Nigeria plans telecom wholesale framework to open fibre access
Nigeria's telecom regulator is drafting a wholesale access framework to break the concentration of digital infrastructure in Lagos and drive down broadband costs for businesses.
Nigeria’s telecommunications regulator is preparing a wholesale market framework to address the uneven distribution of digital infrastructure across the country. Aminu Maida, executive vice chairman and chief executive officer of the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), announced the initiative at BusinessDay’s 2026 CEO Forum.
While Nigeria has expanded from fewer than half a million telephone subscribers in 2000 to over 180 million active mobile connections, critical digital assets like data centres remain heavily concentrated in Lagos. Maida argued the current bottleneck is not a lack of physical fibre, but rather the absence of a functioning wholesale market.
“We actually do have connectivity and a lot of fibre across the country,” Maida said. “What we don’t have is a framework that enables fair and transparent access to that infrastructure.”
The NCC plans to establish transparent pricing mechanisms that will allow internet service providers to access existing networks on fair and competitive terms. For telecom investors and infrastructure funds, this signals a regulatory push to unlock latent value from existing physical assets rather than relying solely on new capital deployments.
Increased competition at the wholesale tier should improve broadband availability and lower costs for businesses and consumers, particularly in underserved regions. Maida stressed that regulators must ensure this commercial growth also supports broader national development objectives in sectors like healthcare, education and agriculture.
This regulatory shift mirrors a broader transition in Nigeria’s digital economy. Maida noted that simply increasing connectivity is no longer sufficient to unlock economic growth, framing the current era as a “transitional transformation” where corporate structures must adapt to new technologies.
Realising this economic potential requires a more specialised workforce. Although the Federal Government’s Three Million Technical Talent programme is expanding the general digital labour pool, Maida said the NCC is reviving its own specialised training institutes. The goal is to produce sector-specific talent capable of driving innovation in healthcare, education, manufacturing and financial services.
