The vandalism of Nigeria’s critical public infrastructure has not only caused a significant leakage in the economy but also undermined investment in the sectors. From drop calls occasioned by fibre cuts to vandalism-induced national grid collapse, stakeholders reckon that in an ever-evolving landscape fraught with challenges, serious efforts must be made to safeguard these assets from threats by terrorists, bandits, economic saboteurs, malcontents, cyber-attacks, and other malicious threats, ADEYEMI ADEPETUN and WALIAT MUSA report.
As the Lagos rain hammered persistently on the weather-beaten corrugated iron roof of his shop, the relentless drumming mirrored Daniel Chidi’s pulsating frustration as he held aloft his mobile phone against the grey light filtering in through his tiny shop window. “No network!” he muttered twice in a sound that was barely louder than the heavy downpour.
Chidi was not attempting to stream a football match or scroll through social media pages for fun. He needed to reach his supplier, whose delivery of yam flour, a local delicacy in the South-West, was already two days late. His customers, primarily women from the neighbourhood, relied on his shop for daily household meals. Without the flour, his already struggling business would be hobbled and may eventually grind to a halt.
As the search for the elusive network continued, he climbed on a wobbly wooden stool, hoping to catch a signal through slight openings just under the rafters of the roof. Still unlucky, he walked to a particular corner of the shop where he once briefly received a weak signal a few days back. After all failed, he resorted to cursing the network providers for failing him in his hour of need – a common practice in his community.
“This country, eh?” sighed Mama Ekaete, a regular customer who had sought shelter from the rain in Chidi’s shop. “They just keep on collecting money in the name of service delivery when in fact, no one is getting his/her money’s worth.”
Despite not being satisfied with the quality of service, Chidi still purchases a data bundle weekly with a significant chunk of his meagre earnings just to keep in touch with the rest of the world even though the Internet is not more reliable than a Lagos “danfo” during rush hour – slow, erratic and prone to sudden, unexplained stops.
Calls dropping mid-sentence, text messages arriving hours late, and data speed fluctuating wildly are just some of the characteristics of the Internet services provided by many firms.
The problem of poor Internet service is not limited to Chidi’s neighbourhood but is experienced across different parts of the country, ranging from bustling markets to quiet villages and even in the heart of Abuja.
Aisha, a Kano State-based student, was livid with rage after missing a crucial online lecture for the umpteenth time because of a sudden network outage. She lamented that her dreams of becoming a software engineer were constantly being hampered by unreliable Internet service, making online learning a Herculean task for her and many.
In Port Harcourt, a small business owner, Ann Daniel, who runs a chain of shops selling frozen food, has a running battle with stability of power because of constant grid collapse and the rest. Daniel’s case is made worse by the skyrocketing price of a litre of petrol, which has more than doubled in the last few 15 months.
Sadly, by January 2025, the rising cost of running the shops forced her to shut down six outlets out of 10.
While she licks her wounds personally, Chidi’s complaints about poor telephony services only elicited from the network provider, lame apologies with blame heaped on everything from faulty equipment to vandalism of critical infrastructure and other “unforeseen technical challenges.”
In a country of over 200 million people, many are aghast regarding how telecommunication companies advertise fast Internet speeds and seamless connectivity when the reality is far from the glossy advertisements.
Like millions of others, Chidi feels trapped in Nigeria’s unreliable telephony cycle, where promises are rarely kept.
Those scenarios played out sometime last year when a major subsea cable serving Nigeria and the region suffered a major infrastructure collapse, which arose from vandalism, subsequently impacting businesses both large and small across the region. Painfully, those scenarios have continued to be expressed in service delivery.
Indeed, fibre cuts, theft, and vandalism of infrastructure are fast becoming a major source of concern, especially for a country striving to catch up with the rest of the world in digitising its economy.
With theft and vandalism fast becoming the norm across all sectors of the economy, many more sectors, including telecommunications, energy, and transport, just to mention a few, are equally being exposed to the menace, hence the declining quality of service.
