Professor Umar Danbatta, the new chief of Nigeria’s telecoms industry watchdog, has approved punitive sanctions totalling one trillion and forty billion naira (N1.04 trillion) against MTN Nigeria, over alleged breach of SIM registration rules by the mobile phone company, Technology Times has authoritatively confirmed.The online news portal reported Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has ruled that MTN Nigeria, the nation’s biggest mobile phone operator by subscriber numbers, owned by South Africa’s MTN Group, be handed the biggest sanction ever witnessed in the Nigerian telecoms market.
Umar Dambatta, a former Dean of Student Affairs at Bayero University, Kano was described by an alumni of the institution, Yusuf An-Nuphanwi as “a no nonsense man who does not operate based on sentiments.
“You cannot accuse anyone of stealing without being armed with concrete evidence. And once convinced, Dambata will take decisive action”, An-Nuphanwi added.
There have been widespread complaints by Nigerians that regulatory authorities especially in the telecoms and electricity sectors work more to protect the interests of operators to the detriment of consumers.
Economic Confidential can also reveal that the case for SIM registration was made by the Department of State Security (DSS) mainly to curtail rising incidences of terrorism back in 2009.
MTN Nigeria according to the report will pay the landmark fine for allegedly undermining efforts by the Nigerian government to tackle security challenges and the war on terror and allied crimes, as the telecoms operator has allegedly refused to deactivate unregistered mobile phone lines on its network, NCC says.
People conversant with situation at the Abuja headquarters of NCC say the telecoms regulator reckon that MTN Nigeria’s alleged disobedience of earlier directives to deactivate unregistered mobile phone lines on its network significantly opened the country to grave security threats.
“They have disobeyed several directives issued them”, a source offered on condition of anonymity citing that a letter communicating the sanction has been dispatched to the Lagos-based MTN Nigeria.
In a phone conversation, a top official of MTN Nigeria, who spoke on conditions of anonymity, confirmed that the letter communicating the sanctions has been received by MTN Nigeria.
“We are in discussions with them”, the official said underscoring that talks are underway between the two parties to resolve the matter amicably.
Following the regulatory sanction, MTN Nigeria will be made to pay the sum of one trillion naira and forty billion, and may possibly face other sanction as the matter was also directed to the Directorate of State Security (DSS), Nigerian Army, and the Presidency, in what may suggest a broader spread of consequences for the telecoms company.
Sources reckon that by copying other security and law enforcement authorities in the country, there are fears of other consequences beyond the landmark punitive fines for the telecoms company.
In August, MTN, Airtel, Glo and Etisalat, the four leading mobile operators in the country deactivated all lines with unregistered or improperly registered mobile subscriber data on their networks in a surprise move resulting in a deluge of crowds at the various services centres of the operators round the country.
Mr. Idehen Efosa, head of enforcement and monitory department of NCC said that out of the 37.79 million deactivated lines, Etisalat had 19.46 million followed by MTN with 18.6 million lines. Airtel hasd7.4 million lines while Glo accounted for 2.33 million lines only.
The order to deactivate the lines followed a meeting between Office of the National Security Adviser (NSA), DSS, the network operators and the NCC to examine the security threats posed by unregistered SIMs.
Thereafter, the NCC handed down a seven day ultimatum starting from August 4, 2015 to GSM operators to deactivate unregistered subscriber identification modules (SIMs) with invalidity status.
