On a quiet Sunday morning in Adamawa, the hum of daily life suddenly slowed. Calls wouldn’t connect, data crawled to a halt, and businesses relying on internet transactions froze mid-operation.
The culprit wasn’t a nationwide power outage or a system hack, but something far more mundane, yet devastating: another cut in the underground fibre cables that carry Nigeria’s digital heartbeat.
Across the country, stories like this repeat almost daily. A road construction crew accidentally digs into a fibre line. Vandals rip out cables to sell as scrap.
Entire towns are plunged into digital silence. For telecoms operators, these fibre cuts are more than just inconveniences; they are costly disruptions, forcing constant repairs and reroutes.
For subscribers, they mean dropped calls, stalled businesses, and growing frustration in a world where connectivity is no longer a luxury but a lifeline.
In July 2025, MTN Nigeria said it recorded 760 fibre cuts nationwide, bringing the year-to-date total to over 5,478 incidents.
These disruptions, primarily caused by road construction and vandalism, continue to impact service quality across the country.
To restore the damaged fibre infrastructure, MTN Nigeria announced a scheduled network maintenance exercise to restore damaged fibre infrastructure affecting parts of Adamawa, Borno, and Kano States.
The telcho in a statement sighted by Techeconomy’s correspondent said that Sunday, August 24, 2025, between 6:00 AM and 8:00 AM, is expected to cause temporary service disruptions across 101 sites in 15 Local Government Areas (LGAs).
According to the telecoms giant, the planned work will cut over traffic to a newly installed fibre link, replacing damaged spans along the AFCOT–Bawo Village route in Adamawa State.
MTN explained that the upgrade is necessary to strengthen network stability and improve service quality for subscribers.
Affected Areas:
- Kano State: Nasarawa LGA
- Adamawa State: Girei, Song, Mubi North, Hong, Gombi, Fufore, Mubi South, Madagali, Michika, Maiha, Chibok, and Yola North LGAs
- Borno State: Askira/Uba and Shani LGAs
The maintenance will impact 2G, 3G, 4G, and 10 enterprise services during the two-hour window. MTN noted that the “linear and unprotected” nature of the fibre route makes it necessary to interrupt services while the work is carried out.
The company also disclosed that this intervention is part of ongoing efforts to mitigate the effect of over 5,478 fibre cuts recorded nationwide in 2025 alone, mostly due to road construction and vandalism.
One of such incidents in the North-East has made the current maintenance unavoidable.
“This unveiling is not just about repairs; it’s about improving the resilience of our network and ensuring that our customers can continue to rely on us,” the company stated, while apologising for any inconvenience the disruption may cause.
MTN assured subscribers that engineers will work swiftly to restore connectivity once the fibre cutover is complete, urging customers in the affected states to bear with them during the brief service downtime.
