Every fibre cut sets Nigeria’s digital economy back, but who pays?.
These disruptions expose significant enforcement gaps, raising a central question of who ultimately pays when statutory protections fail to stop contractors and vandals from repeatedly severing the nation’s digital backbone When Nigeria’s president, Bola Tinubu, signed the Designation and Protection of Critical National Information Infrastructure (CNII) Order in June 2024, the Federal Government aimed to shield telecommunications assets from relentless vandalism and physical damage.
By classifying fibre lines, base stations, and data centres as vital national security installations, the order sought to impose deterrent penalties and curb unauthorised tampering.
Yet two years on, chronic breaches continue to impose steep financial penalties on operators, diverting capital from network expansion to nonstop emergency repairs and destabilising internet reliability across the country.
In 2023, before the order , MTN Nigeria suffered more than 6,000 fibre cuts in a single year —averaging roughly 16-17 severed lines per day. Fast-forward to 2025, past the presidential order: the numbers increased; between January and July, the telco recorded 5,478 fibre cuts. That pushed its daily average to over 26 snapped cables. In plain terms, instead of scaring reckless diggers and vandals away and improving coordination between construction firms and other key stakeholders, the new rules led MTN Nigeria to fix about eight more broken cables per day than before the order was introduced.
MSEApp News is publishing an original rewrite of this tip for readers, based on reporting associated with TechCabal.