Power woes threaten Nigeria’s telecoms future, why policy must step in by Remmy Nweke - Telecoms Clinic@ITREALMS

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Nigeria’s telecom sector is running on fumes, literally. In this Telecoms Clinic@ITREALMS feature, REMMY NWEKE, warns that chronic power shortages and dependence on generators threaten broadband goals, competitiveness, and digital transformation unless energy and telecom policies align urgently for sustainability.

The Nigeria’s chronic electricity shortages have moved beyond households and factories to become a direct bottleneck for the nation’s telecommunications sector with operators now being forced to run thousands of generators daily to keep base stations and data centres functional.

This heavy dependence on self-generation has pushed energy costs to over half of operational expenditure for some players, creating a cycle of high tariffs, weak service quality, and stalled rural coverage.

The latest Mission 300 expansion, a World Bank and African Development Bank (AfDB)-led initiative targeting 300 million new electricity connections in Africa by 2030, has again exposed Nigeria’s lag. Seventeen countries, including Ghana, Kenya, and Ethiopia, endorsed new compacts to reform utilities and attract private capital for power access.

Nigeria, despite being home to over 90 million people without electricity, was not among them. For telecoms, this signals more years of operating in a hostile power environment while competitors across Africa build digital networks on stable energy foundations.

Policy intervention is now urgent. For the Ministry of Power, the priority should be to fast-track reforms that guarantee grid reliability and incentivise renewable energy solutions specifically for telecoms infrastructure. Independent Power Projects (IPPs) for industrial clusters could be expanded to cover telecom towers and data hubs.

The Ministry of Communications, Innovation and Digital Economy, working with the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), must lobby for sector-specific reliefs, such as dedicated renewable subsidies and accelerated approvals for green-energy partnerships.

Equally, NCC has a role in ensuring that licensing and regulatory frameworks encourage energy-sharing among operators. Co-location of infrastructure with integrated renewable solutions can cut costs, especially in rural communities where rolling out towers is otherwise uneconomical. A regulatory nudge in this direction could transform coverage expansion while reducing reliance on expensive diesel.

The broader implication is clear: without addressing electricity as a core enabler of digital transformation, Nigeria risks missing its broadband penetration target of 70 per cent by end of 2025 and undermining its digital economy ambitions.

Telecoms Clinic@ITREALMS stresses that the digital economy cannot thrive on generators. Unless power reforms are deliberately aligned with ICT growth, the sector’s potential will remain undercut, and Nigeria may cede ground to African peers already harmonising their energy and telecoms policies.

Conclusively, with a policy reminder: electricity is no longer just a power sector issue' it is a telecoms survival issue. Regulators and ministries must treat it as such if Nigeria’s telecoms sector is to sustain growth and competitiveness.

🖋️ Remmy Nweke, mNUJ, mNGE, mGOCOP, mnipr, is an award-winning author, journalist and Group Executive Editor of ITREALMS Media Group. He is also the Lead Consulting Strategist at DigitalSENSE Africa. He writes from Lagos for the Telecoms Clinic column.