• 14 states host 2000km fibre as digital divide triggers rural-urban drift
• Subscribers demand shift to quality of experience
• Operators record over 27,685 fibre cuts, 27,000 access denial incidents
• ALTON demands more fiscal attention

Nigeria’s ambitious drive toward digitisation is being undermined by the digital divide and stark disparities in telecom infrastructure and services across the 36 states and Federal Capital Territory (FCT).
 
Fresh data on fibre deployment and base transceiver station (BTS) sites reveals that while a handful of states are racing ahead, 18 states remain crippled by insecurity, poor investment returns and weak infrastructure expansion.

This comes as Nigeria, this month, marks 25 years of telecom revolution, which has seen rapid growth largely concentrated in the urban centres. Commercial telephone service via the GSM started on August 5, 2001, after January paperwork and has seen teledensity hitting 87.5 per cent.   
 
Telephone connections moved from a meagre 400,000 NITEL lines by 2000 to 320 million connected lines in 2026, of which, as of May, 189 million lines had remained active.
By providence, telecom has become infrastructure of infrastructure, driving a boom in the banking, health, and education sectors, among others, with the help of broadband, whose penetration is currently 56.11 per cent.

Disparity in national telecom infrastructure
Amidst the various progress around the telecom sector, developments have not been even in the country. It has tilted largely towards the cosmopolitan centres.

Checks showed that only 14 states have fibre deployment above 2000 kilometre (km), a critical benchmark for robust broadband penetration. Lagos leads the pack with an impressive 11,586.7km of fibre and 7,996 BTS sites, followed by the FCT Abuja with 6,973.13km and 2,884 BTS sites.   
 
Other strong performers include Rivers (4,616.01km), Kano (4,616.71km), Edo (4,789.72km), Delta (4,202.62km), Ogun (4,246.48km), Kaduna (4,339.85km), Niger (3,383.43km), Benue (3,187.34km), Oyo (3,585.15km), Anambra (2,547.34km), Plateau (2,567km) and Kwara (2,410.13km).

The states represent Nigeria’s digital backbone, hosting most fibre networks and BTS sites that power mobile connectivity, Internet services, and digital commerce. Lagos, unsurprisingly, towers above all others, reflecting its status as Nigeria’s commercial hub and Africa’s largest digital economy.
  
In sharp contrast, 18 states languish below the 2000km fibre mark, exposing millions of Nigerians to poor connectivity and limited access to digital services. States like Bayelsa (656.87km fibre, 436 BTS sites), Ebonyi (586.92km fibre, 422 BTS sites), Zamfara (1,100.98km fibre, 362 BTS sites), Yobe (1,526.82km fibre, 433 BTS sites), and Taraba (1,549.5km fibre, 673 BTS sites) illustrate the depth of Nigeria’s digital divide.

Already, an estimated 21 million Nigerians across 4,834 communities, mostly in rural areas, lack access to basic mobile connectivity. The Minister of Communications, Innovation and Digital Economy, Bosun Tijani, stated this in February 2025.

In April 2025, the Universal Service Provision Fund (USPF) reported that in 2013, the number of people living in unserved and underserved areas was 36.8 million and fell to 23 million by 2024.

Secretary of USPF, Yomi Arowosafe, said the 23 million unserved/underserved people are housed in over 3000 communities, predominantly in rural areas and still lack basic mobile connectivity.

Checks by The Guardian showed that these unserved and underserved communities are largely concentrated in the northern part of Nigeria. These communities face the most acute digital isolation, leaving many citizens disconnected. Large swathes of these communities have experienced government-mandated telecommunications shutdowns to curb banditry. Even when lifted, infrastructure remained damaged or unrepaired by telcos fearful of returning to the sites.

For instance, in Zamfara state, Local Government Areas (LGAs) including Shinkafi, Zurmi, Birnin Magaji, and Kaura Namoda are severely underserved. Other communities include Sardauna, Kurmi, Karim Lamido, Illela, Sabon Birni, Isa, Gudu, Birnin Gwari, Kachia, Kaura, Giwa, Kajuru, and Chikun, among others.

In the Southern part, unserved areas are largely in the riverine areas of Bayelsa, Delta, Ondo, among others. There are also border communities, where the population density is low, and the return on investment for telecom operators is minimal.

Interestingly, 18 states with fibre deployment below 2000km collectively received between N12 billion and N45 billion monthly allocations in the last year. Oil-producing states dominate, while Ekiti, Gombe, and Nasarawa remain at the bottom of the FAAC distribution scale.

These states are not only underserved but also face compounding challenges: insecurity in the North-East and North-West, low population density in rural areas and poor investment returns that discourage operators from expanding fibre networks.
  
For instance, Borno with 1,012.52km fibre and 579 BTS sites remains hamstrung by insurgency, while Jigawa (970.1km fibre, 565 BTS sites) struggles with low commercial viability.

