. The regulator claims that MNOs without a CEO now have one and are complying with regulations

The Executive Vice Chairman of the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), Dr. Aminu Maida, has said that telecom operators in Nigeria are currently facing immense challenges with frequent fiber cuts, vandalism and theft of equipment costing them billions of naira.

Maida stated this against the backdrop of the recent declaration of the telecommunications infrastructure as Critical National Information Infrastructure (CNII) by President Bola Tinubu through an executive order.

Speaking as the keynote speaker at the launch of the CNII Protection and Resilience Workshop, organized by the National Cyber ​​Security Coordination Center (NCCC) of the Office of the National Security Adviser, Maida said Nigeria is now ready to meet the challenge.

While noting that the workshop series was to drive the urgent implementation of the CNII Executive Order as a major step towards securing Nigeria’s digital and communications infrastructure, the NCC boss said: “The telecommunications industry is facing significant challenges including frequent fiber cuts , vandalism and theft, which cost the operators billions of Naira in revenue and billions of Naira in repair expenses.

“Furthermore, restricted access to telecommunications facilities by property owners and government entities hinders efforts to expand the network, limiting connectivity and affecting quality of service.”

Meanwhile, a major audit of the telecommunications sector conducted in the last six months to September has revealed the true status of the $76 billion industry in Nigeria.

Specifically, the audit, which also included the NIN-SIM cleaning exercise, revealed that telcos lost around 64.37 million active mobile subscriptions.

According to the NCC, the active mobile subscription base in Nigeria fell by 64.37 million to 154.63 million in September 2024 from 219.01 million in March. A breakdown of the figures showed that MTN’s subscriber base fell by 4.53% to 78.09 million during the period, Airtel fell by 15.17% to 53.75 million, Glo fell by 69.20% to 19.15 million and 9mobile decreased by 68.82% 11.66 million.

Indeed, in one of the NCC’s documents, the Commission noted: “A mobile network operator was found to have incorrectly reported approximately 40 million subscribers as active, despite the absence of any revenue-generating activity over 90 days. This was in direct violation of the Commission’s guidelines for determining active subscribers and led to an inflated report of the operator’s subscriber base, thereby altering industry statistics,” the document said.

In addition, as part of the NCC’s efforts to ensure accountability and transparency in the regulation of the industry, the document revealed that the telecommunications regulator has ordered one of the mobile network operators (MNOs) to operate in the country without an official chief executive ( CEO) since the telecom revolution began over two decades ago to have a substantial CEO.

The document also revealed that the MNO now has a board, has paid off its outstanding debts and has improved its responsiveness and compliance to regulatory issues and orders.

Earlier this month, Maida said all mobile lines in use in Nigeria had been linked with NINs following the completion of the implementation of the federal government’s 2020 policy to link every phone number to a NIN in September.

“Today, there’s no phone number we can’t associate with a verified NIN. Not just a number, but a number that has been verified.

“If this phone number is involved in fraud or any crime, I can now say with authority, based on the NIN associated with it, this is the person using that phone number,” Maida said.