- Who Steals the Signal? Inside the Business of Telecom Vandalism
Nigeria’s mobile networks are being weakened not only by vandalism but by an expanding market that converts stolen telecom equipment into household energy. Cable cuts, stolen batteries, generators and diesel are increasingly funding a secondhand energy economy that directly undermines connectivity.
A June outage that affected nine states began with a vandalised fibre-optic link in Lekki, Lagos. Operators and regulators say such incidents are common and costly. The Nigerian Communications Commission says more than 50,000 major cases of telecom infrastructure damage were reported between 2018 and 2023.
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EKO HOT BLOG reports that MTN reported over 6,000 fibre cuts in 2023, and damaged cables cost the industry roughly $23 million in 2023. These losses forced operators to relocate vulnerable routes and raise maintenance spending.
The theft extends beyond cables. Backup batteries, inverters, generators and diesel taken from base stations are sold into local markets and sometimes installed in homes and small businesses as cheaper power solutions.
Industry sources and insurers say the elements of many home inverters and small solar sets originate from stolen telecom parts. That trend turns telecom assets into a de facto energy supply chain, worsening outages for users who then lose access to mobile banking and digital services.
The stakes are macroeconomic as well as local. Nigeria’s digital economy is a material contributor to output: official reports show the digital economy accounted for about 11.8 percent of real GDP in the fourth quarter of 2024, underscoring how network reliability matters for commerce, banking and education. When connections fail, traders cannot accept mobile payments, students lose access to lessons and rural communities can be isolated for days.
The federal government has moved to raise the legal and security profile of telecom infrastructure. In June 2024 President Bola Tinubu signed the Designation and Protection of Critical National Information Infrastructure Order, formally listing ICT systems, networks and communications as critical national information infrastructure subject to protection and penalties.
The Office of the National Security Adviser and the NCC have since engaged stakeholders to reduce vandalism and to avert supply disruptions.
Operators are taking defensive measures, installing GPS trackers on batteries and generators and increasing security at sites. But solutions must address the underlying pressures: failing public electricity supply, rising cost of living and informal markets that buy stolen equipment.
The industry also faces demands for informal ground rent in some communities and the risk of supplier strikes that can interrupt diesel deliveries to towers. These factors create a fragile system where energy scarcity produces theft that in turn produces communication scarcity.
Unless enforcement and community engagement improve, the cycle will persist: people strip power from networks to keep lights on, and networks degrade as a result. For a country whose economy now includes a large and growing digital component, the consequences are national.
Protecting connectivity will require coordinated action across security, regulation and energy policy to stop telecom infrastructure becoming a primary source of household power.
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