Because of its lucrative nature, vandalism is fast becoming a thriving business for metal scavengers and criminally-minded Nigerians, among others, hence the national spread that it has witnessed. From Lagos to Kano, Rivers to Enugu, Ondo to Taraba, and Kaduna to Abuja, hardly any sector is spared as each currently battles its share of the challenge.
Even rail and road infrastructure are not insulated as vandals are getting efficient in breaking beams to steel rods, rail tracks and creating manholes on major roads.
While the crisis appears unabating, vandalism, according to telecom operators, is a major hindrance to achieving improved telephony services in Nigeria. It has equally impacted power generation and distribution in the country.
Today, the spate of vandalisation of critical national infrastructure has escalated into a full-blown national crisis with far-reaching effects, spreading across all major sectors to become a big hurdle to national development as well as crippling national security. From power installations to transportation systems, telecommunications infrastructure, and public utilities, no core sector is untouched by this menace, which is largely exacerbating the challenges a near-comatose economy faces.
Interestingly, these heinous acts are perpetrated not by spirits but by Nigerians, who are simultaneously decrying the parlous state of the country’s public infrastructure and demanding reforms.
Ailing power infrastructure in vandals’ grip
INCESSANT acts of vandalism in the power sector have severely crippled electricity generation and distribution, thereby deepening the nation’s energy crisis.
Indeed, there has been a troubling rise in the vandalism of power, oil, and gas infrastructure over the last few years. Between 2021 and 2022, the problem intensified, with the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) reporting the vandalism of 90 high-voltage transmission towers in 2022 alone.
In 2023, the number escalated to 111 towers, reflecting a 23.3 per cent increase. In 2024 alone, the TCN reported the vandalisation of 128 transmission towers. The company spent approximately N8.8 billion on repairs to restore these towers to functional status.
Earlier in 2025, over 18 transmission towers were vandalised between January 9 and 14, 2025, across Rivers, Abia, and Kano states. The financial impact of these incidents is staggering, as each transmission tower, which is a critical component of the national grid, costs approximately N110 million to repair.
In 2022 alone, Nigeria spent about N9.9 billion on repairs, while in 2023, this figure rose to N12.8 billion and nearly N9 billion in 2024. These repair costs do not account for the indirect losses incurred due to disrupted power supply, economic downtime, and reduced productivity.
Between the first and third quarters of 2023, vandalism accounted for 13 per cent of power-related accidents, underscoring the direct threat to both infrastructure and human safety.
While the repercussions of vandalism extend far beyond financial costs, the repeated destruction of infrastructure has significantly undermined the stability of the country’s national power grid.
In 2024, the grid experienced multiple collapses, with the tenth incident occurring in November.
This persistent act of sabotage has put a huge burden on power distribution companies’ meagre resources, as they are required to replace and repair damaged infrastructure continuously.
Telecom operators count losses
DAILY, damages to telecom infrastructure continue to heighten the chances that drop calls, poor network coverage, and slow infrastructure upgrades will tarry in the sector, no thanks to the frequent targeting of telecom masts, fibre-optic cables, and base stations by vandals, a development that causes major disruptions.
Industry sources maintain that more than 50,000 kilometres of fibre-optic cables were destroyed in 2023, while vandalism was responsible for 30 per cent of network failures, and repair works cost a princely N14.6 billion.
In confirming the widespread damage in the sector, the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) confirmed that over 50,000 cases of major damage to telecoms infrastructure and facilities were reported across the country in the past five years up till 2023.
MTN Nigeria reported facing over 6,000 fibre cuts in 2023, forcing the operator to relocate 2,500 kilometres of vulnerable fibre lines between 2022 and 2023. This massive undertaking cost MTN over N11 billion.
