Telecommunications giant MTN Nigeria has revealed that it suffered a staggering 9,218 fibre cuts in 2025. Meaning that, on average, it experienced over 25 fibre cuts per day in the last one year.
Not only that, the network provider had 211 of its sites hit with vandalism and theft.
Due to the network disruptions, MTN received over 1.6 million customer complaints via calls, emails, social media, and walk-in centres.
Many Nigerians are still unaware of the negative impacts their actions have on the nation’s critical infrastructure, like telecommunications. Cutting fibre cables during road construction and other activities can affect service quality, as telecoms operators rely on fibre-optic cables to transmit signals.
In a LinkedIn post, MD/CEO MTN Nigeria, Dr. Karl Toriola, acknowledged that the disruptions affected the quality of service subscribers enjoyed in 2025.
“We take responsibility for the signals we receive and for how we respond to the realities that shape the customer experience on our network,” he stated. “There is progress to be proud of. And we clearly still have work to do.”
MTN 2025 year in numbers:
- Fibre cuts: 9,218
- Customer complaints recieved: 1,624,263
- Sites impacted by theft and vandalism: 211
- Number of subscribers: 85 million (as of September 2025)
Looking Forward
Despite all the challenges experienced in 2025, Karl Toriola maintains that “there is progress to be proud of,” but “we clearly still have work to do.” He added that while MTN is not where they want to be yet, they remain committed to putting customers at the centre of everything they do.
Meanwhile, 2025 was not all doom and gloom for MTN; the telecommunications firm achieved some impressive feats in the year under review.
MTN was named the best network by Ookla for its network speed, and the company also returned to profitability after two years of making losses.
The icing on the cake was that MTN declared interim dividend payments to shareholders. This is on the back of the impressive performance of the MTN stock on the Nigerian Stock Exchange.
As MTN prepares to mark its 25th anniversary later this year, Karl stressed that the focus remains clear: “Listening better, responding faster, and improving consistently.”
