Nigeria's Telecom Infrastructure Under Siege, Inside MTN's Daily Battle with Sabotage
The numbers tell a brutal story. Throughout 2025, Africa's largest mobile operator dealt with 9,218 fiber cuts. Add to that more than 200 sites hit by vandals and thieves, and you start to understand why 1.6 million frustrated customers flooded the company with complaints through every channel imaginable.
When Construction Meets Carelessness
Here's what many people don't realize: that fiber optic cable sliced through during a road project isn't just an inconvenience for one neighborhood. These cables form the circulatory system of modern communication, carrying the signals that power everything from mobile calls to internet banking.
Road crews, construction workers, and even accidental damage from everyday activities contribute to a problem that cascades outward. One severed cable can knock out service for thousands. And when it happens more than 25 times daily, the cumulative impact becomes staggering.
MTN's CEO, Dr. Karl Toriola, didn't mince words when discussing the service disruptions on LinkedIn. We take responsibility for the signals we receive and for how we respond to the realities that shape the customer experience on our network, he acknowledged. It's a careful balance accepting accountability while highlighting the external forces battering their infrastructure.
The Human Cost of Infrastructure Damage
Behind those 1.6 million complaints are real people: business owners who lost deals because calls dropped, students unable to attend online classes, families trying to reach each other in emergencies. When your network collapses this frequently, the ripple effects touch nearly every aspect of daily life.
The complaints came flooding in through calls, emails, social media rants, and even walk-in visits to MTN centers people desperate enough to physically show up and demand answers. That kind of volume speaks to both the severity of the disruptions and the essential role telecommunications play in Nigerian society.
Silver Linings in a Challenging Year
Yet 2025 wasn't entirely defined by crisis management. MTN managed some notable wins despite the infrastructure headaches.
Ookla, the company behind Speedtest, named MTN the best network for speed performance. That's no small achievement when you're simultaneously patching thousands of cable breaks. The company also clawed its way back to profitability after two consecutive years in the red a financial turnaround that culminated in interim dividend payments to shareholders.
The MTN stock performed well enough on the Nigerian Stock Exchange to justify rewarding investors, signalling that the market still believes in the company's fundamentals even amid operational chaos.
Read More: Nigerian Court Dismisses ₦1 Billion Suit Against MTN
As MTN approaches its 25th anniversary in Nigeria later this year, Toriola was realistic about where the company stands. There is progress to be proud of, he noted. And we clearly still have work to do.
That honest assessment captures the tension facing Nigeria's telecoms sector more broadly. Infrastructure keeps improving, technology advances, and customer expectations rise but the underlying vulnerabilities persist. Fibre cables remain exposed to both deliberate sabotage and accidental damage.
Toriola outlined the path forward simply,Listening better, responding faster, and improving consistently." It's an acknowledgement that technical solutions alone won't solve this problem. There's a public education component here too, helping Nigerians understand that their critical infrastructure isn't abstract corporate property but shared national assets that enable modern life.
The question is whether awareness can shift behaviour faster than cables can be cut. For MTN's repair crews, that race continues every single day.