Impact of digital divide on governance, economy
To clearly demonstrate that the challenge of last-mile connectivity is real in Nigeria, checks by The Guardian showed that despite clear benefits, adopting digitalisation remains challenging as many local government areas (LGAs) face increased skill and technology gaps, infrastructure deficits, socio-economic barriers and governance issues.

The limited number of LGAs with active websites is often concentrated in metropolitan areas, suggesting a strong correlation between economic activity and digital maturity.  

The data from the NCC also highlighted the spread of telecom operators across states. Lagos and Abuja host the widest range of operators, including Globacom, MTN, Airtel, IHS, MainOne, Phase3, Spectranet, SwiftNet, Broadbased, Layer3, and ATC. In contrast, states like Kebbi, Taraba, and Yobe are served by only four operators, limiting competition and service quality.

This uneven distribution underscores the market realities 25 years after the revolution started. Operators concentrate investments where returns are highest, leaving less profitable regions underserved. The result is a two-speed Nigeria, one digitally connected and thriving, the other struggling to plug into the digital economy.

Industry analysts pointed to two major barriers: insecurity and poor investment returns. In the North-East and North-West, insurgency and banditry have made fibre deployment risky and costly. Operators face vandalism of fibre cables, destruction of BTS sites, and threats to personnel. In rural states, low population density means fewer subscribers, translating to poor returns on multimillion-dollar investments in fibre and BTS infrastructure.

This vicious cycle discourages further investment, perpetuating the digital divide. Without intervention, millions of Nigerians will remain excluded from the benefits of digitisation, online education, e-commerce, telemedicine, and digital banking.

Nigeria’s National Broadband Plan had envisioned 70 per cent broadband penetration by 2025, but due to the current disparities, the target was not met. Nigeria finished 2025 with 51.97 per cent broadband penetration, but as of May 2026, it has climbed to 56.11zper cent, enjoyed by 121 million people in the country.

About 25 years after the first telephone calls were made via GSM technology, with only 14 states above 2000km fibre deployment, the country risks leaving nearly half its states behind. The implications are profound: unequal access to digital services will deepen socio-economic inequalities, stifle innovation, and weaken Nigeria’s competitiveness in the global digital economy.

Industry experts warned that bridging the divide requires deliberate policy interventions. These include incentivising operators to invest in underserved regions, deploying alternative technologies like satellite broadband, and strengthening security to protect infrastructure. Public-private partnerships could also play a role, with the government providing subsidies or guarantees to de-risk investments in low-return areas.

As of mid-2026, some 15 states have completely waived Right of Way (RoW) charges for telecom operators. The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) confirmed that states like Lagos, Kogi, Edo, Oyo, Kaduna, Kwara, and Niger are among those that have eliminated these fees to accelerate broadband penetration. Meanwhile, another 16 states have adopted the nationally recommended rate of N145 per linear meter.

Stakeholders express concerns
Industry executives argued that the economics of broadband expansion remain one of the biggest barriers.

Speaking with The Guardian, a member of ATCON, who preferred anonymity, said there are several factors responsible for the gaps in telecom infrastructure rollout across the state, 25 years after the telecom revolution.

He said chief among them is the limited commercial viability of investing in many of these locations, as the expected return on investment is often too low to justify the huge capital expenditure. Secondly, the persistent insecurity in some of these states has discouraged the deployment and expansion of telecommunications infrastructure.

Thirdly, he said, where BTS are deployed, telecommunications operators are compelled to provide their own power supply due to inadequate electricity infrastructure, while also incurring additional operational costs associated with maintaining personnel and facilities in remote and difficult-to-access areas. These, among other factors, continue to hinder network expansion.

Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Layer3, Oyaje Idoko, said operators naturally invest where returns are strongest.

“As a private investor, before we extend service to a new community, we must ask whether it is commercially viable. If a community cannot afford the service or power is unreliable, the business won’t survive,” he said.

Chairman, Association of Licensed Telecom Operators of Nigeria (ALTON), Gbenga Adebayo, said the telecom industry faces its hardest test 25 years after GSM launch.

He said: “You cannot absolve the problem of society from the quality of services as they solve the problem in the development of the services. If you don’t remove the element that leads to the issue of quality of services, fines and penalties do not help.”

The ALTON Chairman said further that the Nigerian Government often blames the telecoms operators for not being able to provide the required QoS, whereas the operators do not have the RoW, stressing that “if you want to apply for a right, you apply for a right on paper. “You wait, at times for 10 days, and beyond to get it. We cannot absolve the consequences of those problems. That’s why I say that you cannot solve the problem of QoS with fines and penalties.”

