Telecom operator MTN has revealed that it recorded 5,478 fibre cuts over the last seven months, citing road works and vandalism as the major drivers of network damage. The company reported 760 fibre cuts in July 2025 alone, a spike that continues to affect voice and data quality nationwide.
Recent North-East outage and restoration work
MTN said a prominent case of vandalism in the North-East required scheduled maintenance on August 24, 2025, between 6:00 AM and 8:00 AM. The maintenance impacted 101 sites across 15 local government areas (LGAs) in Kano, Adamawa and Borno states as engineers worked to repair and reroute traffic.
As part of ongoing mitigation, MTN performed weekend repairs that included a permanent fix along the AFCOT–Bawo Village route in Adamawa State. The upgrade involved switching traffic to a newly installed fibre span intended to eliminate recurrent damage and improve long-term network stability. During the cutover, 2G, 3G, 4G and enterprise services experienced temporary downtime.
Areas affected
MTN listed the LGAs affected by the recent maintenance and outages:
- Kano State: Nasarawa LGA
- Adamawa State: Girei, Song, Mubi North, Hong, Gombi, Fufore, Mubi South, Madagali, Michika, Maiha, Chibok, Yola North
- Borno State: Askira/Uba, Shani
Why it matters
Fibre cuts from road construction and deliberate vandalism create cascading outages that can disrupt consumer mobile service, enterprise connectivity and critical communications. The repeated need to rebuild and reroute increases operational costs for telcos and prolongs recovery timelines for affected communities.
MTN says the linear, often unprotected nature of some fibre routes makes temporary downtime unavoidable during repairs and upgrades—but argues these investments are necessary to fortify the network and reduce future incidents.
MTN’s response
In public statements, MTN emphasised rapid incident response, scheduled repair windows, and targeted infrastructure upgrades as its primary mitigation strategies. The company also urged greater collaboration with local authorities and construction contractors to protect fibre routes and minimise accidental damage.
Takeaway: Until fibre routes are better protected or re-routed away from vulnerable corridors, Nigerian mobile and enterprise customers should expect intermittent service disruptions in affected regions. Stronger coordination between telcos, road authorities and security agencies will be crucial to reduce vandalism and accidental cuts.
