President Muhammadu Buhari said on Tuesday that the Nigerian government was forced to impose a hefty fine on South African owned telecoms firm, MTN, after it was discovered that the sale of unregistered SIM cards by the company aided the terrorist group, Boko Haram, to continue to kill Nigerians.
Buhari who made the disclosure during a press conference he held with the visiting South African president, Jacob Zuma, at the State House presidential villa in Abuja, was responding to a question on the matter by a South African journalist who said the hefty fine imposed on MTN may likely scare the firm away from the country and hurt ongoing bilateral agreements regarding trade between the two nations.
“The concern of the Federal Government was basically on the security and not the fine imposed on MTN,” he said, adding that Boko Haram has killed over 10,000 Nigerians since 2009 and the use of unregistered SIM cards aided them.
“You know how the unregistered GSM are being used by terrorists and between 2009 and today, at least 10,000 Nigerians were killed by Boko Haram. That was why NCC asked MTN, Glo and the rest of them to register GSM.
“Unfortunately, MTN was very slow and contributed to the casualties. And NCC looked at its regulations and imposed the fine on them,” he said.\
The president added that the Nigerian government decided to allow the security agencies, as well as the NCC and MTN to “deal with the issue” but said “unfortunately for MTN, they went to court and once you go to court, you virtually disarm the government, because if the Federal government refuses to listen to the judiciary, it is going against its own constitution.
“Therefore, the government has to wait and I think MTN has seen that and decided to withdraw the case and try to go back and negotiate with government agencies on what they consider a very stiff fine can be reduced or may be given time to pay gradually.”
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