African countries smaller than Anambra have faster internet than Nigeria

African countries that are smaller than Anambra State in land mass and slightly bigger than Lagos record faster internet speed than Nigeria, the continent’s most populous nation, BusinessDay has learnt.

Nigeria’s internet speed of 27.62 megabits per second (Mbps) ranks 132nd globally in a survey by Cable.co.uk, which evaluated 220 countries, according to the 2024 Worldwide Broadband Speed Report.

The nation’s current internet speed exceeds its 2025 target of 25 Mbps set in the 2020–2025 Nigerian National Broadband Plan. However, it lags behind Réunion, South Africa (42.42 Mbps), Eswatini (37.23 Mbps), Rwanda (32.69 Mbps), Mauritius, and Botswana (29.52 Mbps).

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Réunion, with a landmass of 2,512 km², has an internet speed of 63.29 Mbps, while Mauritius, ranked 5th, with a landmass of 2,040 km², boasts an internet speed of 31.12 Mbps. Nigeria’s 27.62 Mbps is dwarfed by the internet speed of these nations.

Land masses of these nations pale when compared to Anambra’s 4,844 km². Despite a larger landmass than Lagos (1,171 km²), Réunion’s internet outpaces Nigeria commercial capital’s, which recorded a speed of 43.60 Mbps for mobile and 27.37 Mbps for fixed broadband in June 2024, according to Speedtest Global Index by Ookla.

The Worldwide Broadband Speed Report revealed that a 5GB movie could be downloaded in 10 minutes and 47 seconds in Réunion, 21 minutes and 56 seconds in Mauritius, but 24 minutes and 43 seconds in Nigeria (which has a landmass of 923,768 km²).

The internet has revolutionised how humans work, socialise, and share information. Experts say that faster internet is crucial for seamless online processes, which is not always the case in Nigeria.

“Our network has been slow,” an official of the National Identity Management Commission told a Nigerian citizen, Abdulrazak Temiloluwa.

Temiloluwa, who had repeatedly visited the office to change a piece of information on his National Identification Number (NIN) registration to enable him to renew his expired international passport, was asked to ‘exercise patience.’

“I had to wait that day because I needed to change my information. What shouldn’t have lasted up to an hour lasted the whole day.”

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Temiloluwa’s experience isn’t isolated. Ifeoma John, a Lagos-based legal practitioner, tried to get a driver’s licence from the Federal Road Safety Commission (FRSC) in 2023. A process that should have taken about a month lasted much longer due to a slow internet speed.

In 2023, the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) delayed company registration activities for weeks because of network disruptions.

“Reliable, stable internet connections are needed for people to do their jobs properly,” said Chris Wood, chief executive officer of West Indian Ocean Cable Company.

Surfshark, an Amsterdam-based cybersecurity firm, revealed in its Global Internet Value Index (IVi) that Nigerians overpaid for their internet connections in 2022. The firm calculates its index by dividing each country’s internet speed by affordability, ranking Nigeria 109th out of 117 countries. Nigeria’s index was 0.0017, 44 times lower than the global average.

Nigeria is among the top six African countries with the highest number of subsea cables, underscoring its dormant capacity for fast-speed Internet. Eight subsea cables, however, including Africa Coast to Europe (ACE), Equiano, Glo1, MainOne, Nigeria Cameroon Submarine Cable System, SAT-3, WACS, and 2Africa, bring high-speed internet capacity to the country’s shores.

However, “If it does not have a way to get to the end user, then there will be no change in the end-user experience,” explained Wood.

Nigeria’s Ministry of Communications, Innovation, and Digital Economy states that fibre network is crucial. “Fibre technology, in this case, will enable significantly higher bandwidth capacity and speed. This is because optical fibre carries data as light pulses, thereby avoiding the electronic signalling limitations of traditional mediums,” it said.

Réunion’s fast internet was built on fibre connectivity that extended to remote areas. In a report, Denis Fabregue, project director of the island country’s fibre deployment, said, “It is clear that fibre contributes to improving the quality of life of our citizens” and “it allows for the creation of more jobs and businesses.”

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According to Nigeria’s Ministry of Communication, reliable and affordable connectivity is crucial for economic growth, job creation, and social mobility. As of March 2024, the country had 164.37 million internet subscriptions. However, only 39 percent of the Nigerian population resides within 5 km of fibre networks.

Nigeria has a 90,000 km fibre optic cable gap, making its connectivity reliant on base stations covering large transmission areas. To close this gap, the country initiated a $2 billion special-purpose vehicle (SPV) to increase its capacity from 35,000 km to 125,000 km of fibre, noted Bosun Tijani, Minister of Communications.

He said, “This project aims to utilise Nigeria’s nine submarine cables more effectively, as currently, we are not using even 15 percent of their capacity. By laying this extensive fibre network, we aim to enable fibre-to-base-station connections.”

The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) revealed in its Subscriber/Network Data Annual Report 2022 that the country’s total land fibre deployment stood at 49,367.20 km.

“Fiber is essential. The goal is to get broadband to people in any way possible,” emphasised Ayotunde Coker, managing director of Open Access Data Centers (OADC).

Gbenga Adebayo, chairman of the Association of Licensed Telecommunications Operators of Nigeria (ALTON), said state governments must take ownership of Nigeria’s plan to lay 90,000 kilometres of fibre.

“This issue of state governments seeing right of way as internally generated revenue (IGR) should be a thing of the past. We can’t talk about the digital economy on one side, and the government is seeing those who provide the services as sources of revenue,” he said at the Sixth Edition of the Policy Implementation Assisted Forum.