Nigeria’s Federal Executive Council (FEC) has approved the construction of 7,000 telecom towers to support the country’s digital transformation and the deployment of 5G.
Minister of Communications, Innovation and Digital Economy Dr Bosun Tijani made the announcement during a stakeholder engagement session organised by the Universal Service Provision Fund.
“Our goal is to ensure meaningful access to connectivity, not just basic service,” said Dr Tijani. He noted that the towers will support the growing demand for high-speed internet, particularly in rural areas, where connectivity remains a challenge.
This follows a recent announcement from Airtel Nigeria, who made a US$500mn investment pledge to strengthen Nigeria’s telecom infrastructure. Airtel alongside MTN Nigeria and Mafab Communications have all been issued 5G licenses and are actively investing in upgrading their networks.
Dr Tijani is also spearheading a 90,000km fibre optic deployment rollout in collaboration with the World Bank. Combining this backhaul investment with the deployment of last-mile tower infrastructure will help provide access to 25-30 million Nigerians living with little to no access to telecom infrastructure.
Under the investment the government will hold a 49% stake while private investors will contribute the remaining 51%. The towers will also be managed by towercos, with the government playing a co-investment role.
Nigeria’s telecom tower market is one of the most mature and active in Africa, boasting two major international towerco players IHS Towers and American Tower, who both recently settled a three-way build-to-suit program with market-leading MNO MTN.
Pan African Towers sits as the largest Nigerian towerco, followed by a long tail-end of small towercos all providing build-to-suit, rural and network-as-a-service services predominantly for MTN and Airtel Africa, who are driving most of Nigeria’s active network investment.
The crash of the Nigerian Naira in 2023 resulted in significant foreign exchange depreciation. Since the majority of networking investment capex is in US$, this hit the telecom sector particularly hard, with MTN, Airtel, IHS Towers, and American Tower all recording significant losses due to FX, despite the strong organic growth figures.
This in turn has dampened network expansion investment, seeing new tower numbers declining over the past 24 months. Fresh capital from the government will help support ongoing demand for telecom infrastructure and prop up demand for new towers while the market continues to stabilise.
