Nigeria’s 140m Connectivity Paradox – Covered by Mobile Networks, Still Offline

Highlights

·       About 140 million Nigerians were in the mobile internet usage gap in 2025.

·       66% of urban adults used mobile internet, compared with 33% in rural areas.

·       86% of rural Nigerians were aware of mobile internet, but only 51% owned internet-enabled phones.

·       Affordability remains a major barrier to mobile internet adoption.

·       Digital skills are a leading barrier among rural non-users.

·       About 63% of rural Nigerians remain unconnected, compared with 40% in urban areas, according to World Bank data.

·       Project BRIDGE targets a 90,000km national fibre network covering all 36 states and the FCT.

·       Nigeria’s challenge is shifting from network coverage alone to meaningful connectivity and usage.

The 140 Million Question

Nigeria’s connectivity challenge is no longer simply a question of whether a mobile network reaches a community.

The latest GSMA data points to a more complicated problem. An estimated 140 million Nigerians were in the mobile internet usage gap in 2025, placing Nigeria among the countries with the largest populations living within mobile broadband coverage but not actually using mobile internet.

That distinction is important.

The GSMA separates people who are outside mobile broadband coverage from those who are covered but not connected.

Globally, 3.4 billion people did not use mobile internet in 2025, but more than 90% of them lived in areas where mobile broadband was already available.

The global coverage gap stood at just 3% of the population, compared with a 38% usage gap.

For Nigeria, this changes the policy conversation.

The country still has significant infrastructure deficits, particularly in rural and underserved communities. But the GSMA evidence suggests that building more networks alone will not bring the majority of the unconnected online.

Awareness is not the problem

Perhaps the most revealing finding from the GSMA Consumer Survey is the gap between awareness and actual access to an internet-enabled device.

Among rural Nigerians surveyed, 86% were aware that the internet could be accessed through a mobile phone. Yet only 51% owned an internet-enabled handset. Among urban respondents, awareness was 97%, while internet-enabled handset ownership was 79%.

The implication is significant.

A large proportion of people who could potentially use mobile internet already know it exists. The obstacle is increasingly whether they can afford the device, have the skills to use it confidently and find sufficient value in going online.

This is particularly important for rural connectivity strategies, where infrastructure deployment can sometimes be treated as the end point of connectivity policy.

For many Nigerians, it is only the beginning. Awareness is not the problem

Perhaps the most revealing finding from the GSMA Consumer Survey is the gap between awareness and actual access to an internet-enabled device.

Among rural Nigerians surveyed, 86% were aware that the internet could be accessed through a mobile phone. Yet only 51% owned an internet-enabled handset. Among urban respondents, awareness was 97%, while internet-enabled handset ownership was 79%.

The rural divide is deeper than a signal bar

The GSMA data shows that the gap widens dramatically as users move through what it describes as the mobile internet user journey.

Among rural adults in Nigeria, mobile ownership was high, but the transition from basic mobile ownership to an internet-enabled handset was considerably weaker. Mobile internet adoption fell further to 33%, daily use to 24%, and diverse daily use – defined as engaging in at least three mobile internet activities each day – to just 13%.

This creates a layered form of exclusion.

Someone may live in a community with mobile coverage, own a phone and know that mobile internet exists, yet still remain effectively excluded from the digital economy because the phone is not internet-enabled, data is too expensive, digital skills are limited or the quality of the connection is inadequate.

The World Bank’s evidence reinforces this geographic divide. Its analysis found that around 63% of Nigerians living in rural areas were unconnected, compared with 40% of urban residents. It also found substantial differences in household internet access, with internet access at home much higher in urban areas than in rural communities.

The affordability problem

The device question is becoming even more important as smartphones become the principal gateway to the digital economy.

The GSMA’s 2026 report warns that rising memory costs could push up the price of entry-level internet-enabled handsets. Across low- and middle-income countries, the cost of an entry-level internet-enabled handset already represented 44% of average monthly income for the poorest 20% at the end of 2025.

Nigeria’s own survey results point in the same direction.

For urban Nigerians who were aware of mobile internet but did not use it, affordability was the leading reported barrier. Among rural respondents, literacy and digital skills ranked first, followed by affordability.

This means that closing Nigeria’s digital divide requires more than cheaper data.

It requires an ecosystem in which people can obtain affordable smartphones, understand how to use them, afford recurring data costs and access services that are relevant to their livelihoods.

Infrastructure still matters

None of this makes network infrastructure less important.

Nigeria continues to have substantial coverage and infrastructure gaps, particularly outside major population centres. GSMA research published in 2025 estimated Nigeria’s mobile broadband coverage gap at 11% nationally and as high as 36% in rural areas at the time of that analysis. It also identified Nigeria and the Democratic Republic of Congo as accounting for almost half of the coverage gap in Sub-Saharan Africa.

The challenge, therefore, is two-sided.

Nigeria needs to connect communities that remain outside reliable broadband coverage while also bringing millions of people who are already covered into meaningful internet use.

That is where the country’s next phase of digital infrastructure investment becomes critical.

Project BRIDGE is designed to deploy at least 90,000 kilometres of fibre optic infrastructure across Nigeria, covering all 36 states and the FCT and connecting more than 770 local governments.

The Federal Government has also secured major development financing for the programme, including $500 million from the World Bank and $100 million from the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.

But the GSMA findings suggest that the success of such investments should ultimately be measured not only by kilometres of fibre laid, towers deployed or communities covered.

The more consequential question is how many previously excluded Nigerians actually begin using the internet, and whether they use it meaningfully.

From connectivity to meaningful connectivity

The distinction between coverage and usage is becoming central to Nigeria’s digital inclusion challenge.

A fibre cable can pass a community. A base station can provide a signal. Yet a farmer without an affordable smartphone, a student without sufficient data, a trader without digital skills or a household facing unreliable service can remain effectively offline.

Nigeria’s next 140 million connectivity challenge is not simply about bringing the network closer. It is about bringing the people closer to the opportunities that the network makes possible.

That requires infrastructure investment alongside affordable devices, accessible data, digital skills, relevant local content, reliable service and business models capable of reaching communities that have traditionally been commercially difficult to serve.

The country has moved considerably from the question of where is the network?

The next question is much harder.

Why are millions of Nigerians still not using it – and what will it take to change that?

That is the next frontier of Nigeria’s digital inclusion conversation.

Sources & Methodology

This insight draws on data from GSMA Intelligence, the World Bank and the Federal Ministry of Communications, Innovation & Digital Economy, including the GSMA Consumer Survey, World Bank connectivity analysis and Project BRIDGE documentation.

RuralConnect combines evidence on network coverage, mobile internet usage, device ownership, affordability and digital skills to examine Nigeria’s connectivity gap. Figures are presented according to the definitions and populations used by the original sources.

Sources: GSMA Intelligence · World Bank · Federal Ministry of Communications, Innovation & Digital Economy