NCC cracks down on telecom operators with ₦12.4 billion in fines

Nigeria’s telecom regulator plans to impose penalties totalling about ₦12.4 billion ($8.85 million) on operators for breaches of service requirements, marking probably the most forceful regulatory crackdowns in recent times. 

“The Fee is within the technique of updating the Enforcement Processes Laws to make sure that sanctions and penalties proceed to realize their meant deterrent impact,” the Nigerian Communications Fee (NCC) advised TechCabal. “The overview additionally incorporates further communications-related offences not at the moment addressed below the Nigerian Communications Act 2003 and its subsidiary devices.”

The enforcement push follows a directive from the Minister of Communications, Innovation, and Digital Financial system, Bosun Tijani, instructing the NCC to introduce automated penalties for poor community efficiency, tightening the hyperlink between service failures and regulatory penalties.

Below revised High quality of Service rules issued in July 2024, efficiency obligations had been expanded, together with for colocation suppliers, and stiffer penalties had been launched. After a transition interval by 2025, the NCC set a September compliance deadline. 

In October, three operators, Globacom, Airtel, and IHS Towers, had been fined a mixed ₦45 million ($32,100). Extra considerably, further breaches carrying cumulative liabilities of about ₦12.4 billion are actually shifting by regulatory processing, with pre-enforcement notices already issued.

Probably the most consequential steps was the approval of tariff changes in January 2025. In accordance with the NCC, the transfer was rigorously made to stability client safety with the financial realities dealing with operators, particularly rising prices and foreign money pressures. 

The regulator argues that the choice has already yielded outcomes: in 2025 alone, the telecom sector recorded greater than $1 billion in contemporary capital investments and deployed over 2,850 new and upgraded community websites nationwide.

The Fee believes these investments have laid a stronger basis for sustained enhancements in High quality of Expertise (QoE). Nevertheless it added that capital spending alone is not going to excuse poor efficiency. Regulatory scrutiny, it says, should make sure that new funding interprets into higher service for customers.

To that finish, the NCC says it has narrowed its client safety efforts to the three most typical complaints with regulatory interventions: community high quality failures, sudden information depletion, and refunds arising from failed airtime and information transactions. 

“Within the fourth quarter of 2025, a complete audit of 965 BTS websites within the Federal Capital Territory, representing roughly 65 per cent of websites within the space, was performed,” the Fee famous. “The train centered on vital infrastructure components comparable to energy programs, cooling amenities, and web site safety. A complete of 5,557 infractions had been recognized, of which 81 per cent had been remedied as at 31 December 2025.”

Spectrum administration has additionally emerged as a key enforcement lever. Since September 2025, the fee says it has authorized a sequence of spectrum trades and reassignments, reallocating roughly 50 MHz of beforehand underutilised spectrum for rapid community enlargement. One such reassignment contributed to a rise in Globacom’s common 4G obtain speeds from about 9.5 Mbps to roughly 15 Mbps inside months.

Shopper safety efforts prolong past networks. Working with the Central Financial institution of Nigeria and monetary service suppliers, the fee claims it has facilitated refunds totalling greater than ₦10 billion ($6.7 million) for failed airtime and information transactions. In the meantime, client sensitisation campaigns on smarter information utilization have coincided with a decline in information depletion complaints.

All these measures feed right into a broader technique. The NCC is finalising Nigeria’s first structured Spectrum Roadmap (2025–2030), anticipated to be launched in March 2026, to information long-term spectrum use, refarming, and entry fashions. Along with revised enforcement rules due for gazetting in 2026, the roadmap is meant to make penalties predictable, oversight steady, and compliance unavoidable.

For customers lengthy annoyed by patchy service, the looming penalties sign a regulator extra keen to make use of its enamel. For operators, it marks a shift from negotiated compliance to rule-based enforcement, one the place transparency, information, and fines more and more outline the price of falling brief.