Nigeria’s telecom subscribers will receive airtime refunds as compensation for poor service experienced between November 2025 and January 2026. The refunds will begin on Friday, April 24, according to the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC).
The NCC said operators failed to meet required performance benchmarks in several parts of the country following a March 29, 2026, directive.
While this is not the first time the regulator has ordered compensation for service failures—MTN and Celtel (now Airtel) were fined in 2008—the latest directive signals a more assertive approach to holding telecom operators accountable.
The NCC said it has also directed tower companies responsible for many of the outages to channel their compensation obligations into upgrading tower infrastructure. These investments, separate from their annual capital plans, will be monitored by independent auditors to ensure compliance.
“It’s actually compensation for the quality of service experience you may have had,” NCC’s Executive Vice Chairman and chief executive officer, Aminu Maida, said at a press briefing on Thursday in Lagos, adding that subscribers will begin receiving alerts via SMS detailing the credits applied to their lines.
Unlike previous enforcement approaches, which assessed service quality at the state level, the NCC said it has shifted to a more granular system. Performance is now measured at the local government level, allowing the regulator to better capture variations in network experience across the country.
“What we have now adopted is to carry out the assessment at local government levels,” Maida said. “This ensures that whatever we measure is as close as possible to what subscribers actually experience.”
Under this framework, operators are evaluated across multiple network layers—2G, 3G, and 4G—against key performance indicators set out in the commission’s quality of service regulations. Where operators fall short, penalties are imposed, part of which is now being redirected as compensation to affected users.
Maida acknowledged the gap between demand and current network capacity but pointed to ongoing investments by operators as a sign of progress. In 2025, the industry invested over $1 billion upgrading networks, importing equipment, and building new towers. According to Maida, one operator has already invested $1 billion in infrastructure this year.
“Things actually improve, but we need to be patient,” he said, noting that infrastructure expansion remains the primary driver of better service quality.
According to him, operators deployed just under 300 new sites last year. In contrast, they have committed to rolling out about 12,000 sites in 2026. So far, around 2,800 have been completed, including new builds, spectrum additions, and upgrades such as converting 3G sites to 4G and deploying 5G in select locations.
“You can see we’re already moving way ahead of what we did last year,” he said.
Operators say they are complying with the directive while continuing to invest in network improvements. MTN Nigeria said in a statement on Thursday that all affected customers will receive airtime compensation in line with the NCC framework, describing the directive as one that “places customers at the centre of regulatory decision-making.”
