billion distinct transfers, 120 per cent above its 2022 level.

More than 28 million adults, representing 26 per cent of the adult population, remain outside the formal banking system but within reach of mobile networks.

At the infrastructure level, however, disruptions remain significant.

The NCC’s uptime portal recorded 577 network outages during Q1 2026, with 361 attributed to fibre cuts.

In May, 245 major outages were recorded, of which 183, representing 75 per cent, were caused by fibre cuts.

MTN Nigeria recorded more than 9,000 fibre cuts in 2025, while Airtel reported approximately 1,000 monthly.

The infrastructure base is nevertheless expanding rapidly.

Broadband penetration rose from 56.79 per cent in June 2026 to 57.40 per cent in July, representing approximately 122 million broadband subscriptions.

In August, the government announced Project BRIDGE, which is expected to deploy an additional 90,000 kilometres of open-access fibre optic cable and take Nigeria’s national fibre footprint to approximately 125,000 kilometres.

MTN Nigeria invested N1.62 trillion in network infrastructure between 2025 and the first half of 2026 and plans to maintain the investment pace.

The challenge, therefore, is increasingly one of protecting infrastructure as it expands.

The CNII framework provides the legal foundation for stronger physical security protocols, statutory quality-of-service compliance, investment certainty and emergency coordination.

But the effectiveness of the framework will depend on implementation, including the publication of the CNII Protection Plan, operationalisation of the Trusted Information Sharing Network, specialised prosecution arrangements, inter-agency emergency protocols and harmonised right-of-way processes.

For an economy where telecommunications generated N5.20 trillion in quarterly real GDP, supported N1.07 quadrillion in electronic payment transactions and connected 195.1 million active lines by July 2026, the transition from designation to effective protection has become an increasingly important policy issue.