Airtel Nigeria Limited, while deploring the unabating destruction, which has jeopardised the sector, emphasised that despite the sector being seriously challenged, telecom operators have never stopped investing to ensure improved services.
According to Airtel’s Director of Corporate Communications and CSR, Femi Adeniran, apart from multiple taxations and stagnant tariffs, “the sector is constantly battling vandalism and fibre cuts. We have had over 7,000 fibre cuts in the last six months, and Airtel recorded above 40 daily cuts.”
Adeniran said that this impacts service offerings and limits upgrades and expansion of infrastructure, especially in the hinterland.
Shedding more light on the onslaught against the sector, the Executive Vice Chairman of the NCC, Dr Aminu Maida, said: “The telecoms industry faces significant challenges, including frequent fibre cuts, vandalism, and theft, which cost operators billions of naira in revenue and repair expenses. Additionally, restricted access to telecom facilities by property owners and government entities hampers network expansion efforts, limiting connectivity and impacting service quality.”
According to him, as these incidents increase, the financial burden on telecom operators grows, pushing up operational costs and ultimately affecting service quality.
Maida noted that these disruptions pose a severe risk for businesses like banking that depend on seamless telecommunications for daily transactions.
Transportation infrastructure not spared
THE country’s burgeoning transportation sector has had its share of vandalisation, with criminals targeting parts of bridges, railroads, and public transit infrastructure. Railway tracks have been sabotaged numerous times, making the Nigerian Railway Corporation (NRC) a frequent victim.
The Lagos-Ibadan rail line has suffered multiple attacks and theft of metal components, which endanger passengers’ lives and cause service disruptions.
A recent report showed that the Abuja-Kaduna train line has also faced vandalisation, which led to derailments and disruptions in operations. Further undermining Nigeria’s transportation infrastructure standard is the vandalism of public bus terminals and bridges.
Due to the frequent looting, repairs of the Third Mainland Bridge have cost taxpayers N15.6 billion over the last six years. Last year, the expansion joints on the recently commissioned Second Niger Bridge were also vandalised. There is an increasing trend of manhole cover theft in urban centres like Abuja and Lagos.
Economy stalls as $593.6m is lost to disruption, others
WHENEVER the national grid collapses, a transmission line goes off, or the Internet is shut down due to vandalism, theft, or fibre cut, the economy suffers massively, and this rubs off on the citizenry.
Not long ago, the World Bank estimated that Nigeria’s unstable power supply, exacerbated by vandalism, results in economic losses of $29 billion yearly.
That aside, during last year’s undersea cable cut, NetBlocks, a cybersecurity and Internet governance watchdog, used the Cost of Shutdown Tool (COST) to estimate the economic impact of an Internet disruption, mobile data outage, or app restriction using indicators from the World Bank, the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), and others, revealed that Nigeria lost N273 billion ($593.6 million) in four days of the disruption.
In January 2024, Top10vpn, an international VPN review website, revealed that Internet shutdowns cost the global economy more than $9 billion in 2023, affecting 747 million people.
Sub-Saharan Africa came in second after Europe, with $1.74 billion in losses spread over 30,785 hours and affecting 84.8 million Internet users.
Also, oil and gas sector vandalism has led to severe economic repercussions, affecting national revenue and environmental health.
According to the Nigerian Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI), from 2017 to 2021, Nigeria recorded 7,143 cases of pipeline vandalism, resulting in crude oil and product losses amounting to 208.639 million barrels, valued at approximately $12.74 million.
Over the same period, the country spent about N471.493 billion on pipeline repairs and maintenance due to vandalism.
Data from the National Oil Spill Detection and Response Agency (NOSDRA) indicated that the country recorded about 589 oil spills in 2024, with 471 spills caused by oil theft and sabotage.
It also showed that the first half of 2024 saw a high sabotage and oil theft rate, with an average of 53.6 monthly spills. This dropped to 24.8 spills monthly in the second half of the year, suggesting fewer incidents of theft and pipeline vandalism.
