Nigeria’s government plans to help boost the number of mobile towers in the country, says communications and technology minister Omobola Johnson.

Addressing the Commonwealth Telecommunications Organisation (CTO) Forum in Abuja, Johnson has said that Nigeria needs more base stations if the West African nation ever hopes to quickly roll out broadband to all Nigerians.

Johnson’s comments have come after the country’s four major mobile operators - MTN, Glo Mobile, Etisalat and Bharti Airtel - have faced stringent fines from Nigeria’s communications regulator in the past over a lack of coverage.

Nigeria’s mobile market has boomed in the last twenty years to become the biggest in Africa with over 100 million connections.

But this fast-paced growth has further put a strain on networks, resulting in complaints among subscribers of dropped calls and poor reception.

Nevertheless, Johnson has said the country needs to push ahead with base station expansion plans.

“There were only 16 base stations in the country as at 2001 and it was increased to 21 000 in 2010. More base stations would be built in the country to help achieve full implementation of the National Broadband Plan before 2018,” said Johnson.

“Mobile broadband is the most expeditious way of deploying broadband services to most users," Johnson added.

Meanwhile, the minister added that government has been collaborating with network providers and state governments in the country to ensure sharing of ICTs infrastructure, especially fibre optic cables.