Agency Report
Nigeria’s Communications Commission, which oversees Africa’s largest telecom market by subscriber connections, this week launched a review of its founding policy. The move signals a deeper shift: the regulator is no longer managing a fast-expanding market, but one consolidating faster than it grows and needing stabilisation more than expansion.
At a workshop in Lagos on May 20, the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) proposed 15 changes to the National Telecommunications Policy of 2000. The review targets tariffs, competition, infrastructure protection, spectrum management and digital governance. A revised framework is expected before year-end.
The market now counts about 203 million active SIMs across four operators — MTN, Airtel, Globacom and 9mobile — which together account for 96% of mobile connections, according to NCC data.
“A policy that was fit for purpose in the year 2000 cannot simply be assumed to remain adequate in 2026,” Hadiza Bala Usman, special adviser to the president on policy and coordination, said at the workshop. She framed telecom infrastructure as a productivity backbone for finance, commerce and security, rather than a standalone sector.
That reframing matters because the original policy largely achieved its initial objective. Nigeria moved from roughly 500,000 fixed lines in 2000 to around 180 million mobile connections, according to the commission. But with internet penetration now widespread and the four-operator structure firmly established, the market’s main constraints are no longer access or coverage. They are now price sustainability, network resilience and the rules governing infrastructure sharing in a saturated market.
Mature market
The shift is visible in the market’s economics. Direct competition is now effectively closed. Matching incumbent operators would require an estimated $5 billion in capital. That reality pushed re-entrant ntel to return in 2026 as an asset-light virtual operator instead of building its own network, according to company statements.
The NCC’s 2026-2030 Spectrum Roadmap also described recent auction outcomes as evidence of increasing market maturity and more disciplined investment behaviour.
But maturity brings new vulnerabilities. Nigeria recorded 19,384 fibre-optic cable cuts in 2025, alongside 3,241 cases of equipment theft and more than 19,000 denials of site access, according to NCC figures. At the same time, the commission has achieved only about 25% of its 2026 site-upgrade targets, even as subscribers consumed more than 4 billion gigabytes of data in the first quarter of 2026.
The policy also proposes classifying telecom assets as Critical National Information Infrastructure, alongside tougher penalties for vandalism. The priority is no longer extending networks, but protecting existing infrastructure.
Tariffs sit at the centre of that stabilisation strategy. In January 2025, the NCC approved a 50% increase in call, data and SMS prices — the first adjustment since 2013. The decision followed years in which operators faced rising costs and a weakening naira under a largely frozen pricing regime.
The policy now seeks more flexible tariff rules to create a predictable adjustment mechanism. Operators say years of political resistance to tariff increases had weakened investor confidence and constrained network investment.
Regulatory reach
The review also formalises a transition already underway. The NCC has steadily expanded beyond voice and data regulation into the broader infrastructure of the digital economy.
From April 2026, operators must compensate subscribers for poor service. Telcos are also required to flag fraud-linked numbers. In April, the NCC signed a memorandum with the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to launch the Telecom Identity Risk Management System, a platform allowing banks and fintechs to verify the status of mobile numbers in real time before processing transactions.
That move may be the clearest sign of the regulator’s expanding role. NCC Executive Vice Chairman Aminu Maida described the agreement as a milestone in the governance of Nigeria’s digital economy. The stakes are substantial: Nigerian banks lost ₦25.85 billion to electronic fraud in 2025, according to NIBSS data, although losses fell 51% from the previous year.
Phone numbers now function as financial credentials, supporting one-time passwords, USSD banking and wallet access. That gives the telecom regulator influence over a layer of the financial system the central bank does not directly control.
The expansion, however, is not without friction. An earlier fraud-monitoring framework involving the NCC, CBN and NIBSS suffered from weak adoption among financial institutions. The new system therefore relies on mandatory participation and tighter data-sharing deadlines.
Critics argue that similar Nigerian digital initiatives have often produced ambitious announcements with limited day-to-day impact. Others warn that additional compliance requirements could weigh more heavily on smaller fintech firms already shifting focus from rapid growth to profitability.
The next signal will come with the first draft of the revised policy, expected before year-end. Particular attention will focus on the wording of the tariff mechanism — the provision likely to determine whether operators recover margins and investment appetite, and whether a regulator now extending into identity management, payments and cybersecurity can match its expanding mandate with effective enforcement.