Nigeria recorded 5,934 fibre-optic cable cuts in the first half of 2026, an average of about 33 incidents every day, raising concerns about the impact of repeated network damage on telecommunications investment and service reliability.
Nnamdi Chife, vice president for Military Relations at Terra Industries and a counter-insurgency specialist, raised the concern in an op-ed published by Nairametrics. He argued that frequent fibre damage is undermining the benefits of billions of naira invested by telecom operators and forcing companies to divert resources from network expansion to emergency repairs.
The figures come as operators continue to expand Nigeria’s digital infrastructure. Chife said MTN Nigeria has invested ₦1.62 trillion since 2025 in network expansion and modernisation, while total industry investment has reached about ₦2.1 trillion. He added that 70 per cent of the planned 12,179 coverage and capacity sites had been deployed by September.
The Nigerian Communications Commission has separately raised concerns about damage to fibre infrastructure during road construction and other civil works. The regulator said more than 5,000 fibre-cut incidents were recorded in the first six months of 2026, with road construction, excavation and related activities identified as major causes.
Why Fibre Cuts Remain a Problem
Chife attributed much of the problem to the way Nigeria’s fibre infrastructure was originally deployed. Telecom operators commonly installed cables along federal and state road corridors because they offered accessible and relatively affordable routes. However, according to his analysis, there was no unified, geo-referenced national map showing where critical fibre infrastructure had been installed.
That has become increasingly problematic as road construction and urban renewal projects expand. The NCC has urged contractors, engineers and other stakeholders to coordinate more closely with telecom operators before excavation and construction work begins, warning that damaged fibre can disrupt banking, government services, healthcare, commerce and other essential activities.
The NCC’s public incident records also show that fibre cuts continue to cause major outages. Recent reports include an MTN fibre cut affecting voice, SMS and data services across parts of the FCT, while other operators have reported similar incidents in Abuja and other parts of the country.
Operators have responded by establishing rapid-response repair teams, deploying redundant routes and using network designs that can limit the effect of individual cable failures. However, Chife argued that these measures remain largely reactive, with repeated repairs adding costs and potentially diverting capital away from further network development.
Calls for Better Fibre Protection
The telecom industry has also pushed for stronger legal and regulatory protection. Chife pointed to the 2024 presidential designation of telecommunications infrastructure as Critical National Information Infrastructure, which strengthened legal protection against deliberate damage.
He called for the creation of a National Fibre Atlas—a centralised digital map of critical fibre routes that could be accessed by relevant government agencies and licensed contractors. He also proposed requiring concrete telecom ducts in new road projects and pursuing enforcement against serious cases of negligent or deliberate damage.
The NCC has similarly called for stronger coordination rather than treating road and telecommunications infrastructure as competing priorities. The commission says Nigeria needs to expand physical infrastructure while protecting the digital networks that increasingly support economic and public services.
With fibre networks supporting everything from mobile connectivity and digital payments to government and business services, the frequency of cable damage has become an infrastructure issue extending beyond the telecommunications industry. The challenge now is to protect existing networks while ensuring new roads and other construction projects are planned around the digital infrastructure already in place.
