Over 140 million Nigerians now have internet access — NCC

By Favour Ulebor, Abuja

Over 140 cardinal Nigerians present person entree to the internet, representing a broadband penetration complaint of 48.81 percent arsenic of August 2025.

The Executive Vice Chairman of the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), Dr. Aminu Maida, disclosed this astatine the Business Roundtable connected Improving Investments successful Broadband Connectivity and Safeguarding Critical National Infrastructure, held astatine the NCC Digital Economy Complex successful Abuja.

He noted that the ICT and telecommunications assemblage remains a large contributor to Nigeria’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP), adding that a 10 percent summation successful broadband penetration could thrust astir 1.38 percent GDP maturation successful processing economies.

Maida described broadband arsenic a cardinal operator of productivity crossed each sectors — from manufacturing and acquisition to wellness and information — and emphasized that connectivity is indispensable for nationalist resilience.

Under the enactment of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu and the Minister of Communications, Innovation and Digital Economy, Dr. Bosun Tijani, Nigeria is pursuing the goals of the National Broadband Plan (2020–2025), which targets 70 percent broadband penetration and the deployment of 90,000 kilometres of fibre optic infrastructure nationwide.

He explained that the NCC has translated this imaginativeness into factual actions by promoting broadband expansion, strengthening regulations, and safeguarding telecom assets done the implementation of the Critical National Information Infrastructure (CNII) Presidential Order signed by President Tinubu successful June 2024.

According to him, the Order provides ineligible backing for the extortion of telecom infrastructure and empowers instrumentality enforcement agencies to tackle vandalism, theft, and different threats.

“Today, implicit 140 cardinal Nigerians are connected to the internet. This accomplishment reflects not conscionable entree but empowerment,” Maida said. “Millions of citizens present person the tools to learn, trade, create, and innovate. The situation earlier america is to guarantee that this fig continues to turn portion the prime and reliability of work improve.”

He added that connectivity fuels economical inclusion and competitiveness, and that businesslike broadband transportation and extortion are indispensable for Nigeria’s growth.

Maida revealed that the NCC, successful collaboration with the Office of the National Security Adviser (ONSA), has acceptable up a Telecommunications Industry Working Group to enforce the Presidential directive. He noted that ONSA has intensified efforts to curb vandalism and theft of telecom instrumentality nationwide.

He besides highlighted advancement successful reducing the outgo of Right of Way (RoW) fees — a cardinal obstruction to broadband rollout — noting that 5 further states (Adamawa, Bauchi, Enugu, Benue, and Zamfara) person waived RoW charges entirely. This brings the full fig of states with zero RoW fees to eleven, portion seventeen others person capped it astatine N145 per metre.

The Commission’s caller support of cost-reflective and competitory tariff rates, helium added, has strengthened capitalist confidence, with operators committing implicit $1 cardinal toward expanding broadband sum and capableness nationwide.

Maida further disclosed that the NCC has commissioned a wholesale fibre survey to marque backbone infrastructure much accessible to Internet Service Providers (ISPs), which volition heighten last-mile connectivity, peculiarly successful agrarian areas.

He stressed that the Commission is moving with subnational governments, the judiciary, and nationalist works agencies to beforehand deterrence against vandalism, coordinate infrastructure projects, and trim costs done shared fibre routes.

Despite these gains, Maida lamented the increasing situation of infrastructure vandalism, revealing that betwixt January and August 2025, the state recorded 19,384 fibre cuts, 3,241 instrumentality thefts, and implicit 19,000 denials of entree to telecom sites.

“These disruptions origin outages, gross losses, accrued information costs, and delayed work restoration,” helium said. “If we bash not enactment decisively, our connectivity advancement could beryllium undermined by sabotage and neglect.”

Calling for stronger collaboration, Maida urged authorities governments to enactment infrastructure protection, follow afloat Right of Way waivers, and align nationalist works operations with broadband rollout to forestall accidental fibre cuts.

He announced that the NCC volition soon motorboat 2 in...