When a telecom service provider refuses to obey lawful orders and that intransigence compromises the security of the host country, the least that would be expected of the service provider is to brace up and take its punishment like a responsible adult. MTN, the leading telecom company in Nigeria, should not add insult to injury by scheming to lobby for a reduction of the fine imposed on it by the Nigerian Communications Commission, NCC. Just pay up and shut up.
Before you think that my position is rather harsh, consider the fact that MTN was the first licensed GSM service provider in Nigeria. The company rolled out its service on per minute billing, refusing to switch to per second billing until another network entered the market and demystified the issue. Today, MTN has 61.1 million subscribers in Nigeria, about the same volume as its subscriber base in five other countries combined: South Africa – 28 million; Ghana – 14.2 million; Cameroon – 11.2 million; Ivory Coast – 8.3 million; and Sudan – 355, 000.
The Nigerian MTN is a veritable cash cow of the conglomerate. With the proclivity of Nigerians for long discussions, the country is a service provider’s paradise. Nigerians can talk! But the quality of service has always been a cause for concern. Of late, quality has nose-dived. And that is true of all the networks. Nigerians were therefore justifiably aghast when they learnt that MTN had continued to provide service for pre-registered (and therefore untraceable) SIM cards against the rules which outlawed the use of such Sims. In plain language, out of the 18.6 million SIM registration data found to be defective on MTN network, only about 1.6 million had been barred.
For a country on the receiving end of terrorist activities, the fact that a telecom company could flout an order meant to ensure that all subscribers’ biometric details were captured in the GSM database was worrisome. Boko Haram and other anti-social groups in the country must have been thanking their ugly stars that they could operate under the radar with untraceable SIM cards. The bulk of the crimes committed in the country had been traced to pre-registered numbers.
The punishment meted out to MTN is even minimal compared to the economic sabotage, terrorists’ atrocities, 419 scams and dubious business practices carried out with the aid of pre-registered SIMs. MTN was not the only service provider found culpable, but the network remains the biggest culprit. Pre-registered lines were allegedly found by security agents to have been used by kidnappers, insurgents; miscreants, armed robbers and other criminals to commit crimes in the country. NCC’s decision was taken based on security advice from the State Security Service (SSS).
The rule book published since May 1, 2010, stipulates a fine of N200,000 for every pre-registered GSM line found in any network in Nigeria. With about 5.1 million lines affected, MTN is expected to pay N1.04 trillion or about $5.2 billion. Dishonest business practices with serious implications for the corporate existence of Nigeria could not have attracted a lesser sanction, the window-dressing resignation of MTN Group CEO, Sifiso Dabengwa, notwithstanding.
There is no country worthy of its name that would have tolerated MTN’s dishonest practices, especially regarding pre-registered SIMs. There ought to be a limit to corporate greed. Even South Africa, MTN’s home base, would never have condoned such flagrant flouting of laid-down rules.
I was impressed when Communications Minister Adebayo Shittu, in response to a question on the matter, said he would advise MTN to go and pay the fine. MTN should, as they say, man up. There was no hullabaloo when the company was defiantly raking in illegal billions from shady sources. Now, it’s payback time. It should quit all this appeal to sentiments and veiled blackmail. Just pay up or ship out!
New Ministers’ Challenge
Finally, the new ministers have been sworn in to midwife the Change agenda. We shall keep a very close watch over their actions and inactions. The only way we can own the change agenda is to resist the temptation of being mere spectators. We shall not spare any effort to beam a searchlight on the activities of the ministers, good or bad. This team had better got things right. We’ve had more than our fair share of failures. Each week, we shall endeavour to draw attention to what needs to be done in a particular sector with the hope that the new ministers can deliver on Buhari’s promises. So help them, God.
STILL ON BIAFRA
Nze Prof. Mark Odu (Okokpa Mbaise), renown estate valuer and a member of the founding team which translated the Abuja dream to reality, recently weighed in on the secessionist call for a sovereign state of Biafra:
“We have been down the road of hasty dissension before. We landed in war without consensus at all levels. Ruses were drummed up ruses were sold. We were not ready for mortal conflict of the magnitude that occurred. We have degenerated ever since. Our youth are distant from the elders. No bridge has been built. Horrendous irreparable damage is looming a short way from here if we do not rein the youth and preach to them of the path to hard work and productivity as the greatest price we have to pay to keep Biafra Metaphor alive.”
And elder statesman Col Joe Achuzia, a well-known officer of secessionist Biafra, recently reviewed the quest for fulfilment by various peoples and cautioned that war should not be an option: “Nobody prays for arms struggle, it is only somebody who has never seen a war that clamours for war. And usually, it is only cowards that die many times before their death. Having participated in a gruelling civil war, I would not wish it for anybody neither do I wish it for my children. Like I tell my children, the answer is not agitation but I will not ask you not to participate, to demonstrate, to show or to orchestrate your inner frustration….”