Why cheaper fibre fees fail to spark Nigerian infrastructure investment

Nigeria’s states take widely different approaches to the cost of laying fibre-optic cables. Some have waived Right of Way (RoW) fees; others charge the ₦145-per-metre benchmark, while Ogun State charges up to ₦6,600 ($4.84) per metre. Yet these differences do not neatly explain where fibre infrastructure has been built, raising questions about what else drives investment.

Administrative reforms and project-specific concessions may help offset high fees, but there is little evidence that they do so systematically. The Lagos State Infrastructure…