Nigeria requires at least 50000 base stations nationwide in order to guarantee efficient telephone services, a senior official has said.

Issam Darwish, the chief executive officer for telecommunications infrastructure provider IHS, said the more than 50000 base stations were the only solution to guarantee efficiency of mobile telephone services in the Nigeria.

Darwish said more than $12.5 billion was required to build more base stations across the country.

Darwish's utterances follows the severe penalty imposed against Nigeria's four leading mobile networks slapped with a whopping US$3.7 million for poor service network in Africa's most populous nation.

Nigeria’s telecoms regulator two weeks ago fined the country’s four main mobile operators, including MTN and Bharti Airtel, a total of N1.17 billion ($7.38 million) for poor-quality service.

MTN and Etisalat were fined N360 million ($2.6 million) each, Bharti Airtel was ordered to pay N 270 million ($1 .7 million) and Globacom, a privately owned network of Nigerian billionaire tycoon Mike Adenuga, got a N180-million ($1.1 million) bill. ($1 = 158.5500 naira)

The telecoms industry is hugely profitable in Nigeria, Africa’s second-biggest economy and home to some 160 million people, but users complain that the service is poor, with frequent dropped calls and network interruptions.