Nigeria’s largest telecom operator, MTN, said its network suffered 9,218 fibre cuts in 2025, highlighting persistent weaknesses in the country’s telecom infrastructure. Theft and vandalism affected 211 sites by the end of November, further straining service reliability.
In a post revealed on its social media page titled “MTN Nigeria 2025 Wrapped”, CEO Karl Olutokun Toriola noted that each disruption interrupted services relied upon daily by millions of Nigerians, underscoring the challenges of maintaining a resilient digital network.
“Over 85 million subscribers chose us by the end of September 2025,” Dr Toriola said. “With growth comes greater responsibility. The fibre cuts, theft, and vandalism directly disrupted services, and we take responsibility for these realities.”
MTN also reported receiving 1,624,263 customer complaints across calls, emails, social media, and walk-in centres throughout the year. Dr Toriola said that the company treats every message as a signal, helping identify where service expectations were met and where gaps remain.
The data aligns with reports from the Nigerian Communications Commission Uptime portal, which indicated that Nigerian telecom operators recorded 118 network outage incidents in December 2025, with MTN accounting for the largest share at 64 disruptions. The outages were attributed to multiple factors, including fibre cuts, power outages, bushfires, and vandalism of telecommunications infrastructure.
While acknowledging the challenges, MTN’s CEO stressed that the company is committed to improving service. “We are not where we want to be yet, but our commitment to putting the customer at the centre of everything we do remains constant. We see you. We hear you. We exist because of you. And we will keep getting better,” he said.
Despite government efforts, Nigerian telecom operators continue to face frequent service disruptions caused by vandalism and fibre cuts. While legal measures and collaborative initiatives have been introduced, the persistence of high incident rates and enforcement gaps has kept the problem unresolved.
In August 2024, President Bola Tinubu issued an order designating telecom infrastructure as critical national information infrastructure, making deliberate damage a criminal offence. Following this, the NCC launched a public reporting platform for vandalism incidents in May 2025 and set up an interministerial committee in February 2025 to address fibre cuts caused by roadworks.
However, vandalism continues largely due to weak enforcement, with few arrests or prosecutions reported, even as incidents surged after May 2025. Contributing factors include theft for black market resale, accidental damage during construction, bush burning, and restricted site access. These challenges have resulted in revenue losses for telecom companies and a decline in service quality for subscribers.
