Rural communities losing out on DPI benefits due to poor network connectivity

In Gurfata, a remote community within the Ibwa Ward of Gwagwalada Area Council in the federal capital territory (FCT), Aliyu Baba Saidu is more than just a point of sale (POS) vendor. He is a lifeline.

With no banks or other financial institutions nearby, residents rely on him for cash withdrawals, transfers, and even phone charging. His small shop, a weathered mud structure, stands resilient under the scorching midday sun — its cracked walls telling silent stories of endurance.

But despite his crucial role in the community, Saidu struggles with a major challenge: network connectivity.

“We don’t have banks in this area, and we suffer serious network problems,” he said, standing in his shop, waving his POS device in search of a signal. 

“As I’m here, I have no network. When I want to use my POS machine, I have to walk around, sometimes to the back of the shop just to find a spot with reception before I can complete transactions.”

The unreliable network isn’t just an inconvenience; it’s costing him money.

“Sometimes, I send money, and it shows ‘declined.’ At the end of the day, the money is gone,” he lamented. “Recently, I lost ₦50,000 because of this network problem. I thought the transaction didn’t go through, so I sent it again.”

The poor network situation has also marginalised students and teachers at Junior Secondary School (JSS) Gurfata. Beyond the school’s dilapidated infrastructure and lack of basic amenities, its staff and students cannot benefit from the electronic school system introduced by the FCT Universal Basic Education Board (UBEB) in collaboration with Plovtech.

Launched in 2023, the initiative was designed to streamline the central web portal and online school management system for junior secondary schools across the FCT. However, for teachers like Gabi Emmanuel, the lack of mobile network coverage means the system is virtually useless in Gurfata.

“The Plovetech department in FCT has tried its best by putting the schools in the territory online. All the results are uploaded online and the exams are unified examinations. But when the questions are set and are sent, to assess it in this very environment has been a difficult thing,” Emmanuel said.

“The uploading of the result is another difficult task. In this environment, you can have a laptop and still be unable to access the network effectively and do what you want. You have to look for where you can get the network, whether nearby or you climb a hilly place which can be a risk to our life.”

A NATIONWIDE STRUGGLE

Saidu’s frustration and Emmanuel’s struggles are not isolated cases. Across rural Nigeria, millions grapple with poor or nonexistent network coverage, cutting them off from essential services.

Recognising early that this may be a future challenge, the Nigerian government under former President Olusegun Obasanjo launched the National Rural Telephony Project (NRTP) in 2002. The goal was to ensure that rural communities were not left out of the country’s telecommunications boom.

More than two decades later, progress has been painfully slow. A Universal Service Provision Fund (USPF) report estimates that 27.91 million Nigerians across 97 clusters still lack access to telecom services. Connecting these underserved areas, according to a GSMA report, would require an investment of $461 million.

There is also Nigeria’s National Broadband Plan (NBP), launched in 2020, which aimed to achieve 70% broadband penetration by 2025, promising minimum data speeds of 25 megabits per second (Mbps) in urban areas and 10 Mbps in rural areas, with coverage for at least 90% of the population. Data costs were also expected to be capped at N390 per gigabyte.

However, with a large area of rural Nigeria still without mobile networks, broadband expansion remains at snail speed. As of January 2025, data from the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) showed 169,318,076 mobile subscribers; 142,161,409 internet subscribers and 45.61% broadband penetration.

For millions of rural Nigerians, digital exclusion isn’t just an inconvenience — it’s a roadblock to education, business, healthcare, and financial inclusion.

BANKING ON HOPE, TRAVELING FOR TRANSACTIONS

For Nnadi Juliet, a trader in Igu, a community in Bwari area council, carrying out financial transactions means travelling over 15 kilometres to town to access banking services.

Corroborating her struggles, Ignatius Ibrahim, a youth corps member who also runs a barbershop in the area, said poor network coverage is encouraging migration from the community.

“We don’t have banks here. Even POS machines need a telecommunication network to work. If you want to withdraw cash or make transactions, you have to travel to a nearby town like Gaba or Shere just to get a network,” he said.

“You spend as much as ₦1,500 on transport just to withdraw money, even if you only need ₦1,000. It doesn’t make sense. This is why many people are leaving the community. The poor network is killing businesses.”

For Ibrahim, the lack of mobile network coverage is more than just a business challenge. It’s a matter of life and death. His cousin was attacked and shot by bandits on his way back from a trip, but the news never reached his family in time.

“There were people who saw what happened, but they couldn’t call us because there was no network,” he recounted. “They were also too scared to take the risk of coming to tell us in our family house because of the high level of insecurity in the area.”

In Gurfata, Abdulahi Makama, the officer in charge of the Gurfata Primary Healthcare Centre, said emergency medical cases are frequently delayed because of poor telephony and internet services.

“In emergencies, we need to send urgent messages through our database system, but sometimes it takes up to two days before we can access important information,” he said.

“For example, last week, I was trying to upload a family planning report, and it took me a whole week to do that. If a pregnant woman goes into labour at night, someone has to physically come and call me or bring her on a motorcycle. If we had network access, we could arrange emergency care much faster.”

INFRASTRUCTURAL DEFICIT

One of the biggest barriers to rural connectivity in Nigeria is the lack of essential infrastructure. Poor road networks, inadequate power supply, and the absence of communication towers make it difficult to extend telephony and internet services to underserved areas.

