Follow Us on Google Discover
Despite massive investments by telecommunications operators in infrastructure, fibre-optic cable cuts remain the single biggest threat to quality of service in Nigeria today and a direct threat to the national economy and security. These cuts are a mix of wilful sabotage and unintentional disruption, but the effect is the same: nationwide outages, failed transactions, and lost productivity.
According to the Nigerian Communications Commission, 5,934 fibre cuts were recorded in the first half of 2026 alone, averaging 33 incidents per day. Industry data puts the cumulative figure at about 27,000 cuts nationwide. In May 2026 alone, fibre cuts accounted for 183 of the 245 major network outages, about 75% of all major disruptions.
This is happening at a time when MTN alone has invested N1.62 trillion since 2025 in network expansion and modernization, with other operators accounting for the balance, bringing total industry investment to N2.1 trillion. As of September 2026, 70% of the planned 12,179 coverage and capacity sites have been deployed. It is a significant achievement, yet it has not been matched by a deliberate, government-backed framework for fibre protection and safety.
The crisis is rooted in how Nigeria built its digital backbone. There was never a nationally gazetted digital infrastructure corridor. At the onset of the GSM revolution, operators laid fibre along federal and state road rights-of-way because it was the most convenient in terms of access, security and affordability. The Federal Ministry of Works, state governments and contractors never had a shared, geo-referenced map of where that critical fibre lay.
Also Read
Today, Nigeria’s boom in road construction, urban renewal and estate development is colliding head-on with those unmarked cables. The Ministry of Works itself acknowledges that road construction is the main culprit because telecom and road infrastructure occupy the same physical space side by side. Compounding this is poor historical deployment standards. The early rollout suffered from shallow trenching, the absence of concrete ducts, a lack of warning tapes, and poor signage. The Association of Telecommunications Companies of Nigeria described this as a structural weakness that continues to make the network vulnerable.
The approval system is equally fragmented. Operators tend to negotiate Right of Way separately with federal, state and local governments, with charges and processes varying widely. A contractor who secures a state permit to excavate often has no idea whose fibre lies beneath the surface. When you add deliberate vandalism, cable theft, and community disputes, the scale of the crisis becomes clear. The impact on citizens is immediate: internet blackouts, dropped calls, failed PoS transactions, stalled banking apps, disrupted enterprise services and paralysed government platforms.
Operators have made attempts to tame the problem; they have deployed rapid-response repair teams across the country and invested in ring topologies and redundant routes so that a single cut does not isolate an entire region or state. This is effective, but expensive and purely reactive. Each repair costs millions and diverts capital that should go into expansion. Through their associations, ALTON and ATCON, the industry successfully lobbied for the June 2024 presidential order designating telecom infrastructure as Critical National Information Infrastructure, making wilful damage a criminal offence with severe penalties.
They also participate in the Joint Standing Committee with the Ministries of Works, Communications, Innovation and Digital Economy, now expanded to include the Office of the National Security Adviser, to develop joint protection protocols. Some operators have piloted GIS mapping of fibre routes with state ICT agencies and are promoting a “Call Before You Dig awareness campaign” for construction companies. Yet these efforts remain voluntary and fragmented. The law exists on paper, but enforcement is inconsistent, and no contractor has been prosecuted or blacklisted for negligent damage.
The Office of the National Security Adviser warned at the recent stakeholders workshop in Abuja that every fibre-optic cable damage is more than a disruption to a network. It is indeed a disruption to governance, economic productivity, public services, and the daily lives of Nigerians. Fibre is no longer just for calls. It carries banking transactions, PoS payments, fintech platforms, hospital records, logistics tracking, government services, security communications and emergency response systems. As Dr. Aminu Maida, Executive Vice Chairman of the NCC, put it, to a machine operator on a construction site, it may appear to be one buried cable. To the nation, it can mean failed calls, stalled payments, interrupted services and missed opportunities.
To prevent further damage, stakeholders need a comprehensive, enforceable framework. Telcos must, in conjunction with security agencies under the CNII protection mandate, deploy a robust surveillance system through kinetic and non-kinetic means. This includes fibre intrusion detection systems, CCTV/drones on critical routes, community-based reporting, and satellite monitoring for high-risk corridors, similar to how crude oil pipelines are monitored. The NCC must also make it mandatory to obtain fibre-route clearance at least 14 days before any excavation on gazetted routes, with stiff penalties for violators, including jail terms, heavy fines and blacklisting from public contracts.
There is also a need for a secure, centralised digital map of critical fibre routes, a National Fibre Atlas, hosted by the NCC and accessible to the Federal Ministry of Works, state works ministries and licensed contractors under strict non-disclosure agreements. Federal and state laws should mandate inclusion of concrete telecom ducts at a standard depth of at least 1.2 meters with warning tapes and marker posts, in all new road projects, so that future fibre goes into ducts, not bare soil. The international best practice of joint site supervision should be adopted, with telecom liaison officers physically present on major road projects to prevent deviations from approved route maps.
Just as with oil pipeline sabotage, government must prosecute a few high-profile cases of wilful or negligent damage to set a precedent and serve as a deterrent. Finally, stakeholders must conduct mandatory certification training for excavator operators and deploy a toll-free short code for reporting planned digging. MTN, as the market leader, and other telecommunications operators must also develop a joint surveillance framework or shared surveillance services for fibre optic cable routes to safeguard the fibre infrastructure.
Nigeria has succeeded in attracting huge investment into telecoms, with the sector contributing over 14% to GDP and supporting the entire digital economy. If that investment is to be protected, government must provide the same level of security and regulatory protection accorded to power transmission lines and crude oil pipelines. Otherwise, the trillions invested will continue to leak into avoidable repairs, customer downtime and lost economic output.
Nnamdi Chife is Vice President, Military Relations at Terra Industries, a Nigerian defence-tech company building drones, robotics and surveillance systems for the Armed Forces. A counter-insurgency specialist with over 15 years of experience, he holds a PhD in Peace and Conflict Studies.
