Look at the Line Count. Then Look at Owo.

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By Dr. Jaafaru Sa’ad
Chairman, Galadiman Ruwa Center for Strategic Leadership and Communication (GCSLC)

Nigeria is not short of telephone lines. It is short of a door the majority can use.

June 2025: 171.7 million active lines. Teledensity 79.22 percent.
May 2026: 189.6 million lines. Teledensity 87.50 percent.
June 2026: 192.2 million lines. Teledensity 88.67 percent.

That is the Nigerian Communications Commission’s own count. It is growth. It is not inclusion.

A line is not a person. One Nigerian can hold two SIMs. We should not turn a subscription table into a census.

Now look at the May 2026 split of those 189.6 million lines:

4G — 102.9 million — 54.3 percent.
2G — 68.4 million — 36.1 percent.
3G — 9.66 million — 5.1 percent.
5G — 8.47 million — 4.5 percent.

One third of the lines still live on 2G. That is not a leftover. That is the keypad radio.

Operators spent about ₦2.13 trillion in 2025. They plan about ₦1.86 trillion in 2026. Towers move toward 4G and 5G. That money buys faster air. It does not buy a handset for the woman in Owo. It does not buy one for Mr. Dikibo in Otoke. It does not buy one in Eleme, or in the creeks of Bayelsa, where the network itself is thin.

A basic smartphone can cost 65 percent of a low-income year’s wage. That is a lock.

She already sells. She already buys. She already sends a child with a message. She does not have email. She does not live in an application store. She may not know what Apple or Google is. She knows a Tecno. She knows a missed call. She knows a text in the language she lives.

If the only formal door is a download, Abuja has it twice. The creek has it zero times. When data dies, her living does not. A bank notice in English only is not a notice she can use.

This is not an argument against 4G. 4G is real. It sits where smartphones and extra SIMs sit.

The last twenty years of design begin in a shop. That is fine for a city hand. It is blind to the informal economy — in Nigeria, in Africa, and across the Global South. Trade on 2G is already happening. Policy did not invent it. Policy has not yet met it.

So the question is simple.

How does a licensed bank, and the national clearing, reach Owo — or Otoke — without first asking that hand to start a new life in a store?

If the answer is “let them download,” inclusion has a hole the size of a keypad.

68.4 million lines on 2G.
65 percent of a poor year’s wage for a smartphone.
Trillions on towers.
A creek with a voice call and no shop.

Look at the figures. Then look at her.

If the door we approve cannot meet that hand, we are not building inclusion. We are building a faster internet for people who already have one.

Dr. Jaafaru Sa’ad
Chairman, GCSLC
Abuja