The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has challenged the telecommunications industry to move beyond expanding connectivity and focus increasingly on how digital access can translate into higher productivity, new businesses and broader economic opportunity.
Dr. Aminu Maida, Executive Vice Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of the NCC, gave the charge on Thursday at the eWorld Forum 2026, held to commemorate 25 years of GSM in Nigeria.
Maida said Nigeria’s telecommunications journey had moved from the basic challenge of connecting people to a much broader question of what citizens and businesses could achieve with digital connectivity.
“The first 25 years were about connecting Nigeria. The next 25 years must be about what Nigeria can achieve with that connection,” he said.
According to him, Nigeria’s telecommunications transformation has been one of the country’s most significant economic changes since the turn of the century.
Before GSM, Nigeria had about 400,000 connected telephone lines, with teledensity of approximately 0.40 per cent, leaving telephone access largely restricted to a small proportion of the population.
The liberalisation of the communications sector, driven by the National Telecommunications Policy of 2000 and the GSM licensing process, opened the market to investment, competition and network expansion.
Maida said the transformation had taken Nigeria from an environment where telephone lines were scarce to one where mobile connectivity had become part of everyday life.
Maida said the transformation was no longer simply about telecommunications. The mobile phone has evolved from a device primarily used for voice calls into a platform for banking, commerce, education, healthcare, entertainment, business and entrepreneurship.
He noted that connectivity had helped create and accelerate industries including fintech, e-commerce, digital entertainment, logistics, online education, software development and the creator economy.
But the NCC chief cautioned that the number of connections alone should not be regarded as the ultimate measure of digital progress. He distinguished between being covered by a network and being meaningfully connected.
A consumer may have network coverage but lack a smartphone or be unable to afford sufficient data. A school may have internet access but lack the bandwidth required for effective digital learning, while a community may have a signal but insufficient network capacity.
“Our ambition has therefore moved beyond counting connections to improving the quality of those connections and what Nigerians can achieve with them,” Maida said.
The NCC said the next phase would require greater attention to adoption, particularly in rural and underserved communities. Maida said the digital economy could not be built on a foundation that leaves significant sections of the population behind.
He added that the next stage would require substantial investment in fibre, mobile networks, towers, data centres, satellite capacity and international connectivity, alongside solutions capable of reaching communities that conventional network models have struggled to serve.
He said private capital would remain central to meeting the sector’s infrastructure requirements, while acknowledging investors’ concerns about regulatory predictability, returns, infrastructure protection and the clarity of industry rules.
According to Maida, broadband penetration had crossed 57 per cent, up from 39.79 per cent five years earlier, while operators had deployed more than 8,900 additional sites in the preceding 24 months.
He also disclosed that fibre-to-the-premises subscriptions rose from 241,750 in the first quarter of 2026 to 319,735 in the second quarter, representing an increase of more than 30 per cent.
Maida said the consumer must remain at the centre of the sector’s next phase. He argued that quality of service should not be viewed merely as a technical measurement but in terms of the everyday experience of consumers, whether a call connects, a banking application works, a child can attend an online class or a small business can receive payment.
The NCC, he said, was therefore using network coverage maps developed with Ookla to better understand consumers’ quality of experience and inform regulatory interventions.
At the event, Sylva Ifedigbo, Director of Corporate Communications at IHS Nigeria, also described the GSM revolution as a catalyst for economic growth, financial inclusion, innovation and national development.
Ifedigbo said IHS Nigeria, which has been involved in the country’s telecommunications infrastructure ecosystem for more than two decades, now operates approximately 16,000 towers and more than 15,000 route kilometres of fibre optic cable.
He said the infrastructure supports mobile network operators in delivering voice and data services across urban and rural communities and remains critical to digital inclusion.
As Nigeria marks 25 years of GSM, the message from the industry is increasingly shifting from access to impact: the next chapter will be measured not simply by how many Nigerians are connected, but by what connectivity enables them to do.
