Telecom giant reportedly vows to not pay NCC fine, could leave Nigerian market

According to certain media reports, MTN Nigeria has said that it will not pay the fine imposed on it by the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) for failing to deactivate unregistered SIM cards on its network.

Nigeria CommunicationsWeek quotes a publication called Business Journal as stating that a top official of MTN Nigeria ‘confided’ to it that the telecoms company has mapped out strategies to avoid paying the NCC fine.

“I can tell you that MTN Nigeria will not pay a single penny or dime to the NCC. We have already instructed the seven Senior Advocates of Nigeria [SANs] handling our legal action against NCC to keep the matter perpetually in court, up to the Supreme Court, by all means necessary until Buhari leaves office or Danbatta, Executive Vice-Chairman of NCC completes his five-year term. Now, even if Buhari and Danbatta secure a second term, that would be eight and 1O years respectively, but we can keep the case in court beyond 1O years,” the MTN official allegedly said, according to the report.

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Furthermore, the official also stated that the South African-based company could not pay such a huge fine without going under, arguing that the fine was imposed in bad faith and not something to be expected from a regulator.

The report also alleges that the official revealed that the second strategy which the company intends to use is to withdraw from the Nigerian market entirely and expand into other African countries to make up for the revenue shortfall.

“Our second strategy is to leave the Nigerian market entirely and expand into other territories in Africa and probably, the Middle East, to cushion the expected revenue gap from Nigeria,” the official reportedly said.

Pulse Tech reached out to MTN Nigeria for a comment on the report but no response has been received as at press time.