What Unstable Internet Does to Nigeria’s Remote Workers

On her screen, Zoom was loading. In her eyes, tears were swelling. Sophia Muoneke was in turmoil. She had been following up on a job with a Hong Kong company for a while. When she eventually secured an interview, she went all out: studied possible questions, paid for internet, charged her laptop, tested the internet and sound, and even practised on Zoom. But just minutes before the scheduled time, the internet connection stopped.

It was now 8 p.m. local time, an hour after the interview should have begun. Sophia was sweating. She had endured many bad experiences with internet connectivity as a virtual assistant working from Imo State, South East Nigeria, but this one, she told HumAngle, hit a soft spot. 

By the time the interview finally began around 8:30 p.m., she had forgotten “everything” she had prepared.

“How can I win when Nigeria is against me?” she later posted on X, the social media platform.

Her experience mirrors that of several Nigerian remote workers juggling epileptic power, difficulty receiving payments, and unstable internet connectivity.

Luis Divine, a full-stack software engineer based in Lagos,  South West Nigeria, could have had a big break with a Philippine company in 2023. He was finishing school at the University of Ilorin and applying for jobs. With this company, he had passed the initial interview and aced the coding challenge. Midway through the final interview, his MTN connection failed, and his Airtel backup had no signal at all. 

“They didn’t give a second chance for the call,” Luis said. “They stated that as a remote-first company, they couldn’t work with a developer with unstable internet connectivity.”

Luis was 22. He was going to be paid in dollars.

“It was demoralising,” he said. “I tried all I could, I had attained the skills, and everything screamed I was perfect for the job, but one tiny infrastructure cost me all.”

It isn’t bad luck, according to Raymond Onuoha, a technology policy scholar; it’s a systemic failure. Internet connectivity depends on a chain of infrastructure, including power, submarine cables, and fibre networks. But fibre cuts, unreliable electricity, and weak regulation break Nigeria’s chain at multiple points, fostering a reputation for internet instability. 

Local companies understand these challenges and are often lenient, Luis explained, but foreign employers are not.

“It seems unreasonable for a remote worker to be unavailable during work hours because the internet cuts out or experiences constant power outages,” Luis said. 

Chidera Onyeagubor, a content strategist who lives in Calabar, South South Nigeria, was once asked to take an internet speed test, which she failed. She tried to reassure the interviewer that she was different from the other Nigerians whose connectivity issues had caused frustration in the past. But midway through the call, her internet glitched, cutting the conversation short.

“When I reconnected after five minutes or so and apologised, she hurried the interview along and later sent me a rejection email,” said Chidera. The role could have boosted her monthly income from $500 to $2,000, a change that would have benefited her parents and siblings as well.

“It was painful,” she told HumAngle. “I passed the other tests and so on, but failed woefully in the end.”

Young Nigerians are known for their grit and courage, often excelling in fields where they have little formal training. Sophia, for example, is studying nursing in school but learned virtual assistance by supporting her friends’ businesses.

“I didn’t know what it was until I took a course from Tech Sisi (a local digital skills trainer), where I learnt it and had a better understanding,” she said.

At the time Luis lost the job with the Philippine company, he had already accumulated over six years of development experience and four years of production-level work, all starting with a diploma programme in computer science shortly after secondary school. He later earned a degree in Computer Science and Education, but he says most of his improvement came from consistent learning through tutorial videos, networking events, and boot camps.

He can now afford alternatives like Starlink and fibre connections, but even those are only “a bit more reliable”. 

“I’m able to access these because I’ve got the chance and money,” he said. “At the end of the day, most average developers who don’t have as many chances and support as I do won’t be able to break through the bar that Nigeria has limited them to.”

Sophia can’t afford such alternatives yet, and she may have lost a job that could have made it happen. After her painful internet experience, she wrote on X: “If I don’t hear from them, I won’t blame them at all,” referring to her prospective employer.

On Raymond’s list of the drivers of frequent disconnections in the country is insufficient broadband capacity, an issue already covered in  Nigeria’s ambitious National Broadband Plan (2020-2025), which aims to deliver improved data download speeds to millions of Nigerians by 2025.

“We are targeting 70 per cent broadband penetration by the end of this year through strategic pricing frameworks and incentives,” Aminu Maida, Executive Vice Chairman and CEO of the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), said at an event in August.

“We are facilitating investments in fibre optic cables, 5G deployment, and rural connectivity. The 90,000-kilometre fibre project is already familiar to many of you, and we will continue to expand our digital backbone.”

Yet, as of September 2025, implementation remains far off target, with broadband penetration still below 50 per cent, raising questions about the project’s feasibility as the year winds down. 

Remote work is a global race where speed matters, but young Nigerians start at a disadvantage because of unreliable internet. With a fixed broadband download speed of 29.73 Mbps, Nigeria ranks 131st out of 156 countries in the Speedtest Global Index. At the same time, Nigerians pay more for internet access than citizens of 148 other countries, including the United States of America and China, two of the world’s largest economies. 

Factors like inadequate infrastructure, rising costs of living, and insecurity keep up to 71 per cent of Nigerians from accessing mobile internet regularly, effectively shutting them from opportunities in the remote work industry.  

In rural Nigeria, especially conflict-affected areas, the situation is even more dire. HumAngle reported earlier this year that the Birnin Gwari area of Kaduna has been offline for three years due to insecurity. The State government had shut down telecom services as a security measure, even though residents say it only worsened things. The town, which has an estimated population of 300,000, has been offline, with essential services like banks and other businesses absent as a result. Remote work in areas like this is impossible, leaving residents there out of the larger conversation about the reliability of internet connection or speed. 

“I’ve actually lost faith in the internet sector of Nigeria, and just feel leaving is the best option, but still, that isn’t as easy as it stands,” said Luis.

He is now considering joining the wave of skilled Nigerians leaving the country. 

“I believe working remotely from Nigeria only works well if you’re either only focused on Nigerian clients or have enough money to make sure you’re properly set up,” he said. 

Luis agrees with Raymond that Nigeria must invest considerably in its internet sector to disrupt the status quo. 

“We’ve got brilliant minds, and I’ve had the opportunity to meet a few of them, and I’m sure there are many more that just need the right conditions and infrastructure,” he said.