Speaking with The Guardian on the uneven distribution of telecom infrastructure, Adebayo said it’s a combination of factors. “First, the states that have reduced their right-of-way, while a lot of them have reduced it, have other hidden charges that are still high. Some states, for example, will tell us right-of-way is zero, but you have to pay developmental levy per linear meter. You have to pay educational levy, you have to pay effluent discharge levy, you have to pay environmental levy, then you have to pay capital deployment fee. They add all that, while they claim the right-of-way is zero.

“So, in fact, it actually makes a ridicule of the zero right-of-way claims. That’s one case in some states. In other states, the cost of right-of-way is so prohibitive, and the hostility on the part of government officials is so prohibitive, that it doesn’t make them commercially attractive to deploy there. Except those barriers are not removed, it’s not attractive for anyone.”

The third challenge, according to Adebayo, is that some states don’t even care about ICT. “They don’t care at all. So, all the explanations around physical infrastructure and broadband penetration to revenue officials in some of those states aren’t an attraction. You either pay and we let you work, or you don’t pay and we don’t let you work. So, these are the issues that are affecting deployment in many areas. Whether we like it or not, it’s affecting the overall expansion of infrastructure. It’s affecting it.”

Speaking on the issue of vandalism, especially bandits and terrorist attacks on telecom infrastructure in the northern part of the country, the ALTON Chairman disclosed that repairs were actually made in areas where access was granted.

“In areas where we have difficulty, we are getting support from the security agencies to access those sites and to replace what has to be replaced. So, we’ve not abandoned any territory of the country, and I think that is important to state. That even though there have been challenges in some territories, there hasn’t been any territory of the country that is abandoned on account of this issue of infrastructure and of security. There hasn’t been any abandoned territory.

“So, we are still supporting all parts of the country. Where we have lost infrastructure to non-state actors, we’ve replaced them. We’ve sought the support of security agencies to allow our members access, and those have been done. In accessible territories, even by security agencies, there is not much that we can do. But as much as we can on our side, we are replacing assets that are lost on account of vandalism or on account of insecurity. We are replacing those assets.”

On the implication of uneven distribution of telecom infrastructure, President, National Association of Telecom Subscribers of Nigeria (NATCOMs), Deolu Ogunbanjo, submitted that this is huge and detrimental to economic growth. He said this will further trigger rural-urban drift because “there are no telemedicines, coupled with several others.”

Further, he said the implication will border on the commercial development of those underserved areas, stressing that if operators invest in those areas, the rural-urban drift may reduce.

Speaking on when Nigerians would really experience, quality of experience (QoE), the Chief Financial Officer at MTN Nigeria, Modupe Kadri, in an interaction with journalists in Lagos, said MTN cannot be insulated from the Nigerian environment, stressing that issues of vandalism, RoW, multiple fibre cuts have continued unabated, “these challenges continued to define some of the things happening in the sector. Until we can overcome all these, then the quality of experience will come.”

Indeed, checks showed that in the last one year, operators recorded over 27,685 fibre cuts, 27,000 access denial incidents, and 4,210 theft cases.

While Nigeria’s telecom sector battles several challenges from all fronts, including vandalism, site closures, fibre cuts, multiple taxation, exorbitant RoW charges, and lack of grid power, it appears to be a crisis in the last 25 years. As of today, telecom operators are said to spend 30 per cent of their operating expenditure on energy to power their over 40,000 base transceiver stations (BTS) spread across the country.

MTN Nigeria Chief Operating Officer, Ayham Mousa, said the lack of energy to base stations hinders quality of service, stressing that no operator jokes with low energy supply to sites.
  
Mousa, who said that while about 20 per cent to 30 per cent of expenses go into power availability across sites, stressed that 70 per cent of downtime is traceable to lack of power, increasing fibre cuts and vandalism.
  
Meanwhile, to close Nigeria’s connectivity gap, the Federal Government is implementing Project BRIDGE, a programme expected to deploy an additional 90,000 kilometres of fibre across all 774 local government areas.
  
The project has already secured a $200 million loan from the African Development Bank Group and a further $100 million investment commitment from the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.
“Project BRIDGE represents one of Nigeria’s most ambitious digital infrastructure programmes. But this backbone expansion must be complemented by last-mile infrastructure that brings capacity from national routes into homes, offices, schools, hospitals and communities. That is where Fibre-to-the-Home becomes central,” NCC EVC, Dr Aminu Maida stated.
   
Already, Tijani, last week, announced that work will commence within weeks on a 90,000-kilometre fibre-optic network expected to connect every state, local government area and ward in Nigeria, marking what officials describe as one of the country’s most ambitious digital infrastructure projects.
According to the minister, all resource mobilisation and contractual processes for the nationwide fibre project have been completed, paving the way for physical deployment.

“We are now at the point where, in a few weeks, we should start to lay that fibre, so people will start seeing us around the country deploying the fibre. This is going to transform Nigeria for good,” Tijani said.