A further picture of the loss that the country is recording can be gleaned from data supplied by Bloomberg ship-tracking, which attributed Nigeria’s 20 per cent drop in Liquified Natural Gas (LNG) exports to persistent vandalism and sabotage of pipelines in the Niger Delta region.
Due to the substantial loss caused by pipeline vandalism, it was revealed that shipments planned for export next month may face delays of at least 10 days.
Nigeria’s gas exports have faced disruptions due to security issues in the Niger Delta region, although shipments from the NLNG complex experienced a rebound in 2024.
With the persistent sabotage of oil and gas installations, Nigeria is losing its recent gains in production and supplies, rendering the country unable to meet growing demands.
The NLNG’s General Manager for External Relations and Sustainable Development, Sophia Horsfall, stated that the loss of facilities due to vandalism and sabotage significantly affects feed-gas supplies to the NLNG and disrupts delivery timelines.
“The NLNG continues to engage its feed-gas suppliers and relevant government security agencies for an improved security regime for upstream production and transmission,” she said.
Leveraging awareness creation, CNII Bill to stem disruption
WITH the increasing reliance on digital infrastructure for essential services in Nigeria, the Designation and Protection of Critical National Information Infrastructure Order 2024 provides a robust legal framework to ensure Nigeria’s critical infrastructure’s continued security and resilience.
The security and protection of these Critical National Information Infrastructure (CNII) will help improve the quality of telecoms services, which have often been affected by disruption and intentional damage.
Indeed, the Federal Government formally gazetting the Critical National Infrastructure (CNI) Bill, especially in the telecoms sector, may have brought some succour and deterred indiscriminate vandalism of critical infrastructure in the industry.
Tagged: “Designation and Protection of Critical National Information Infrastructure Order, 2024,” the Bill for CNII, which has been advocated by the Association of Licensed Telecoms Operators of Nigeria (ALTON) for several years, and President Bola Ahmed Tinubu formally signed it into law last year.
The Minister of Communications, Innovation and Digital Economy, Dr Bosun Tijani, described it as a significant step that will strengthen and protect investments in the ICT sector by reducing incidents capable of damaging the operations and functionality of our technological systems, infrastructure, and networks.
Tijani said the security and protection of the CNII is a priority for the administration and will help improve the quality of telecom services, which have very often been affected by disruption and intentional damage.
“This gazette now makes it an offence to willfully damage assets such as telecommunications towers/sites, switch stations, data centres, satellite infrastructure, submarine and fibre optic cables, transmission equipment, e-government platforms, databases among many others.”
According to him, the government will continue to work to create an enabling and supportive environment and policies for our digital economy to thrive.
The Minister of Power, Adebayo Adelabu, said challenges such as vandalism of power infrastructure pose a significant threat to Nigeria’s electrification efforts as transmission towers, pipelines, and distribution equipment have been targeted, disrupting supply and deterring potential investors.
He stressed that protecting power assets is crucial to ensuring uninterrupted electricity supply and sustaining progress, adding that the government is intensifying efforts to curb vandalism through enhanced security, stricter penalties, and improved surveillance technologies.
The Executive Director of PowerUp Initiative, Adetayo Adegbemle, who emphasised that vandalism should be treated as a national concern, criticised the TCN for not doing enough to consistently engage all stakeholders, particularly security outfits.
“Vandalisation is not limited to the grid infrastructure as we have also been having attacks on distribution transformers. This emphasises that a national campaign is urgently needed against vandalism, and policies like whistleblowing that reward reporting of any suspicious activities around the power sector infrastructure are needed; we need to go beyond paying lip service and being pained every time these vandals bring any infrastructure down. The security outfits should also be up and doing because vandalism would not be attractive if there are no buyers,” he said.
An energy partner at Bloomfield, Dr Ayodele Oni, said there is a need to invest in orientation and re-orientation of the populace to understand the impact of vandalism and oil theft.
