I listened to a radio presenter two weeks ago
playing the album Kollington Ayinla released after
armed robbers snatched his Volvo car in the late
’70s.After every two lines the Fuji maestro would
release a high-voltage curse: “tiyin buru o”(yours
has spoilt).The presenter allowed Kollington to
download this curse about five times and asked: “Is
it not Volvo Alhaji said they stole from him?”
I have been asking a similar question since the
National Communications Commission, NCC,
imposed a fine of N1.4 trillion on MTN for keeping
5.6 million unregistered lines among its 62 million
subscribers in violation of a 2011 NCC regulations
that no telecoms operator should not activate
unregistered lines. A MTN service provider tries to register a client’s
SIM card in Lagos, on October 27, 2015. Nigeria’s
telecommunications regulator has fined South
African mobile giant MTN $5.2 billion for missing a
deadline to disconnect unregistered SIM cards, the
company announced on Monday. The penalty saw
shares in Africa’s largest telecommunications
company crash more than 12 percent to 167 rand
on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange, the biggest
fall the firm has suffered in a day since November
1998. AFP PHOTO
By Yinka Odumakin
I listened to a radio presenter two weeks ago
playing the album Kollington Ayinla released after
armed robbers snatched his Volvo car in the late
’70s.After every two lines the Fuji maestro would
release a high-voltage curse: “tiyin buru o”(yours
has spoilt).The presenter allowed Kollington to
download this curse about five times and asked: “Is
it not Volvo Alhaji said they stole from him?”
I have been asking a similar question since the
National Communications Commission, NCC,
imposed a fine of N1.4 trillion on MTN for keeping
5.6 million unregistered lines among its 62 million
subscribers in violation of a 2011 NCC regulations
that no telecoms operator should not activate
unregistered lines.
The regulator said it imposed paltry fines on all the
GSM providers in August for violating the regulation
but that while Airtel,Globacom and Etisalat paid their
fines,MTN refused and this is why it has decided
to use the sledge hammer.The body did not tell us if
the other operators have now complied with the law
aside payment of fines.
I condemn MTN for thumbing its nose at the NCC
and for failing to comply with regulations in a
market it has done very well, making mouth-
watering profits.I am still trying to calculate how
much I have given to the South African company
since I got its line for a whopping N30,000 within
its first weeks of roll-out.
I have had a legion of complaints against MTN in
terms of its services over the years but I still keep
my expensive SIM.That is however a matter for
another day.
My bewilderment at the moment is the kind of
business climate we are creating and the
unintended consequences of the high-handed
measure which our huffing and puffing officials may
not see through by imposing a fine that is a quarter
of our National Budget on a private firm.
I have just finished reading the current edition of
Bloomberg Businessweek (Middle East) with the
cover “Africa wants to do business.How dangerous
can it be?”.The report states inter alia: ”Negotiating
with the region’s bureaucrats can also be tricky.The
government of Djibouti rescinded DP World’s
concession awarded in 2006 to manage the Doraleh
terminal port constructed by the UAE
company,alleging corruption. Arbitration is on-going
.South African telecoms firm MTN was hit with a
$5b fine by the Nigerian government,after MTN
allegedly failed to unsubscribe customers who had
not registered their SIM cards..”
The report concluded thus: “The continent is still on
the whole a difficult place to do business,Ashoune
says.For Gulf investors,that should suggest
caution.Sub-Saharan Africa isn’t ‘a goldmine
waiting to be accessed,’ says Downie. It’s going to
remain a struggle for years”.
It is this kind of reverberations that officials should
consider before taking rash decisions. MTN should
be fined, no doubt, but a fine that seeks to kill its
operations sends panic to investors on the
rationality of our business environment. What
business has the Nigerian government created and
sustained in the last 55 years that can afford a fine
of N1.4 trillion? MTN and NITEL were given GSM
licenses the same day but I don’t know one person
in the country who is using 0804 ..line today.If we
were to be at the mercy of NITEL, communication
would have ceased in the country.
The only “business”that is thriving for the
government of Nigeria is the declining oil .The
Nigerian National Petroleum,NNPC, ran at N59.4b
loss in September; where in hell would it get
N1.4trillion to pay as a fine if it were to be in MTN’s
shoes in another country?
If MTN folds up today, 6,000 Nigerians employed by
it risk losing their jobs with 500,000 others
gainfully employed in its value chain facing the
same disaster. How many jobs is the Nigerian
government in a position to create for them?
That is why it is so ridiculous that our cash-
guzzling governors who just announced they cannot
afford to continue to pay the starvation wage of
N18,000 are asking for the full enforcement of the
N1.4 trillion fine.They must be calculating how
much they would share from the sum.These are
people who have not been able to run any profitable
venture.They have indebted their states into
bankruptcy and one of them who without proper
reflection said he would repay his own loan within
10 years as against 20 is now crying that their
bailout debts should be written off. What
opportunities are they going to create for those who
will be laid off? These guys have been junketing
around the world in search of foreign investors;
who have they succeeded in bringing save for those
who married foreign wives among them? And that in
itself is just capital flight!
They obviously lack the capacity to see the larger
picture of what happens after the sharing of the
cash that would go on the usual profligacies.
This column insists MTN must pay fine for the
infraction but not the crazy N1.4 trillion.They and all
operators must also comply with the rules.
However, our government needs to set example
with the standards it is enforcing on these private
concerns.The truth is that they are only playing
according to our national rule book: non-
compliance. This is a country where thousands of
those carrying our National Drivers License about
cannot start the engine of a car. Our election day
sees kindergartens displaying PVCs which are
supposed to be products of biometrics.I can walk
into any Immigrations office as Yinka Odumakin
and come out with a brand new passport saying I
am Ochereome Nnanna, report at the Under-17
camp and all my ten fingers would have been
captured. I can go to a court and swear to an
affidavit that I am Sani Abacha and that I need the
document to prove that I just resurrected and I want
to go and collect my pension and it would be
stamped.

lalasticlala
obinoscopy

An epistle from Spaxon

Bantino:
An epistle from Spaxon

No be small epistle