Telecommunications firms and banks in Nigeria have experienced an internet outage as a result of damage to international underwater cables that supply them with connections.
The damage of important undersea cables near Abidjan in Côte d’Ivoire has caused downtime in West and South African countries.
The West African Cable System (WACS), Africa Coast to Europe (ACE), MainOne, and SAT3 cables are all affected.
As a result of the internet outage, some Nigerian bank networks have gone down and are unable to process transactions. Telecom consumers, particularly those on MTN, have been complaining about poor data experience since Thursday morning.
West African Cable System, along with the South Atlantic 3 were damaged in 2023 at a slightly different location, near the Congo River following an undersea landslide. The loss of the cables knocked out international traffic traveling along the west coast of Africa and took about a month to repair.