For years, the Right of Way (RoW) debate has lingered as one of Nigeria’s most persistent bottlenecks to affordable broadband and nationwide fiber deployment. Although the conversation often circles around “high charges” and “state levies,” beneath this fiscal friction lies a deeper transparency deficit; a question of who actually determines RoW pricing, how those decisions are made, and what accountability framework exists for public resources that should empower, not encumber, connectivity.In this edition of Telecoms Clinic@ITREALMS with REMMY NWEKE, he probes Nigeria’s spectrum licensing and renewal transparency (2015–2025), asking who got what, at what price, and why openness still matters.
When the National Economic Council (NEC) agreed in 2013 to peg RoW charges at ₦145 per linear meter across Nigeria, the consensus was hailed as a historic step toward harmonizing infrastructure costs and accelerating broadband penetration. Yet, more than a decade later, the disparity between federal ambition and state practice has only widened.
