Bu Prince Osuagwu, Hi-Tech Editor

Despite opening up the telecom market in 2001 for more players to play in, Chief Executive officer of Nigeria’s pioneer national operator, ntel Soji Maurice-Diya, says the Nigerian government has more to do in terms of injecting level playing field for players and sustaining investor confidence.

Maurice Diya was leterally making the case ahead of its preparations to bounce back the telecoms market, in Q1, 2026, majorly as a Mobile Virtual Network Operator, MNVO.

Recall that nTel, formerly, NITEL was Nigeria’s national carrier until 2001 when the sector liberalisation introduced competition which swallowed it.

However, from the hint the CEO dropped at the just concluded Technology Times Thought Leadership Series in Lagos, it appears the telco has secured strategic interventions, major funding and now, ready to re-enter the market again to try its luck.

The intervention, according to nTel, include, new funding, which centres on a lean, asset-light model designed to navigate Nigeria’s competitive telecom landscape.

Maurice-Diya, described ntel’s Q1 2026 comeback as a “light, digital-first MVNO play”, focused on innovation, niche products, and youth-driven engagement.

For him, the new nTel model will not centre much on mass subscriber philosophy but to “find a very small subset of subscribers and serve them extremely well.”

It was apparently in defence of this model he called for a fair and liberalised telecoms market to sustain investor confidence and innovation, because according to him, “the Nigerian market is big enough to sustain a multiplicity of players.”

He argued that the next transformation phase for the sector will depend on digital platform innovation beyond voice and connectivity, even though operators like MTN, Globacom, Airtel and T2 Mobile have given the sector character and a critical pillar of national economic growth.

He however, applauded the federal government, represented by the Nigeriand Communications Commission, NCC and the Ministry of Communications, Innovation and Digital Economy for recent tariff relief measures that expanded economic capacity for telcos, but also called for a greater collaboration between the telcos and financial sector operators to unlock the next wave of growth.

Maurice-Diya emphasised the need for flexible regulation that encourages innovation rather than constraining it, stating that “government should allow innovation first and regulate on the background

The nTel boss cited ongoing federal interventions—the deployment of 7,000 rural towers and 90,000km of national fibre infrastructure—as crucial to deepening digital inclusion.

He urged further exploration of dynamic pricing models, green energy adoption, and sustainability incentives to reduce service costs and expand rural access.

Speaking on local content, indigenous capacity, and investment climate, he drew a distinction between indigenous ownership and local content, calling for policies that build technological self-reliance in manufacturing, infrastructure, and skills.

Maurice-Diya referenced programmes like the 3MTT initiative as vital to building Nigeria’s next-generation digital workforce.

Speaking on the regulator and innovation, the nTel CEO said, government should continue to allow for innovation first, and then regulate on the back-end because it can’t regulate everything.

“I think when you over-regulate, you stifle innovation. So, I think you start by allowing innovation to happen and as long as you keep your pulse on what’s going on, I think you’ll find that there are actually opportunities. And we’ve seen that in areas of cryptocurrency, not just in Nigeria but globally. You know a lot of people were very sceptical, but they allowed innovation to happen and they stepped in at the right time and then curtailed some of the excesses as time goes by.

“So I think you know to the extent that the government can play a monitoring role rather than kind of prescribing or proscribing every single form of innovation. I think that’s one thing that can help,” he stated.