By Joy Baba-Yesufu
The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) says the return to market-driven pricing in the telecoms sector has attracted more than $1 billion in infrastructure investments in 2025.
Executive Vice-Chairman of the NCC, Aminu Maida, disclosed this on Friday during an interactive session with journalists in Lagos.
The policy shift, introduced in January and February 2025, allowed mobile network operators to increase tariffs by up to 50 per cent after nearly a decade of frozen pricing. Maida said the reform has restored investor confidence, reversing years of underinvestment that slowed network expansion and service quality improvements.
“This act alone has allowed investments to flow in. We will release verified figures in the coming weeks, but we are talking about over a billion dollars this year alone,” he said.
According to Maida, the old pricing regime created imbalances in the value chain, where tower companies could adjust fees annually for inflation and exchange rates, but mobile operators could not.
He said the NCC’s decision aligns with the 2000 National Telecom Policy and the 2003 Communications Act, which promote market-determined pricing while safeguarding healthy competition and consumer protection.
Maida added that equipment ordered by operators has begun arriving in Nigeria since June, with network expansion and upgrades already underway. The NCC, he said, holds weekly calls with operators to monitor progress and step in to resolve regulatory or operational bottlenecks.
The EVC noted that the new investments will ease capacity constraints, improve service quality, and strengthen Nigeria’s competitiveness in the global telecom market.
He also highlighted persistent cost pressures in the sector, revealing that operators consume more than 40 million litres of diesel monthly to power base stations, most of it imported. In addition, all network hardware and software are sourced from abroad, requiring significant foreign exchange.
On infrastructure security, Maida said the NCC is working with the Office of the National Security Adviser to develop a rapid response framework tailored to regional challenges, ranging from community-based engagement in coastal areas to stronger civil defence deployment in insecurity-prone zones.
The approach, he said, will also address underlying issues such as poor on-site security, generator theft, and community disputes that threaten telecom infrastructure.
