Monday December 1, 2025
www.thenewsdesk.ng
By Idorenyin UMOREN, Security Evaluator
The Director General of the National Space Research and Development Agency, NASRDA, Dr. Mathew Adepoju, has raised serious alarm over the evolving communication tactics of terrorist groups in Nigeria, revealing that they have now migrated from conventional mobile networks to satellite-based systems.
Speaking during an interview on Channels Television on Friday, November 28, the NASRDA boss expressed concern that shutting down mobile networks during security operations has become ineffective since criminal groups now rely on more sophisticated satellite channels.
“It breaks my heart when state governments shut down communication on our mobile phones, because most of them are not actually communicating through mobile networks. They are making it through the satellite platform. The terrorists are using satellites to communicate,” he said.
Mr Adepoju explained that many Nigerians misunderstand the capabilities of the country’s existing satellites, stressing that they were designed for imaging—not real-time video surveillance.
“Sometimes, there’s a misconception about what satellites should do and what they have the capacity to do. The one the military has and the one we’ve launched in the agency are imagers. They don’t record videos, and they travel around the globe,” he noted.
According to him, Nigeria’s current satellites—NigeriaSat-1, NigeriaSat-X and NigeriaSat-2—need an average of three days to revisit the same location, which limits the country’s ability to respond quickly to fast-moving security threats.
Adepoju revealed that President Bola Tinubu has approved the launch of a new satellite constellation to shorten this revisit time to between four and six hours, depending on orbital placement.
He added that the agency plans to further expand the fleet with four or five more satellites to achieve near real-time monitoring capacity.
“If you want to have global coverage, we need to launch plenty of them into orbit. As one is going, another is coming. That’s why we went for the constellation of the four that the president has approved for us,” he explained.
The NASRDA DG also disclosed that the agency has sealed an agreement with a U.S.-based technical partner controlling nearly 300 satellites capable of providing advanced signal analytics to strengthen Nigeria’s intelligence efforts.
However, he noted that the necessary funds to activate the partnership have not yet been released.