Tinubu Orders Two New Satellites to Blast Nigeria’s Digital Economy Into Space

Nigeria is officially heading back to the stars. In a major move to fix the country’s patchy internet and jumpstart a $1 trillion economy, President Bola Tinubu has given the “all systems go” for the purchase of two state-of-the-art communication satellites.

The news was dropped like a tech bombshell by the Minister of Communications, Innovation and Digital Economy, Dr. Bosun Tijani, during a press conference in Abuja. According to the Minister, the President’s approval isn’t just about owning fancy equipment in space; it’s a strategic survival move.

“Nigeria today is the only country in West Africa with non-operational communication satellites,” Tijani revealed, highlighting a massive gap in the region’s tech landscape. While neighbors have been leaning on satellite tech to power their systems, Nigeria has been playing catch-up until now.

These “next-generation” eyes in the sky are designed to do what ground cables can’t: reach every nook and cranny of the country. For the roughly 23 million Nigerians living in remote villages where a 4G signal is a rare luxury, these satellites promise to bring high-speed “Direct-to-Device” connectivity. This means your smartphone could soon link directly to a satellite for calls and data, bypassing the need for expensive cell towers in the middle of nowhere.

But the government isn’t just looking at the sky. Tijani also shared a “boots on the ground” update: the ambitious 90,000km fibre optic project basically a massive internet superhighway being buried across the country is already more than half-finished.

“The funding is secure, and the work is 60% done,” the Minister stated, painting a picture of a Nigeria that is finally getting its digital house in order. By combining the power of space-based satellites with the speed of underground fibre, the administration is betting that a “hyper-connected” Nigeria will be the secret sauce to doubling the nation’s economic output.

As the 2026 National Privacy Week kicks off, the message from the Villa is clear: Nigeria is tired of being the “offline” giant of Africa. With these two new satellites on the horizon, the goal is to ensure that from the busiest streets of Lagos to the furthest farms in Borno, “No Signal” becomes a thing of the past.