MTN Nigeria fined $5.2 billion for failing to register users

By Michelle Faul

MTN Group telecommunication's stock plunged 12.5 percent on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange Monday on the news that its most lucrative subsidiary, in Nigeria, has been fined $5.2 billion for failing to disconnect millions of unregistered cellphone subscribers.

The Nigerian Communications Commission confirmed the penalty based on 200,000 naira ($1,000) for each of 5.1 million cellphone SIM cards that had not been registered and should have been disconnected by an August deadline.

On Aug. 7, the commission issued an ultimatum ordering all cellphone providers to de-activate unregistered cards within seven days "or face severe sanctions." All the other cellphone companies in Nigeria complied, the commission said.

The South African company said in a statement Monday that it is in talks with Nigeria's regulatory body "to resolve the matter."

The $5.2 billion fine is equivalent to at least two average years' profit for MTN Nigeria and nearly three times the $1.8 billion that it has invested in the West African country, according to the company's website. Africa's leading cellphone service provider, MTN paid $285 million for one of four GSM licenses in Nigeria in 2001.

Before the cut, MTN said it had about 62 million customers among Nigeria's 170 million people in September, by far the group's biggest market.

Nigeria has about 150 million active mobile phone lines, 90 million mobile Internet users and imports 4 million cellphones each month, according to Nigeria's Federal Ministry of Communications.

Culled from AP

Attah quits politics, urges PDP to reorder steps

By Etim Ekpimah

A former Akwa Ibom State Governor, Obong Victor Attah, has said he has decided to quit partisan politics, warning that his action should not be misconstrued as joining the All Progressives Congress.

According to him, at 77 on November 20, he has become an elder statesman.
He noted that there had been other statesmen who had served and would continue to serve Nigeria eminently without carrying any party card.
Speaking in Uyo during a press conference organised in his honour by Akwa Ibom Liberation Coalition on Tuesday, Attah said he had always been a committed professional in politics and not a professional or career politician.
“So, I can formally state that I have quit partisan politics to play the role of an elder statesman and to continue to serve this country with love, strength and faith with integrity to the best of my ability.
“Let nobody take this to mean that I want to remain in the Peoples Democratic Party or therefore jump to the opposite conclusion that I am going over to the APC or any other party for that matter,” he said.
The former governor, a PDP Board of Trustees member, criticised the interview the PDP National Publicity Secretary, Mr. Olisa Metuh, granted to a national newspaper on Sunday, where he doubted Attah’s membership of the PDP.
The ex-governor said when Metuh was asked why the Ekweremadu reconciliation committee did not contact him (Attah), he (Metuh) asked if the former governor was still a member of the PDP.
He also alleged that Metuh accused him of having “made utterances for PDP to fail”.
Attah added, “Indeed, I made several utterances and I stand by all of them, including those ones for which I was, from time to time, accused of anti-party activities. The tragedy for the PDP is to now blame its failure on such utterances rather than its perilous refusal to heed the warnings they conveyed.
“Elections are conducted to fill vacancies, but PDP would start by announcing that there is no vacancy. Then it would offer automatic tickets to a set of people. And when pressure mounts, it would switch the same automatic tickets to another set of people.
“To bounce back as Metuh claims it will, the PDP must stop looking for who to blame and reorder its ways along the aims and ideals of its founding fathers of which I am one.”
Attah urged Akwa Ibom people to take the opportunity created by the Governorship Election Petitions Tribunal that sat in Abuja, ordering a rerun in 18 local government areas in the state, to liberate themselves from imposition and impunity.
Culled from Punch newspaper

Tribunal sacks speaker, 20 lawmakers in Rivers State

By Eric Ikhilae,

The Rivers State legislative election petition tribunals yesterday nullified the election of 20 out of the 32 members of the state House of Assembly.

The four tribunals, in separate judgments yesterday, upheld the petitions by candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) for the election.
They ordered rerun in the affected constituencies.
The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) members of the House, who are affected by the tribunals’ verdicts, include the Speaker Owaji Ibani from Andoni constituency.
The state’s governorship election petition tribunal last Saturday, voided the election of Governor Nyesom Wike and ordered a rerun.
Yesterday, the tribunals upheld the petitioners’ evidence, particularly in relation to allegations of irregularities and violence among other electoral malpractices.
The tribunals were of the view that the petitioners were, by the evidence led, able to prove their case.
By yesterday’s development, the PDP is now left with just 11 seats in the House. There was only one member of the APC in the House.
The affected lawmakers are, under the Electoral Act, entitled, within 21 days, to challenge the nullification of the elections at the appellate court.
The affected constituencies are GOKANA, ELEME, OBIO AKPOR 1 and 2, Etche 2, Opobo/Nkoro and AKUKUTORU 2,
Others are ASARI TORU 1 and 2, BONNY, Tai, ONELGA 1, DEGEMA, AHOADA East -1,  KHANA-1 and 2 ,Ikwerre, PHALGA-2, ANDONI.
The trbunals upheld elections in 11 constituencies won by the PDP. They are Oyigbo, Etche 1, Omuma, Ogu-Bolo, PHALGA 1 and 3,ONELG 2, ABUA-Odual, AHOADA West, Ahoada East 2 and EMUOHA.
The petition challenging the election in Okrika constituency, where the former First Lady, Patience Jonathan hails from, was earlier dismissed.
Culled from The Nations newspaper