Article Summary
- The three states of Lagos, Ogun, and Kano had the highest number of mobile subscriptions in Nigeria and accounted for 27% of the total connections as of Q4 2022.
- On the other hand, Bayelsa, Ebonyi, and Ekiti states recorded the least mobile subscriptions.
The latest telecommunications data released by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) has revealed that three states, Lagos, Ogun, and Kano accounted for 27% of the country’s total active mobile subscriptions as of Q4 2022. According to the Bureau, total active mobile subscriptions in Nigeria in the last quarter of 2022 stood at 195.5 million.
The states emerged as the top three by having the highest number of mobile subscriptions with a combined 51.8 million active mobile lines.
The data showed that Lagos maintained the lead with 26.5 million, followed by Ogun which recorded 12.9 million subscriptions at the end of 2022. Kano came third with 12.4 million active subscriptions.
On the other hand, Bayelsa recorded the least mobile subscription with 1.6 million followed by Ebonyi and Ekiti with 1.9 million and 2. million respectively.
Internet connections
In terms of internet connections, Lagos State still came first with the highest number of active internet subscribers in Q4 2022 with 18.7 million followed by Ogun with 9.2 million, and Kano with 8.5 million.
Again, Bayelsa recorded the least internet connections with 1.1 million, followed by Ebonyi and Ekiti with 1.3 million and 1.5 respectively.
Need to bridge the gap
Stakeholders in the telecom industry have attributed the skewed distribution of mobile connectivity in favor of cosmopolitan states to inadequate infrastructure. According to the immediate past President of the Association of Telecommunications Companies of Nigeria (ATCON) Mr. Olusola Teniola, there were about 225 communities in Nigeria that were yet to receive or make a voice call as of 2021.
While calling for more investments in infrastructure to extend telecoms coverage across the country, Teniola said there are about 20 million Nigerians without access to the internet.
Similarly, the Executive Vice Chairman of the Nigerian Communications Commission, NCC, Prof. Umar Danbatta, recently disclosed that about 40 million were still being deprived of access to telecommunications services due to over 200 access gaps recorded in the Information and Communication Technology industry.
Speaking at a recent forum, Danbatta called for urgent actions to bridge these gaps.
- “In Nigeria, we have more than 200 access gaps. We know where these gaps are and you won’t believe this, but these access gaps deprive Nigerians, close to 40 million of them, access to telecom services. “When we talk about policies that need to be put in place to improve internet services, we need to look at what we can we do to fast track plugging these access gaps because unless we do something, many of our citizens would continue to live without access to the internet, especially the right kind of internet connectivity, the high-speed internet, which must be facilitated by broadband infrastructure,” he said.
As part of measures to address the imbalance in telecom infrastructure spread, the NCC had recently licensed 7 infrastructure companies, 6 for each geo-political zones and one for Lagos, to deploy broadband infrastructure across the country.