“Vandalism is a key challenge in the sector. However, I understand that the government has an arrangement to supply drones for the power sector. It is pertinent that this is well implemented,” he said.
An energy expert, Prof. Dayo Ayoade, highlighted that vandalism and oil theft are wreaking havoc in the oil and gas sector, noting that Nigeria currently targets 1.5 million barrels per day to reach 2.1 million barrels by 2025.
While expressing doubts about achieving this goal without a serious crackdown on the vandalisation of facilities and oil theft, Ayoade emphasised that despite significant government investment in tackling oil theft and vandalism, challenges persist.
He lauded the government’s plan to establish a monitoring centre using AI and advanced technologies to track crude oil movements in real time, similar to systems in place in Saudi Arabia and other countries. However, he expressed skepticism about the effectiveness of these measures, citing the lack of prosecution of high-level offenders as a major hurdle to completely eradicating the problem.
Vandalism as a symptom of deeper social frustrations
KEHINDE Aluko, a telecoms expert, observed that public infrastructure, utilities, and monuments, which stand as symbols of national pride and service, have increasingly been vandalised. This is mostly witnessed during protests, particularly during the #EndBadGovernance Protest in 2024 and the #EndSARS protests in 2020.
According to him, the cost of vandalism in Nigeria is immense, draining resources that could be used for developmental projects. For each stolen transformer, pipeline break, or destroyed railroad track, millions of naira are redirected from vital industries like education and healthcare to cater for this loss.
Be that as it may, the Federal Ministry of Works (FMoW) and the Federal Ministry of Communications, Innovation, and Digital Economy (FMoCIDE) have established a Joint Standing Committee for the Protection of Fibre Optic Cables to address the persistent issue of fibre optic cuts and damages caused by road construction and rehabilitation activities. These disruptions have had a significant negative impact on telecommunications services across Nigeria.
The main assignment of the joint standing committee is to establish and maintain clear communication/coordination channels between the two ministries and the NCC to limit and prevent damage to telecommunications fibre optic cables during road construction or rehabilitation activities.
NSCDC’s mandate impacted by personnel shortage
RECALL that in November 2024, when the Federal Government inaugurated the Federal Coordinating Council for Protection of Critical National Assets and Infrastructure, the Commandant General of the NSCDC, Dr Ahmed Abubakar Audi, emerged as the coordinating secretary of the Council.
At the inauguration, the National Security Advisor, Nuhu Ribadu, also the Council’s Chairman, said that critical infrastructure is a veritable tool for enhancing a nation’s economic development and national security.
The NSA hinted that Mr President strongly holds the nation’s critical infrastructure and national assets very close to his heart and, as such, would not tolerate any lapses or shortfall in this regard.
Ribadu further explained that CNAI, which includes the transition system, energy grid, communication network, and essential services, is society’s backbone.
The NSA hinted that the Council is not just a response to security threats but a proactive step towards fostering collaboration, innovation, and strategic planning.
“Together, we must lay the foundation for a resilient framework that would safeguard our nation’s Infrastructure,” he said.
The NSCDC CG affirmed the corps’ commitment to the statutory mandate of safeguarding all critical national assets and infrastructure across the nation.
However, speaking with The Guardian, NSCDC Public Relations Officer Babawale Afolabi said the corps is doing its best to stem the tide of vandalism on critical infrastructure even though it cannot do it alone, as security is a collective effort.
“Lots of arrests and prosecutions have been made. But I will say that we need more hands and tools to work. Soon, the NSCDC will open the process of recruiting more personnel, which will help us a lot. You can imagine that in a country of over 200 million people and the security personnel combined, including the Police, Army, and the NCSDC, we are not up to two million. If we have more personnel, we can do more, cover more areas, and arrest vandals, among others. But, very soon, we shall be recruiting about 10,000 personnel into the NSCDC, and that should help greatly,” the spokesperson said.
