By Emmanuel Ukudolo I Tuesday, January 05.26
ABUJA, Nigeria — For years, the promise of Nigeria’s digital economy has been hampered by a stubborn reality: despite having one of the world’s fastest-growing mobile markets, the average user experience has often been defined by dropped calls, sluggish data speeds, and erratic connectivity.
In a newly released strategic outlook for 2026, the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has signaled a shift from simply expanding access to aggressively policing the quality of that access.
The Executive Vice Chairman NCC, Dr. Aminu Maida, characterized the year ahead as a turning point where consumer satisfaction will serve as the ultimate metric of regulatory success.
“In 2026, our shared expectation is simple but critical: better quality of experience for consumers, delivered through a fair, competitive and sustainable market,” the Commission stated in its latest sector newsletter.
The shift comes at a delicate time for Nigeria.
The telecommunications sector remains a vital engine of the country’s non-oil economy, yet it faces immense pressure from double-digit inflation, the rising cost of diesel to power base stations, and frequent vandalism of fiber-optic cables. While 2025 was a year of “endurance and consolidation,” according to industry analysts, the 2026 roadmap prioritizes “execution, speed, and scale.”
Central to this new agenda is a data-driven approach to accountability.
The NCC has begun deploying interactive mobile coverage maps and a “National Digital Connectivity Index” to benchmark the performance of service providers in real-time. By making network performance public, the regulator hopes to use market competition as a tool to force improvements, allowing consumers to switch providers based on verified service quality rather than marketing claims.
Beyond technical metrics, the 2026 priorities emphasize a “fair and sustainable market.”
This includes a more rigorous enforcement of corporate governance codes to ensure that the massive investments required for 5G expansion and rural connectivity are managed transparently.
The regulator is also moving to streamline tariff structures, demanding that operators simplify complex data bundles that have long been a source of consumer frustration.
The backdrop to these domestic reforms is President Bola Tinubu’s ambitious goal to grow Nigeria’s digital economy to $1 trillion by 2030.
Achieving that target requires moving past the “digital divide” that currently leaves an estimated 23 million Nigerians in unserved clusters.
To bridge this gap, the NCC is championing new technologies, including satellite-to-mobile services and a transition to solar-powered infrastructure to reduce the industry’s reliance on the country’s fragile national power grid.
As the continent’s most populous nation continues its digital transformation, the 2026 strategy suggests that the era of growth at any cost is over.
For the NCC, the coming year is about ensuring that the millions of Nigerians paying for a digital life finally get the quality of service they were promised.
