Nigeria calls for unified data-driven telecom rules in Africa
Nigeria's telecom regulator is urging African counterparts to adopt a data-driven framework to standardize oversight of AI and satellite services, a shift designed to reduce regulatory friction for cross-border investors.
The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has called on African telecommunications regulators to replace traditional oversight with a unified, data-driven framework. Aminu Maida, the NCC’s executive vice chairman and chief executive, made the proposal at the 7th Ordinary Session of the African Telecommunications Union’s Conference Preparatory Committee in Abuja on Tuesday.
For telecom operators and infrastructure investors, the shift addresses a growing barrier to scaling across the continent. Rapid advancements in artificial intelligence, satellite services, cloud computing and cybersecurity have rendered conventional national regulations inadequate. Fragmented oversight forces companies to navigate disjointed compliance regimes, complicating capital deployment for broadband expansion and digital public infrastructure.
Rimini Makama, the NCC’s executive commissioner for stakeholder management, stressed that regulators must pivot from merely gathering data to applying it effectively. “The challenge is not collecting it. The challenge is turning it into better decisions,” she told delegates. She noted that smarter, transparent regulation is essential to achieving shared continental priorities like attracting investment, promoting competition and strengthening network resilience.
To demonstrate the approach, Nigeria is sharing its own regulatory intelligence ecosystem. Developed by the NCC, the platform integrates quality of service metrics, consumer experience data, consumer complaints, compliance analytics and market intelligence. Kwasim Odubakun, a deputy director at the NCC, is presenting the system to delegates, offering a potential blueprint for how aggregated data can directly inform policy interventions.
Maida emphasized that while African markets differ in size and legal structure, the operational hurdles for regulators are identical. “The challenge that one regulator is trying to solve has already been encountered in one form or another by a colleague elsewhere on the continent,” he said. He argued that making the exchange of regulatory experiences more systematic would help avoid duplicating efforts across different markets.
By formalizing this cross-border collaboration, African regulators aim to establish more predictable oversight as the continent adopts emerging technologies. For the private sector, an evidence-based regulatory environment reduces compliance friction, a critical factor as capital investment in the continent's digital networks accelerates.
