What is Behind Nigeria’s Internet Outage

Nigeria, along with several other West and South African countries, has been grappling with a significant internet outage that has disrupted daily activities and business operations. 

The root cause of this internet disruption and its impact on the telecommunications and banking sectors in Nigeria is worthy of mention across Nigeria and other affected African Nations.

The underlying cause of the internet outage

The internet outage in Nigeria is attributed to damage to international undersea cables that provide connectivity to the country. Specifically, the damage occurred near Abidjan in Côte d’Ivoire and has affected major undersea cables including the West Africa Cable System (WACS), the Africa Coast to Europe (ACE), MainOne, and SAT3 cables. 

These cables are crucial for internet connectivity across West and South Africa, and their impairment has led to widespread internet downtime.

Impact on telecommunications and banking

The repercussions of the internet outage have been felt across various sectors in Nigeria. Telecommunications companies, especially MTN, have reported poor data experiences among their subscribers. MTN has acknowledged the issue, stating that the damage to the undersea cables is causing challenges with internet speed and accessing data services. They have assured their customers that the repair process is underway and updates will be provided.

In the banking sector, the internet outage has resulted in network downtimes, rendering some banks unable to process transactions. For instance, Sterling Bank’s network was shut down, preventing customers from carrying out any transactions. This has caused inconvenience for both the banks and their customers, with many being turned away from banking halls due to network issues.

The Situation in South Africa and other African Countries

The internet outage has not only affected Nigeria but has also had a significant impact on several other African countries. Outages have been reported in South Africa, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Ghana, and Burkina Faso. The cause of these cable failures is not immediately clear, but there seems to be a pattern in the timing of the disruptions, impacting from the north to the south of Africa, as observed by Cloudflare Radar.

In the Ivory Coast, internet connectivity plummeted to around just 4% on Thursday morning, according to Netblocks, which tracks cybersecurity and internet connectivity. Similarly, Liberia experienced a drop to 17%, Benin to 14%, and Ghana to 25%. Vodacom in South Africa reported that customers are currently experiencing intermittent connectivity issues due to multiple undersea cable failures.

The Liberian government noted that internet disruption had been reported from Thursday morning, leaving citizens unable to access basic internet services as well as social media across the vast majority of the country. International bank transfers and limited international voice calls have also been affected. 

The Liberia Telecommunications Authority attributed the disruption to an incident involving the Africa Coast to Europe (ACE) submarine communications cable in Ivory Coast.

In Ghana, the National Communications Authority (NCA) reported that multiple undersea cable disruptions were responsible for the outage.