NCC says 75 million subscribers got airtime compensation in 2026
- The NCC says 75 million telecom subscribers have received airtime compensation for poor service this year.
- Nearly three million others got refunds for failed airtime and data purchases, the regulator said in Lagos.
- The NCC also announced a coming guideline on data usage notifications and urged consumers to check devices before buying.
The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) says 75 million telecom subscribers have received airtime compensation for poor service so far in 2026, while close to three million others have been refunded for failed airtime and data purchases.
The commission's Executive Vice Chairman, Dr Aminu Maida, gave the figures on Tuesday in Lagos at the 95th Telecom Consumer Parliament, a forum that brings the regulator, operators and consumer groups together.
For ordinary Nigerians, the numbers point to how often calls drop, data fails to load or a bundle is debited without service. Maida said compensation matters, but preventing the failure in the first place matters more.
"Compensation matters, but it cannot recover a lost business opportunity or an important conversation that could not take place," he said.
What the NCC says it is doing
Maida said the commission had carried out more than 6,500 network interventions in 2026, including technology upgrades and extra capacity in areas with heavy demand, to improve call reliability and internet connectivity.
He said operators must tell customers clearly what went wrong during major outages and when service will return. He blamed some disruptions on vandalism of telecom infrastructure and fibre-optic cables damaged during road construction, and asked communities to report suspected vandals.
On billing, Maida said tariff simplification is meant to help subscribers see the price, data allowance and validity of a bundle before buying. A usage notification guideline is coming, he said, to give clearer daily data figures and remaining balances so subscribers can query discrepancies.
For failed transactions, he said the NCC worked with the Central Bank of Nigeria, operators and payment providers on a framework to trace debits and speed up refunds, so customers are not passed between banks and networks.
He also highlighted the Telecommunications Identity Risk Management System (TIRMS), aimed at risks from recycled phone numbers and numbers linked to fraud, and said the commission wants to extend it to other sectors that use phone numbers as identifiers.
The NCC urged Nigerians to confirm a phone is genuine before paying, by dialling *315# or calling 315. Subscribers with unresolved complaints should first get a reference number from their operator, then escalate to the NCC on its toll-free line, 622.
Consumer advocates want proof
The Executive Commissioner for Stakeholder Management at the NCC, Rimini Makama, said the forum should produce practical commitments consumers can notice in daily use.
In a lead paper, Prof Chiso Ndukwe-Okafor of the Consumer Advocacy and Empowerment Foundation (CADEF) said subscription growth alone does not show service quality. Citing NCC data for August 2026, she put active telephony subscriptions at 197.4 million and internet subscriptions at 158.5 million.
She called for a public register tracking promises made at the forum, plain-language tariff information, better tracking of failed transactions across banks and networks, and easier complaint channels for older persons and people with disabilities. She also proposed that the NCC publish a consumer-experience scorecard within six months.
What happens next: The NCC says the usage notification guideline is on the way, and consumer groups will be watching whether the commitments made in Lagos turn into fewer dropped calls and faster refunds.
