Nigeria and Equatorial Guinea have agreed to cooperate on the deployment of a new submarine fibre-optic cable, a project aimed at improving internet connectivity, expanding bandwidth capacity and strengthening digital resilience in Central and West Africa, officials said.
The agreement was signed on Monday in Malabo and disclosed by Nigerian officials, with footage aired by local broadcaster AIT News. Nigeria’s Foreign Minister Yusuf Tuggar said the undersea cable would enhance digital communications and support closer economic integration across the region.
“The cable that is to be constructed is a fibre-optic broadband cable. It brings digital communication through a subsea link, which is very important for the connectivity Africa requires to integrate its markets and reap the benefits,” Tuggar said at the signing ceremony.
Equatorial Guinea, a small oil-producing nation on Africa’s Atlantic coast, currently depends heavily on limited international connectivity routes. Its primary link to global internet traffic is the Africa to Europe (ACE) submarine cable, a reliance that exposes the country to service disruptions in the event of outages or technical failures.
Although Equatorial Guinea operates several regional and domestic connections – including the Ceiba-1 cable linking Malabo to Bata, Ceiba-2 connecting Malabo to Kribi in Cameroon, and Ultramar GE linking the country to São Tomé and Príncipe – its international bandwidth capacity remains constrained.
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The planned submarine link with Nigeria is expected to diversify connectivity routes, improve redundancy and reduce the risks associated with dependence on a single international cable. However, authorities have not yet disclosed technical specifications, landing points, or a timeline for the project’s deployment.
Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country, is already one of the continent’s best-connected nations in terms of submarine infrastructure. It hosts landing points for seven major international undersea cables, including WACS, SAT-3/WASC, MainOne, Glo-1, Equiano, 2Africa and ACE. It also operates a submarine link with Cameroon between Kribi and Lagos.
By linking directly to Nigeria’s dense submarine cable ecosystem, Equatorial Guinea could gain access to significantly higher international bandwidth and more competitive wholesale capacity, analysts say.
The agreement comes as governments across Africa accelerate digital transformation to support economic diversification, public-sector reform and private-sector growth. Rising demand for high-speed connectivity is being driven by increased use of digital public services, cloud computing, artificial intelligence and the Internet of Things.
Cybersecurity cooperation was also cited as a motivation for the project. Tuggar said improved digital infrastructure would support safer and more resilient communications networks, an increasingly important issue as African economies digitise critical services.
Studies by international institutions underline the economic impact of expanded submarine cable capacity. A report published in June 2025 by the Foundation for Studies and Research on International Development (FERDI) found that doubling international submarine cable capacity can lead to an immediate 32% drop in fixed broadband prices and up to 50% for mobile broadband.
The World Bank reached similar conclusions in a July 2024 study, estimating that each doubling of submarine cable capacity in Africa typically reduces fixed broadband prices by around 7 percent and mobile broadband prices by 13 percent.
Beyond cost reductions, submarine cables play a crucial role in strengthening network resilience. Cable faults, accidental damage and outages are common, and countries with limited redundancy can suffer prolonged internet disruptions affecting businesses, financial services and government operations.
Greater resilience could support wider adoption of digital services in Equatorial Guinea, where internet usage has grown rapidly in recent years. According to DataReportal, the country recorded around 1.18 million internet subscriptions at the end of 2025, equivalent to a penetration rate of 60.4 percent.
However, experts caution that the benefits of a new submarine cable will depend not only on international capacity but also on domestic infrastructure. To fully capitalise on the link, Equatorial Guinea will need to ensure sufficient terrestrial fibre-optic networks to carry capacity inland from cable landing points to businesses and households.
If implemented successfully, the Nigeria-Equatorial Guinea submarine cable could mark a significant step toward improved digital integration in the Gulf of Guinea, reducing connectivity bottlenecks and supporting broader economic and technological development across the region.
