The Nigerian Communications Satellite Limited (NIGCOMSAT) has set its sights on generating ₦8 billion over the next three years, banking on broadband expansion and stronger private sector partnerships to achieve the target.
Managing Director, Mrs. Jane Egerton-Idehen, made this known during a stakeholder roundtable in Lagos, stressing that the company’s broadband potential is largely underused.
According to her, only 7% of NIGCOMSAT’s capacity is currently being utilised, leaving 93% dormant.
“We know broadband has greater value and wider use cases, from connecting local government offices to supporting education, defence, healthcare and even fintech. The challenge is that we cannot do it alone,” Egerton-Idehen said.
While NIGCOMSAT has noted a rise in Nigeria’s broadband penetration from 35% in 2023 to 75%, official records from the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) place penetration at 45.6% as of January 2025, with 98.88 million subscriptions.
The National Broadband Plan (2020–2025) sets a goal of 70 per cent penetration and 90% population coverage before the end of 2025. But obstacles remain: poor infrastructure, high deployment costs, and underutilised networks.
Despite this, demand for internet access has never been higher, with over 1 million terabytes consumed in January 2025 alone, driven by fintech growth, remote work, and the explosion of streaming.
Egerton-Idehen pointed to projects already delivered as proof of NIGCOMSAT’s strength. Under Project 774, the company connected 45 local government secretariats across eight states in just two months, an achievement she said terrestrial fibre operators could not have matched in terms of speed.
These connections provide local governments with direct access to services ranging from birth and death registration to healthcare and education in remote areas. However, scaling such interventions nationwide is still a challenge for the agency’s 250-member workforce.
“Our role is to provide the service backbone and support partners to take it to the market. We are not set up to compete directly with consumer operators because we don’t have engineers in every state to do installations and support. However, by working with partners, we can reach schools, health centres, fintech companies and government agencies across Nigeria and even in West Africa,” Egerton-Idehen explained.
Global satellite providers, particularly Starlink, have already made deep inroads into Nigeria’s rural broadband market, using low-Earth orbit satellites to deliver low-latency services.
Some stakeholders at the meeting warned that NIGCOMSAT risks losing relevance in the broadband sector if it continues to be viewed as a bureaucratic agency rather than a competitive commercial operator.
They proposed government policy interventions mandating ministries, agencies, and parastatals to prioritise NIGCOMSAT services over foreign alternatives.
Egerton-Idehen countered doubts by pointing to successful state-backed ventures. “For example, NALSAT makes about 150 million dollars yearly. If we focus and work with the right partners, our N8 billion target, which is only about three to four million dollars, is not ambitious at all,” she said.
She further promised partners access to Ka-band, Ku-band, and C-band platforms, alongside technical support, co-branded marketing, and flexible partnership structures.
“This is the next chapter for NIGCOMSAT. We want to build it with you, our partners, because we cannot do it alone,” she assured.
NIGCOMSAT’s goal aligns with the Federal Ministry of Communications’ Strategic Blueprint, which prioritises digital inclusion at the grassroots level.
The fulfilment of the company’s revenue target depends on how quickly it can shake off its image as a slow-moving government body, secure private sector buy-in, and counter global competitors in Nigeria’s broadband space.
