Nobody expects perfect service provisioning, especially in an industry as complex as telecommunications, but nobody also expects the expectations of the subscribers to be subverted by very mundane issues. When there is a plunge in service output as is being witnessed now in parts of the country, subscribers will prefer strong regulatory measures that serve as deterrents to platitudes in the form of excuses.
USUALLY this headline provides cover for a certain segment of society whose conditions are so blighted that even the festivities of Christmas and the end-of-year also exclude them. They live in the society but are more in the fringes, sheltered by the statistics of about 232 million people in the land but grossly under-provided for. They hardly know it’s Christmas!
Tomorrow is Christmas day. There are quite a number of people who won’t know it’s Christmas, and you will be surprised at a certain group of people also included in the number. I am not talking about the several thousands who are trapped in several bad roads across the country, whose only sin is that they dared to dream of visiting families back in their various locations at this period in bold defiance of mounting insecurity. Some may get home a few days after Christmas. It’s the curse of the season.
It’s the time of the season people want to make calls, connect with their loved ones and send messages flying on the gossamer of love. It is a boom period for telecom operators but some subscribers may not enjoy the luxury of this seasonal euphoria. They have been exiled to the fringes by networks that are so fickle that they succumb to every little shaking.
Over a week ago, December 12, 2025, to be precise, the telecom networks in Abuja, the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), were so bad the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), the regulator of the industry, had to rush in with an explanation that a business disagreement was responsible for the pains the subscribers were experiencing on the networks.
“The challenges have largely resulted from a disruption in diesel supply to IHS Nigeria Limited, the Colocation Provider responsible for powering the majority of Airtel and MTN base stations in the affected areas. This interruption is linked to ongoing activities by the National Oil and Gas Suppliers Association of Nigeria (NOGASA), which have impacted the delivery of diesel to critical telecommunications sites,” the regulator said in a statement signed by Nnena Ukoha, the Public Affairs head.
That appeared to have been a prelude to the ugly feature that would be sustained in the industry for the next week, prompting MTN to issue its statement. “Dear Valued Customer, we are still experiencing intermittent network challenges in some areas of the FCT due to the diesel supply challenges affecting one of our infrastructure partners. Our teams and partners are actively working on the ground to resolve the issue as quickly as possible. We sincerely apologise for the inconvenience,” the statement said.
By Wednesday last week, both MTN and Airtel networks were nearly completely down, leaving only Glo as the primary survivor as it has standalone network facilities. It wasn’t just frustration; the situation was chaotic and very humbly for a nation whose glory days in the industry seem to reside in the past.
Such statements don’t offer solace but deepen misery and helplessness in the face of a problem that shouldn’t be. And there are worries. How could an industry covered by the Critical National Information Infrastructure (CNII) Presidential Order, signed by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu in June 2024, be rendered helpless by a trade disagreement?
The Order secures the industry from wilful damage and vandalism because of its strategic importance as an infrastructure of infrastructures to the nation. The telecoms industry carries all the other sectors on its shoulders. Why one would admit there are still destruction and puzzling damages to telecom facilities, it mocks our status as a country that little things still metastasise into giants to humble our plans, projections and expectations.
Not many people are happy that the regulator issued a statement on behalf of the industry operators to explain their business challenges. In business relationships, there are contracts which include service level agreements (SLAs). What happened to such transactional relationships and SLAs? If there was a breakdown, the regulator didn’t need a statement but action in the form of regulation to knock the derelict parties into line.
However, the failure on the networks only helped to expose the soft underbelly of an industry which apparently still needs a lot of support and encouragement. Without doubt, so many experts have materialised overnight making suggestions of what should be done immediately. Quite a few have suggested satellite technology as the backbone for mobile technology while a particular source pointed to Starlink as paradigmatic of what should be done.
From what I have seen, none of these pointed to the power sector as the primary troubler and disenabler of the telecommunications industry. It is the failure of the power sector that is responsible for the provision of diesel generators at base stations or even the use of solar alternatives. Like some homes across the nation, there are several sources of power supply – public power grid, generator and solar. The only ones not available yet are wind or water. Some people may already be working on it to provide power security for their homes. It is my expectation that someone should be sincere enough to accept blame for the failure of the power sector and its collateral effects on other sectors.
Let me make this observation. Starlink, the satellite internet service provider by Elon Musk’s SpaceX, is a disruptive technology which has found accommodation in the Nigerian market because of the data gap created by service providers who are unable to meet the data demand of the market, including big business operators who depend on data for every little end of their operations. Besides, the licensing at the time also adorned the garb of dubiousness and controversy. Starlink is a technology for a small segment of the population whose market can easily be eroded by a more reliable and resilient telecommunications sector.
With all its psychedelic features and obvious tech appeal, satellite technology is not always promoted as the core foundation for telecommunications service rollout because of cost, capacity, and signal reliability, among other shortcomings. It is always a stopgap measure for the real thing.
So the basis for GSM rollout is a strong terrestrial network which includes fibre optics deployment, base stations and microwave links. This administration was therefore in the right when it configured the country’s 70 per cent broadband penetration target by 2025 on a 90,000 fibre optics deployment, a project which was only recently boosted with the approval of 4,000 base stations for the underserved areas of the country by the Federal Executive Council (FEC). The project is under the Ministry of Communications, Innovation and Digital Economy.
Apart from the sheer challenge of deployment and operationalising the facilities, the idea behind it is good and would be able to add impetus and inclusivity to the digital vision of the Bola Tinubu administration.
Nigeria is desirous of building a strong digital economy and playing strong in the new tech genre of artificial intelligence. It is the way to go, but recent developments in terms of service disruption because of a trade dispute is a clear pointer that the journey remains unpredictable even if some progress has been made.
Nobody expects perfect service provisioning, especially in an industry as complex as telecommunications, but nobody also expects the expectations of the subscribers to be subverted by very mundane issues. When there is a plunge in service output as is being witnessed now in parts of the country, subscribers will prefer strong regulatory measures that serve as deterrents to platitudes in the form of excuses.
The subscribers want to be able to exchange pleasantries with their loved ones on any network. They want to enjoy that feel of Christmas and be technologically enabled to spread the joy of the season that extends into the New Year.
Please, accept my season’s compliments.
- Lakemfa writes from Abuja