The service disruption caused by Thursday’s cuts to the undersea cable supplying broadband Internet connectivity to Nigeria and countries in the West African sub-region, on Friday, forced many banks and other financial institutions, as well as telecom companies and allied firms to scale down their operations.
Customers of the financial institutions and telcos were also left frustrated as they could not carry out major transactions.
Newsmen gathered that telecom engineers had been dispatched to the points of the cuts between Senegal and Cote D’Ivoire to quickly fix the fibre optic cables coming from Europe and restore services.
On Thursday morning, Internet outage was first reported in Ghana with the National Communications Authority issuing a statement that indicated that the outage was caused by “multiple undersea cable disruptions and affected mobile and fixed data services nationwide.
“The disruptions affecting multiple undersea cables responsible for carrying international traffic have occurred in Senegal and Cote D’Ivoire and with some disruptions in Portugal. This has led to a significant degradation of data services across the country.”
By afternoon, the undersea cable cuts had affected telecom services in other African countries, including Nigeria, slowing banking and other services run on Internet connectivity.
The Nigerian Communications Commission in a statement by the Director, Public Affairs, Reuben Muoka, confirmed that the undersea cable cuts disrupted data and voice services along the African West Coast.
A banker at Guaranty Trust Bank, who also spoke on condition of anonymity as he is not the official spokesperson, said that the fluctuations affected the bank at intervals.
“A lot of transactions are affected by this disruption,” he lamented.
At a Keystone Bank branch in Garki area of Abuja, customers were urged to hurry up with their transactions as security personnel warned of potential network disruptions.
However, a Keystone Bank official admitted that the problem stemmed from internal bank systems rather than external network providers.
Despite assurances of the bank mobile app’s functionality, some customers encountered obstacles while conducting transactions on it.
In contrast, a banker at Access Bank reassured customers of the resilience of the network infrastructure, explaining that every bank had its service provider and highlighted the importance of having backup systems in place to swiftly address any issues and ensure uninterrupted services.
“Every bank has its service provider. My bank’s network is doing fine. We always have a backup network provider. Once one has an issue, we switch to the next one. So far, we have not suffered any network issues,” the banker noted.
At the UBA in Ibafo, Ogun State, one of our correspondents observed that many customers were stranded at the Automated Teller Machine gallery as only one of the seven points dispensed and soon ran out of cash. Frustrated customers waiting to be allowed into the banking hall spilled over from the canopy provided and complained of the scorching sun.
At an Ecobank branch in the Abule Egba area of Lagos, one of our correspondents, who managed to get into the banking hall, was able to withdraw N10,000 over the counter instead of the N150,000 he requested.
Punch/ Mary Ogboye
