Nigeria’s digital economy is expanding rapidly, but the growth is exposing a challenge that goes beyond the amount of fibre, submarine cables and other telecommunications infrastructure being deployed across the country.
The bigger challenge is resilience: whether the systems supporting the digital economy can continue functioning when part of the infrastructure fails.
This is becoming increasingly important as connectivity moves deeper into banking, digital payments, commerce, healthcare, education, government services and everyday communication.
A major disruption to West Africa’s submarine cable network in March 2024 provided a clear illustration of the vulnerability.
Four major cables — ACE, SAT-3, WACS and MainOne — were damaged, disrupting connectivity across several West African countries, including Nigeria. The Internet Society subsequently found that the cables converged around the same physical area off Côte d’Ivoire.
The incident showed that having several cables does not necessarily mean having several independent routes.
For Nigeria, that distinction is important as the country continues to expand its digital infrastructure.
A network can have multiple cables, fibre routes or facilities and still remain exposed if those assets share a common physical location, terrestrial corridor, landing facility or other critical component.
The vulnerability is not limited to submarine infrastructure.
The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) reported more than 5,000 fibre-cut incidents in the first six months of 2026, with road construction, excavation and related civil works among the major causes.
The Commission has also worked with the Federal Ministry of Works on measures aimed at protecting fibre infrastructure during road projects.
The implications of these incidents extend beyond telecommunications operators.
A damaged fibre route can disrupt businesses processing transactions, customers making digital payments, hospitals relying on communications, government platforms providing services and workers whose activities depend on reliable connectivity.
As digital dependence increases, the resilience of telecommunications infrastructure consequently becomes part of the resilience of the wider economy.
This is reflected in the NCC’s designation of telecommunications networks, fibre-optic cables, data centres, towers and Internet exchange points as Critical National Information Infrastructure.
The designation underscores the growing importance of connectivity to national economic and public functions.
It also changes the question that should be asked about infrastructure development.
It is no longer enough to ask how much additional capacity Nigeria is building.
The country must also ask how much of that capacity remains available when one part of the system is disrupted.
That requires diversity at several levels.
Different submarine cables should have sufficiently diverse landing and inland routes.
Fibre networks should avoid unnecessary concentration along the same road corridors. Critical facilities need alternative connectivity and power arrangements, while networks require enough spare capacity to absorb traffic when another route becomes unavailable.
Geographic diversity is particularly important.
Several networks may appear to provide redundancy but can still be exposed to the same disruption if they pass through the same corridor or depend on the same facility.
This makes the next phase of Nigeria’s fibre expansion significant.
Project BRIDGE, which is intended to substantially expand the national fibre backbone and improve route diversity, provides an opportunity to make resilience an important consideration in infrastructure planning.
Its success should therefore be assessed by more than the kilometres of fibre deployed.
A more meaningful measure would include how many genuinely independent routes connect critical locations and how much traffic can continue to move when one route is lost.
The same principle applies to international connectivity.
Additional submarine cables can increase capacity, but their contribution to resilience also depends on where they land, how traffic is transported inland and whether alternative systems have enough capacity to handle traffic during a major outage.
The resilience question also extends to government intervention in the communications sector.
The Nigerian Communications Act gives the NCC emergency powers under Section 148 in specified circumstances involving a public emergency or public safety.
The powers include measures such as suspending a licence, taking temporary control of network facilities and withdrawing the use of services or facilities from a licensee, person or the general public.
Such powers have a legitimate role where circumstances require emergency action to protect public safety or address a public emergency.
But in an economy increasingly dependent on digital connectivity, interventions affecting communications infrastructure can have consequences beyond their immediate purpose.
An emergency measure may address one problem while also affecting the continuity of services that depend on the network.
This makes service continuity an important consideration alongside the immediate objective of emergency intervention.
The issue, therefore, is not whether government should have emergency powers.
It is whether the resilience of essential digital services is sufficiently considered when those powers are exercised.
The Nigerian Communications Act itself recognises the importance of survivability and recovery.
Section 149 provides for disaster plans relating to the survivability and recovery of telecommunications services and network facilities during disasters, crises and civil emergencies.
That provision is particularly relevant as Nigeria’s economy becomes more dependent on uninterrupted connectivity.
For critical services, restoration alone may not be enough.
A bank may eventually restore its connection. A hospital may eventually recover communications. A government platform may eventually return to service.
The more immediate question is what happens before restoration.
Can payments continue?
Can emergency communications remain available?
Can businesses switch to alternative routes?
Can networks absorb traffic displaced from a failed system?
These are questions of resilience.
They also demonstrate why the challenge cannot be reduced to fibre vandalism or the performance of individual telecommunications operators.
The sources of disruption are diverse.
A submarine cable can fail. A road project can sever fibre. Equipment can malfunction. Power can be lost. Vandalism can interrupt a route. A cyber incident can affect critical systems.
An emergency intervention can also restrict access to communications infrastructure.
The response must consequently be layered.
Physical diversity requires alternative cables, ducts and corridors.
Technical diversity requires alternative networks, power arrangements, data centres and failover systems.
Geographic diversity reduces dependence on the same locations and routes.
Service continuity protects critical economic and public functions.
Regulatory safeguards can help ensure that emergency measures take account of their wider implications for connectivity while preserving the ability of government to respond to genuine emergencies.
The NCC’s major-outage reporting requirements can also provide an important basis for identifying recurring weaknesses.
The value of such information should extend beyond repairing individual failures.
It can help identify common dependencies connecting apparently separate networks and show where a disruption in one part of the system could affect several others.
This is increasingly important as digital infrastructure becomes more closely tied to national development.
Nigeria cannot eliminate every infrastructure failure. Fibre will be cut, equipment will malfunction, submarine cables will require repairs and emergencies will occur.
The objective should be to ensure that the failure of one route, facility or intervention does not automatically become a wider failure of essential digital services.
Connectivity has moved beyond being simply a telecommunications service.
It is now part of the infrastructure supporting economic activity, public services, financial transactions, healthcare, commerce and communication.
For Nigeria, the next stage of digital infrastructure development should therefore be measured not only by how much more capacity is built, but by how resilient that capacity is.
The real test is how much of the digital economy can continue moving when part of the infrastructure stops working.
Freelanews is the editorial byline of Freelanews.com, used for staff reports, news updates, press releases, and collaborative stories produced by the Freelanews Editorial Team.
