Emmanuel Ikpeama
Nigeria has established a legal framework for treating telecommunications infrastructure as Critical National Information Infrastructure, but the growing scale of the sector has exposed the need to move from designation to full operational protection.
The country recorded 195.1 million active telephone subscribers as of July 2026, according to official Nigerian Communications Commission statistics.
In June 2024, President Bola Tinubu gazetted the Designation and Protection of Critical National Information Infrastructure Order 2024.
The Order designated telecommunications towers, base stations, fibre optic cables, data centres, submarine cables and internet landing points as critical infrastructure and prescribed criminal penalties for interference.
Two years after the Order, however, important components of its implementation remain outstanding.
The Critical National Information Infrastructure Protection Plan mandated by the Order has yet to be published, while the Trusted Information Sharing Network has yet to be fully operationalised.
This creates a distinction between the legal recognition of telecommunications infrastructure as critical and the operational mechanisms required to protect it.
The economic significance of the sector makes the distinction increasingly consequential.
The NBS Q2 2026 GDP report put the real output of the broader information and communication technology sector at N6 trillion, with telecommunications contributing 9.72 per cent of total real GDP, equivalent to N5.20 trillion during the quarter.
MTN Nigeria reported N2.9 trillion in service revenue for the first half of 2026, representing 25.9 per cent year-on-year growth. Data revenue reached N1.7 trillion, growing 38.4 per cent.
MTN also remitted approximately N622 billion in taxes, duties and levies during the first half of 2026. Its payments to federal and state authorities totalled 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 sector’s infrastructure role extends into financial services.
NIBSS processed N1.07 quadrillion in electronic payment transactions over the benchmark year, including 11.2 billion distinct transfers through its Instant Payments platform.
The number of Instant Payments transfers represented a 120 per cent increase over 2022 levels.
Yet the infrastructure supporting this digital economy remains exposed to disruption.
The NCC’s uptime portal recorded 577 network outages in Q1 2026, including 361 caused by fibre cuts.
In May 2026, operators recorded 245 major outages, with 183, or 75 per cent, attributed to fibre cuts.
MTN Nigeria experienced more than 9,000 fibre cuts in 2025, while Airtel reported approximately 1,000 per month.
The challenge is set to increase as infrastructure expands.
Broadband penetration rose to 57.40 per cent in July 2026 from 56.79 per cent in June, representing roughly 122 million broadband subscriptions.
The government’s Project BRIDGE, announced in August, is expected to deploy another 90,000 kilometres of open-access fibre optic cable, increasing the 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 sustain the pace.
The planned expansion makes protection, coordination and right-of-way arrangements increasingly important.
The CNII framework envisages physical security protocols, statutory quality-of-service compliance, investment certainty and emergency coordination when critical infrastructure is disrupted.
It also creates a foundation for addressing the fragmented right-of-way processes involved in deploying telecommunications infrastructure across states and local jurisdictions.
Nigeria has therefore taken the first legal step. The remaining challenge is to build the operational architecture around it — from the CNII Protection Plan and Trusted Information Sharing Network to specialised prosecution, emergency response protocols and harmonised right-of-way arrangements.
The issue is no longer simply whether telecommunications infrastructure is critical.
The 2024 Order has answered that question.
The more immediate issue is whether the protection architecture can keep pace with the infrastructure and economic activity it now supports.
