MTN Nigeria, one of Nigeria's largest mobile network operators, has announced the full restoration of its services after a network outage lasting more than eight hours prevented customers from making calls and accessing the internet on both mobile and FibreX, the company's fibre broadband offering, according to a report by TechNext24.

In a statement issued on Friday morning through its network support channel on X, MTN Nigeria said all services were back online and that full restoration was complete. The operator also apologised for the prolonged downtime, which caused millions of Nigerians to lose time and resources.

"We're Back Online! We sincerely apologise for the challenges where some customers experienced difficulty using our services. The issue has been resolved, and services are fully restored," the company said in the X post.

MTN added that customers still having trouble connecting to the internet via mobile or FibreX should restart their devices to restore full network and internet connectivity.

The announcement followed confirmation by MTN Nigeria on Thursday night that a network outage was affecting the availability of voice and internet services across parts of several key states, including Lagos, the country's commercial hub, Oyo, Rivers, Delta, and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), as TechNext24 reported. The operator noted at the time that customers in affected areas might experience temporary service disruptions.

Prior to the operator's update, subscribers across the affected states had already begun reporting difficulties making voice calls, sending text messages, and accessing the internet through mobile data and FibreX.

The scale of the disruption highlighted how essential connectivity has become beyond messaging and social media. For MTN customers who are business owners, e-hailing drivers, online vendors, and remote workers whose operations and deliveries depend on internet access, the outage amounted to more than an inconvenience. It meant lost time and earnings and limited customer protection.

Nigerians React, Demand Compensation

Amid the prolonged outage, MTN Nigeria customers in affected regions took to social media, particularly X, to voice their dissatisfaction and describe how the downtime disrupted their activities and deliveries.

Adding to the irony, the longest MTN Nigeria network outage came during Customer Service Week, an occasion celebrated during the first full week of October to recognise the important role that customer support plays in the everyday life of a business.

Demands for significant airtime and data compensation have carried weight because timed services kept running during the blackout. Active hourly or daily internet data bundles, social media packages, and other timed subscriptions continued to count down and, in some cases, expired while services remained unavailable. For subscribers whose bundles were close to expiry, the downtime effectively eroded data they had already paid for.

An X user, Emmauelbasy, described how the outage affected people handling international project deliveries.

"A lot of people who have international gigs, especially in the US time zone, might lose their jobs with this outage. This is not good at all."

Another user, Yua, voiced frustration at being unable to get internet service on his multiple SIM cards and his FibreX router.

"MTN don use my eye see shege today. On both phones, I've been unable to connect to the Internet since 1:00 p.m. or thereabouts. The network bar keeps going empty. In fact, currently, I'm connected to my friend's hotspot. This means I'll be offline again anytime soon. My router is also misbehaving. This is so annoying!"

Former presidential aide Bashir Ahmed joined the reactions on X, writing, "MTN, fix your network."

Another X user, ProjectDev, advised remote workers to always keep a backup or independent network to fall back on when mobile operators experience technical challenges.

"As a remote worker specifically in tech with your independent business, make sure you have a plethora of ISPs to work with. One network going down shouldn't mean your work goes down too."

In its service restoration announcement, MTN did not mention any compensation measure for customers affected by the network disruption, raising questions about customer justice and ethical standards. In related guidance, the operator has previously clarified that airtime compensation applies to poor network quality rather than data depletion, as TechNext24 noted. For affected subscribers, whether the demands translate into any follow-up measure from the operator is the next development to watch.