The Nigerian telecommunication sector in the face of COVID-19

The first confirmed case in Nigeria was announced by the Federal Ministry of Health that affirmed the first Covid sickness (COVID-19) case in Lagos State, Nigeria. The case which was affirmed on the 27th of February 2020 is the principal case to be accounted for in Nigeria since the start of the episode in China in January 2020. 

The case was an Italian who works in Nigeria and got back from Milan, Italy to Lagos, Nigeria on the 25th of February 2020. He was affirmed by the Virology Laboratory of the Lagos University Teaching Hospital, some portion of
the Laboratory Neåtwork of the Nigeria Center for Disease Control. The patient was clinically steady, with no genuine indications, and was being overseen at the Infectious Disease Hospital in Yaba, Lagos (ReliefWeb, 2020). On 9 March 2020, a second case of the virus was reported in Ewekoro Ogun State, a Nigerian citizen who came into contact with the Italian national (P.M News,2020).

With more than 3 million cases of the Coronavirus infection (which the count of the active cases globally as of January 21, 2022, is 63,200,737 which shows that the covid-19 is still very active (WorldOMeter,2022)), what’s more, amazing loss figures all around the world, the pandemic has for sure arrived at appalling extents, leaving trails of monetary hardships, even in the most developed nations.

The pandemic has for sure impacted each area of the Nigerian economy including the telecommunication communications, media furthermore Technology (TM) sector. Media communication (Telecoms) administrations across the world have seen a huge expansion in popularity since the coming of the covid-19 pandemic. Especially, the ascent
popular for information and voice-related administrations spiked at the time of the lockdowns.

Users of the services needed to rely upon it since they had to work from home, keep up with social ties, keep up with entertainments, education among others. Organizations also had to depend on the administrations to support remote working conventions and skeletal tasks. The increase in demand promoted expanded income for the service providers and its chaperon needed to increase imperative framework, to support quality and dependability of administrations.

Furthermore, there was a need to consider deferring new speculations like the 5G network, for staying aware to meet the demand at the time.

Regardless of the covid-19 pandemic, the Nigerian telecoms industry was actually able to record positive growth like its partner in the developed economies. This is by virtue of the lockdown that was forced on the significant urban communities of Nigeria (Lagos, Abuja and Ogun state) (ALJAZEERA,2020) and the requirement for some associations to embrace the work from home conversions. Schools also had to move to online stages. To help the consumers have a good stay at home time, The Nigerian Communication Commission (NCC) insinuated the expansion in the volume of voice and information traffic throughout the period, which required the establishment of more fibre-optic cables in the country to increases the network capacity.

The COVID-19 lockdown exhaustion acquired requests for versatile broadband as a large portion of individuals are compelled to remain at home. Numerous telecoms had to facilitate their 3G/4G/ 5G organization speed to work with clients with appropriate Internet associations with stay associated with their friends and family or can work from a distance with no disturbance while having conferences with partners, customers and different partners of the organization.

Also, one of Nigeria’s enormous telecoms network providers, MTN Nigeria, released its unaudited monetary outcome for the principal quarter of 2020, showing expanded information income by 32.4%, Fintech income by 22.9%, voice income by 12.7% and administration income by 13.4%. This infers a normal development in the income of around 20.3% (Businessday,2019).

Telecoms are constantly adjusting to the progressions caused because of COVID-19 emergency. Being the sole wholesaler of Internet foundations to other industry verticals, telecom administrators have made a few alterations in their activities and contributions to serve their clients in a superior manner. However, the Covid pandemic got a few difficulties, drives taken by the telecoms is definitely going to hold their business organizations and clients as long as possible. That should prompt an expansion in telco incomes during the COVID-19 pandemic and from there on when life gets back to business as usual.

Muslimat Abdussallam Olamoyegun is a Masters student of Mass Communication at the Universiti Tecknologi Mara (UiTM), Malaysia.

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