Telcos losing billions of Naira to vandalism as NCC audit shows subscription shortfall

. Regulator claims MNO without a CEO now has one and compliant with regulations

The Executive Vice Chairman of the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), Dr Aminu Maida, has said that telecommunications operators in Nigeria are currently facing immense challenges with frequent fibre cuts, vandalism, and equipment theft costing them billions of naira.

Maida stated this against the backdrop of the recent declaration of telecom infrastructure as Critical National Information Infrastructure (CNII) by President Bola Tinubu through an Executive Order.

Speaking as the keynote speaker at the launch of the CNII Protection and Resilience Workshop, organised by the National Cybersecurity Coordination Centre (NCCC) under the Office of the National Security Adviser, Maida said Nigeria is now set to address the challenge.

While noting that the workshop series was to drive the urgent implementation of the CNII Executive Order as a major step towards securing Nigeria’s communications and digital infrastructure, the NCC boss said: “The telecom industry faces significant challenges, including frequent fibre cuts, vandalism, and theft, which cost operators billions of Naira in revenue and billions of Naira in repair expenses.

“Additionally, restricted access to telecoms facilities by property owners and government entities hampers network expansion efforts, limiting connectivity and impacting service quality.”

Meanwhile, a major audit of the telecoms sector carried out in the last six months ending September has revealed the true status of Nigeria’s $76 billion industry.

Specifically, the audit, which also included the NIN-SIM cleaning exercise, showed that telcos lost about 64.37 million active mobile subscriptions.

According to the NCC, Nigeria’s active mobile subscription base fell by 64.37 million to 154.63 million in September 2024 from 219.01 million in March. A breakdown of the numbers revealed that MTN’s subscriber base declined by 4.53 per cent to 78.09 million in the period, Airtel fell by 15.17 per cent to 53.75 million, Glo fell by 69.20 per cent to 19.15 million, and 9mobile fell by 68.82 per cent to 11.66 million.

Indeed, in one of NCC documents, the Commission noted: “One Mobile Network Operator was found to have incorrectly reported around 40 million subscribers as active, despite the absence of any revenue-generating activity over 90 days. This was in direct violation of the Commission’s guidelines for determining active subscribers and led to an inflated report of the operator’s subscriber base, thereby skewing industry statistics,” the document read.

Further, as part of NCC’s efforts to ensure accountability and transparency in industry regulation, the document showed that the telecoms regulator has compelled one of the mobile network operators (MNOs), which has operated in the country without a formal Chief Executive Officer (CEO) since the telecoms revolution began over two decades now to have a substantive CEO.

The document also revealed that the MNO now has a board, paid its outstanding debts and has improved responsiveness and compliance to regulatory issues and orders.

Earlier this month, Maida declared all mobile lines in use in Nigeria have been linked with NIN following the conclusion of the implementation of the federal government’s 2020 policy of linking every phone number to a NIN in September.

“Today, there is no phone number that we cannot associate with a verified NIN. Not just a number, but a number that has been verified.

“If this phone number is involved in fraud or any crime, I can now authoritatively say, based on the NIN linked to it, this is the person who is using that phone number,” Maida said.