Telecoms industry leaders and other stakeholders have joined forces under a working group to protect Nigeria’s telecommunications infrastructure from vandalism and other vices that caused service disruptions.
This was disclosed after a meeting in Lagos hosted by IHS Nigeria, one of Africa’s largest telecoms tower operators with over 39,000 towers across its eight markets, including Nigeria.
“The protection of Critical National Information Infrastructure (CNII) has been a critical concern for all industry stakeholders,” Dapo Otunla, Senior Vice President & Chief Corporate Services Officer of IHS Nigeria, says. “We are experiencing daily losses of assets, which significantly impact on the quality of service delivered to subscribers. Addressing these issues is paramount to sustaining Nigeria’s digital ecosystem and meeting regulatory expectations.”
In a statement made available to Technology Times, they agreed to form a group to tackle issues like stolen equipment, accidental fiber cuts during road construction, and communities blocking technicians from fixing outages. Plans include using tech tools to monitor infrastructure in real time, tighter security around cell sites, and public campaigns to convince Nigerians to report vandals.
“The protection of Critical National Information Infrastructure (CNII) has been a critical concern for all industry stakeholders,” Dapo Otunla, Senior Vice President & Chief Corporate Services Officer of IHS Nigeria, says. “We are experiencing daily losses of assets, which significantly impact on the quality of service delivered to subscribers. Addressing these issues is paramount to sustaining Nigeria’s digital ecosystem and meeting regulatory expectations.”
The closed-door talks brought together representatives from the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), the Association of Licensed Telecoms Operators of Nigeria (ALTON), the Association of Telecommunications Companies of Nigeria (ATCON), the Lagos State Infrastructure Maintenance and Regulatory Agency (LASIMRA), mobile network operators (MNOs), infrastructure providers (InfraCos), and the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC), which protects critical national assets.
The latest discussions follow repeated calls by telecoms industry stakeholders for stronger government intervention. Technology Times had reported that at the 30th Nigerian Economic Summit in Abuja, telcos urged the Federal Government to take over the security of telecom infrastructure to prevent persistent attacks.
At the time, industry leaders warned that the absence of a comprehensive protection plan threatened the objectives of the executive order signed by President Bola Tinubu in August 2024, which designated telecom infrastructure as Critical National Infrastructure.
Nigeria’s telecoms sector has struggled with frequent sabotage, leading to service disruptions and financial losses. MTN Nigeria recorded more than 6,000 fiber cuts between 2022 and 2023, forcing the company to relocate 2,500 kilometers of vulnerable fiber at a cost exceeding ₦11 billion, according to the mobile network operator.
Similarly, Airtel Nigeria reported “a daily average of 43 fibre cuts, and in the last six months, a total of 7742,” according to Femi Adeniran, Director, Corporate Communications & CSR at Airtel Nigeria. Operators have also faced theft of backup generators, batteries, and other key equipment, adding to their costs.
To address these problems, stakeholders agreed “to establish a working group dedicated to addressing key industry challenges, including the vandalization and theft of telecommunications infrastructure, arbitrary shutdown of base stations, fiber cuts due to road construction and the denial of access by unauthorized individuals by leveraging technology for real-time monitoring and protection, strengthening security measures around telecommunication sites and collaborating more with the security and regulatory agencies to mitigate these challenges.”
“The stakeholders underscored the need to prioritize deterrence and prevention of these incidents and highlighted the importance of public awareness campaigns to sensitise the host communities and public of the need to protect telecommunications,” the statement reads.
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