Broadband penetration in Nigeria reached 48.15% in April 2025, moving up slightly from 47.73% in March.
This small increase, however, brings a larger problem. Nigeria is falling far behind its National Broadband Plan (NBP 2020–2025), which aims to achieve 70% penetration by the end of this year.
As of April, the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) recorded 104.3 million broadband subscriptions. The figure, while looking large, loses its significance when weighed against the country’s actual population and connectivity aim.
Five years into the Broadband Plan, Nigeria has only gained about 8.3% points in penetration, growing from 39.85% in March 2020 to 48.15% now.
For a plan that was supposed to boost digital access across the country, the numbers are not so good.
There’s no single cause to blame, but several structural problems are obvious. Top of the list is the cost and politics of Right of Way (RoW).
States charge exorbitant fees for network operators to lay fibre-optic cables, making expansion financially draining. Only seven states have waived these charges. Others continue to act as roadblocks to progress.
The Executive Vice Chairman of the NCC, Dr Aminu Maida, spoke at a recent telecom forum: “Major obstacles to telecom infrastructure development have been issues within the purview of sub-national governments, including right-of-way issues, multiple taxation, and infrastructure resilience. Reducing right-of-way charges and eliminating multiple taxation will facilitate network expansion and improve connectivity across the country.”
Maida also pointed out that unless states reduce these barriers, they won’t be able to benefit from the economic potential broadband brings. That includes everything from job creation to digital entrepreneurship.
“To fully realise the benefits of digitisation and meet the NBP targets, state governments must ease regulatory burdens and drive policies that are investor-friendly for the telecommunications and ICT sectors,” he added.
The country’s data consumption patterns show an equally complicated state. In January, Nigeria recorded over 1 million terabytes of data use. By February, it dropped to 893,054.80 terabytes. It recovered in March but dipped again in April to 983,283.43 terabytes. That kind of fluctuation shows that many Nigerians are cutting down on data usage.
This reduction in demand is closely linked to price. In January, the Federal Government approved a 50% increase in telecom tariffs. Voice calls jumped from ₦6.40 to ₦9.60 per minute. SMS rose from ₦4 to ₦6. And 1GB of data now costs ₦431.25, up from ₦287.50. This has already derailed the Plan’s goal of achieving an average data price of ₦360 per GB by the end of 2025.
Operators say the hike is good for their revenue, but the many Nigerians, especially those using narrowband connections, appear to have dropped off entirely, leaving high-speed broadband usage mostly to those who can afford Fibre-to-the-Home (FTTH) services.
A key component of the NBP was the localisation of smartphone production. The goal was to establish a smartphone assembly plant by 2023 to bring down the cost of basic smartphones to ₦18,000. That plant never came.
Today, an entry-level smartphone costs over ₦100,000, an amount far out of reach for many Nigerians. With affordability off the table, access remains limited.
Another metric from the Plan was to have 70% of all mobile users on 4G by 2023. As of April 2025, only 49.27% of the 172 million active mobile lines in Nigeria are on 4G.
Put simply, we’re behind on every target.
From where I stand, this is about millions of Nigerians cutting themselves off from the digital economy, not because they don’t want access, but because the system around them hasn’t made it possible.
Broadband is no longer a luxury. It’s infrastructure, like water, electricity, and roads. But instead of speeding toward universal access, we’re stuck in neutral.
If Nigeria is serious about digital resilience, then both federal and state actors must act like it. Until then, broadband will remain what it is now—limited, expensive, and unevenly distributed.
