Nigeria To Criminalise Fiber Cable Damage Costing Telecoms Billions

Nigeria will criminalize the destruction of broadband fiber cables following repeated complaints by MTN Nigeria and other telecommunications companies that they are losing billions of naira, Bloomberg News reported, citing people familiar with the matter. From the report: Nigeria's works ministry, which supervises federal road constructors, is finalizing the regulation that will be signed as an executive order by President Bola Tinubu, said the people, asking not to be identified as they weren't authorized to comment. While there are presently laws against vandalism, the authorities are aiming to regulate construction firms more closely. The order will enforce stiff penalties on offenders, said the people, declining to provide more details or say when it will be signed. "Telecom assets are critical backbone that supports the economy across sectors," said Temitope Ajayi, a senior presidential aide, who noted that the Association of Telecommunications Companies has been demanding the classification for years. New rules will provide "further assurance that the Nigerian government will protect their investments against vandals and criminal elements."

Say What?

[NoWayNoShapeNoForm]

I guess Nigeria has run out of wealthy prince people to pay for that damage?

Re:

[awwshit]

I helped the Prince move his funds, got my cut, and now there is nothing left. You all just thought he was scamming!

Re:

[NoWayNoShapeNoForm]

I also helped a Nigerian Prince move his funds. I got my cut ... less 10 percent held by "H" for "The Big Guy"

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[nospam007]

'I guess Nigeria has run out of wealthy prince people to pay for that damage?'

Lots of construction crews do the same, why waste a lot of time, man-hours and money to research possible fibre, phone or gas lines at your construction site when you can just DIG and make your insurance pay for any damage?

WTF - It wasn't already illegal?

[nuckfuts]

What a concept - let's make willful destruction of someone else's property illegal. Cuz evidently is wasn't illegal before now?

Re:

[sarren1901]

This was my exact first thought on the matter as well. Like, wha? How is that not already illegal.

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

What a concept - let's make willful destruction of someone else's property illegal. Cuz evidently is wasn't illegal before now?

While there are existing laws against vandalism, authorities aim to tighten regulations on construction firms to prevent further damage to vital infrastructure. [innovation-village.com]

Re:

[Luckyo]

Strong rule of law isn't common around the world in the first place, so making new laws when police is corrupt/underfunded/doesn't care doesn't help.

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[vivian]

Since this law is specific to fiber cables, will it still be ok to rip up the copper ones?

Strange Focus on "Criminals" and "Vandals"

[Kunedog]

This bit makes me think it's about wanting the power to arrest someone when a backhoe cuts a fiber line . . .

While there are presently laws against vandalism, the authorities are aiming to regulate construction firms more closely.

. . . which sounds like it could be government overreach. For some reason the words "accident" and "negligence" don't appear in summary nor TFA, only "vandalism." This other bit--which should be in the summary--is more enlightening:

Repairs and revenue losses from damaged cables is estimated to have cost the sector almost 27 billion naira ($23 million) last year alone, documents seen by Bloomberg show. MTN Nigeria, the biggest wireless operator in Africa’s most-populous nation, and Airtel Africa Plc bore the brunt of the costs, the documents show.

MTN suffered more than 6,000 cuts on its fiber cable last year, the documents show. On Feb. 28, a cut on its network in three different locations by a road construction firm, an oil serving company and someone burning rubbish in a manhole meant customers faced more than five hours of data and voice outages.

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[ChoGGi]

Odd that the telecoms are the ones paying for it, round here (and probably most places) you call/click before you dig. If you don't then you get the bill.

Though I doubt buddy burning trash in a sewer has much money :)

"Costing telecoms billions"...

[Harvey Manfrenjenson]

...except that if you read the very first sentence of TFA, it specifies that the damage is costing billions of naira. One naira=.00087 dollars. So a billion naira is somewhat less than a million dollars.

Re:

[Seven Spirals]

I doubt they see this as a problem. Those guys probably lobby and there is no shame in their game. I wouldn't be surprised if it were government IT folks doing it. I've seen interviews with Nigerians and the interviewer is like "Do you realize that all people know about your country is that you are a bunch of scamming scumbags?" The answers ranged from "No, didn't know, but don't care" to "Yeah, I know and it's funny how much we can scam from white westerners, fuck them."

Huh

[bn-7bc]

Hold on aren"t damadging other peoples ( or companies) property allredyba crime in nigetia, this sounds odd, this must be some odd edge case whervone rule kills another

Scamming is down?

[Daina.0]

Seems like I don't see as many scams lately. Maybe some good is going on.

Nigerian Prince

[BatteryKing42]

So basically what is being said here are all of the Nigerian princes are up in arms over telecommunications issues costing them a few American dollars worth of business. Kind of funny in a sad way that all of the corruption and crime in the country is making it harder for them to conduct their scams around the world.

Just get a prince to Pay for it

[OppMan29]

they have plenty of wealth to go around.