Mobile Network Operators (MNOs) have been hesitant to invest in rural connectivity due to concerns about low returns on investment (RoI).

A 2024 report by the GSMA, “Rural Renewal: Telcos and Sustainable Energy in Africa,” revealed that telecom companies face significant financial strain when deploying and maintaining base stations in rural areas, incurring costs that are, on average, 35% higher than in urban locations.

A further analysis by The PUNCH in October 2024 highlighted the financial burden on major telcos such as MTN and Airtel, which spent approximately N71.3 billion monthly on diesel — amounting to N570 billion between January and August 2024. This high operational cost discourages investment in rural connectivity, where profit margins are already slim.

To bridge this gap, the federal government has launched several initiatives, including the Rural Telephony Project, the National Broadband Plan (NBP), and the Universal Service Provision Fund (USPF). These programmes aim to incentivise infrastructure deployment in underserved areas.

Gbenga Sesan, executive director of Paradigm Initiative, emphasised the importance of the USPF’s co-location strategy, designed to provide shared telecom infrastructure in areas deemed commercially unviable. 

“It’s supposed to make sure that areas that businesses don’t want to go to because it doesn’t make business sense to them immediately, USPF can co-locate an infrastructure that can be used by all the telecom service providers,” Sesan said.

However, he noted that the fund has been largely ineffective due to political interference.

“As long as the USPF is a tool of a minister, it will be ineffective. The USPF should be an independent agency. It is difficult to make it independent but the executive secretary of USPF must have a mind of his own and must be able to make decisions on projects,” Sesan stated.

“Right now, what happens is that ministers and their colleagues will then use the USPF funds to invest in states where they have interest for their political ambition and things like that. And of course, that cripples everything.”

RIGHT OF WAY (ROW) AND MULTIPLE TAXATION

Another significant barrier to connectivity in both rural and urban areas is the high cost of Right of Way (RoW) charges imposed on telecom operators. RoW refers to government-issued permits allowing telcos to lay fibre optic cables and install telecom infrastructure.

Although the federal government recommended a standardised fee of N145 per linear meter in both 2013 and 2020, many states continue to impose excessive charges — some as high as N8,000 per linear meter.

Hauwa Wakili, head of digital skills and services at the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), acknowledged that exorbitant RoW fees hinder broadband expansion, slowing the rollout of telecom infrastructure, particularly in underserved areas. 

As of December 2024, only seven states — Anambra, Adamawa, Bauchi, Katsina, Kebbi, Nasarawa, and Zamfara — have waived RoW fees, while others either charge N1 or adhere to the federal recommendation.

INSECURITY AND INFRASTRUCTURE VANDALISATION

Security concerns remain a major challenge in bridging Nigeria’s digital divide. Insurgent groups, such as Boko Haram and ISWAP, have directly targeted telecom infrastructure, exacerbating network disruptions.

On February 14, 2012, Boko Haram spokesperson Abul ‘Qaqa’ issued a threat against GSM service providers and the NCC, accusing them of aiding security agencies in tracking their members. The group followed through in September 2012 with coordinated attacks on telecom masts in Bauchi, Gombe, Maiduguri, Kano, and Potiskum.

Beyond insurgency, fibre optic cable vandalism has also contributed to network failures. A Bloomberg report revealed that telcos lost N27 billion ($23 million) in 2023 due to frequent cable cuts, with MTN Nigeria alone suffering over 6,000 incidents. The company had to relocate 2,500 kilometres of vulnerable fibre cables at a cost exceeding N11 billion — funds that could have been used to expand coverage in underserved areas.

THE WAY FORWARD

To accelerate broadband penetration, the federal government launched the National Broadband Alliance for Nigeria (NBAN) on February 5, 2025. The initiative aims to enhance collaboration among stakeholders and facilitate the deployment of 90,000 km of fibre backbone across the country, with a focus on rural connectivity.

While the goal is to achieve a 70% broadband penetration rate by December 2025, experts remain sceptical. 

“I don’t think we’re going to meet the target for two reasons. One is that it takes a while for infrastructure investments to show impact. If we’re going to increase the number in 2025, we should have seen investments in 2024. Because if you roll out now, even if you have new operators or you strengthen existing operators, you may not see the numbers tick up immediately,” Sesan said.

“Now that the government recently launched what it called the National Broadband Alliance for Nigeria, that may speed things up a bit, but the short answer to the question is no. We’re not going to meet the target.

“The National Broadbands Alliance should not be a joke. It must work.  If it works, Nigeria will be better.”

Sesan also emphasised the need to maximise existing infrastructure, citing the underutilised Digital Bridge Institute (DBI) as an example. He proposed opening such facilities to civil society and private sector players under a cost-effective, functional partnership.

Nigeria’s rural connectivity challenges stem from a mix of poor infrastructure, high RoW fees, insecurity, and political interference in key initiatives. While government-led projects such as the NBAN signal progress, achieving nationwide broadband penetration will require sustained investment, policy reforms, and stronger security measures to protect telecom infrastructure.

Whether Nigeria meets its 2025 target or not, it is clear that bridging the digital divide is essential for economic growth, security, and social inclusion.

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This report is produced under the DPI Africa Journalism Fellowship Programme of the Media Foundation for West Africa and Co-Develop.