More Nigerians Are Online Than Ever Before. But the Internet Has Never Cost This Much.
Nigeria's internet is growing fast, but the people driving that growth are paying twice as much as they were a year ago. Behind the record-breaking statistics is a story about access, affordability, and broken promises.
On paper, Nigeria's internet story looks like a success. More subscribers, more data consumed, more devices connected. But reading past the headline numbers, a different, more complicated picture emerges, one where ordinary Nigerians are paying significantly more for a service that still falls short of what was promised.
The Record Numbers
By December 2025, Nigeria's internet subscriber base had reached 148.2 million people, a penetration rate of 68.3 per cent of the population. Data consumption for the year hit 13.25 million terabytes, up 35 per cent from the previous year. Broadband, meaning faster, more reliable internet connections, crossed the 50 per cent mark for the first time, reaching 51.97 per cent penetration. The ICT sector contributed a remarkable ₦7.47 trillion to Nigeria's GDP in the third quarter of 2025 alone.
Those are genuinely impressive figures for a country navigating currency pressures and economic turbulence at the same time.
The Numbers That Hurt
Here is where the story turns. The price of one gigabyte of mobile data doubled over the course of 2025, jumping from ₦287 to ₦575. Nigerians collectively spent approximately ₦20.87 billion on data every single day last year, adding up to over ₦7.62 trillion for the full year. People are consuming more internet than ever, but they are digging deeper into their pockets to do it.
Network quality added to the frustration. Slow speeds, dropped calls, and thousands of fibre cable cuts, caused by construction work and deliberate vandalism, left users paying premium prices for service that frequently underperformed.
The Technology Gap
4G is now the dominant network, covering 52.95 per cent of connections, a sharp rise from just 25 per cent two years ago. But 2G, a network technology most of the world retired years ago, still accounts for 37.37 per cent of connections, mostly in rural communities. 5G, meanwhile, remains a luxury available to a small slice of urban users, held back by high device costs and limited infrastructure outside major cities.
The Target Nigeria Missed
Nigeria's National Broadband Plan set a target of 70 per cent broadband penetration by the end of 2025. The country hit 51.97 per cent. That gap, nearly 20 percentage points, represents millions of Nigerians who remain on the wrong side of the digital divide, unable to fully participate in an economy that is moving rapidly online.
The internet is growing. The question is whether it is growing fast enough and affordably enough for the people who need it most.
