Tuesday 26 February 2013

Nigeria: NNPC Finally Clarifies Status of U.S.$1.5 Billion Loan




BY ONWUKA NZESHI, 26 FEBRUARY 2013

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Photo: Vanguard
Oil report
The bid by the House of Representatives to investigate the $1.56 billion loan being sought by the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) hit a brick wall Monday and left lawmakers confused, as the corporation and the Ministry of Petroleum Resources denied taking the loan.
The Debt Management Office (DMO) and Revenue Mobilisation Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMFAC) also gave the corporation a clean bill of health on the issue.
THISDAY had exclusively reported last month that NNPC had not obtained the $1.56 billion from a syndicate led by foreign banks, but was in the process of negotiating the loan using 15,000 barrels of crude per day to offset its legacy debts owed oil traders.
The oil corporation had been accused of obtaining the loan without seeking the approval of the National Assembly and in contravention of the Fiscal Responsibility Act.
But Minister of Petroleum Resources, Mrs. Diezani Alison-Madueke, said what some persons have termed as loan was a "forward sales arrangement" by the corporation to settle some of its outstanding "legacy liabilities" amounting to $3.5 billion.
The liabilities, she said, needed to be settled to save Nigeria from facing dire consequences.
A forward sale involves the forward sale of crude oil or any commodity to be produced in future instead of obtaining a loan facility to offset accumulated liabilities.
Under the arrangement, NNPC is expected to collateralise the loan with 15,000 barrels of crude oil per day from the operations of the Nigerian Petroleum Development Company (NPDC), the exploration and production subsidiary of NNPC, towards the settlement of its liabilities.
Alison-Madueke, who appeared before the House Joint Committee on Petroleum Resources (Upstream/Downstream), Justice, Loans, Aids and Debt Management on account of the said loan, said it was purely an internal arrangement between NNPC and her trade partners and did not involve the corporation borrowing any money.
The minister, who appeared before the investigating committee alongside the Group Managing Director of NNPC, Mr. Andrew Yakubu, said the corporation had accumulated liabilities over the years and the forward sale arrangement was an internationally accepted procedure for settling these liabilities.
In a separate presentation, the NNPC boss attributed the liabilities to decades of under-funding of the NNPC and the accumulated losses arising from crude oil and product losses, pipeline security and demurrage on products strategic reserve stock.
The NNPC, Yakubu said, has accumulated various legacy liabilities which are settled periodically from internal resources.
He said that this has created a cash flow challenge with a severe opportunity cost and complicated contradictions in corporate operations.
Yakubu explained that the non-reimbursement by the Federal Government of the petroleum products price differential to NNPC gradually led to accumulated and unpaid petroleum products invoices of about $3.5 billion.
In addition to these, he said, there were also pipeline security issues and other severe operational losses which have made NNPC to be unable to settle its obligations to the suppliers of petroleum products importers in a timely manner and in accordance with contracted terms.
"The traders (petroleum products importers) have become agitated over non-payment of their petroleum products invoices some of which are over three years old.
"The exposure of domestic banks is about $1.5 billion, and a default of this magnitude of exposure could lead to another round of banking crisis.
"Furthermore, continued delay has further dire consequences ranging from a major negative impact on the sovereign credit rating to costly litigation against FGN in foreign courts.
"Some of the importers are already in foreign courts with NNPC. This could have a negative impact on Nigeria internationally in terms of credit ratings by ratings agencies," Yakubu said.
He disclosed that under the resettlement terms, NNPC will forward the sale of 15,000 barrels of crude oil per day and raise the sum of $1.5 billion to liquidate outstanding trade bills.
The arrangement, he explained, allows a future sale of agreed quantities of 15,000 bpd of crude oil to a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) for a period of up to five years in consideration of the sum of $1.5 billion paid by the SPV to NNPC. The $1.5 billion will be used to offset part of the petroleum imports bills, he added.
"The forward sale of crude oil by NNPC to the SPV will be a true sale at Official Selling Price (OSP) of Nigerian crude oil ruling at the date of lifting.
"It is expected that the balance of the petroleum products outstanding invoices (after utilisation of the $1.5 billion expected proceeds of Phase 1) will be subsequently settled under a second phase of forward sales arrangement in addition to continuous repayment through the use of internal resources," he said.
The NNPC boss said that the forward sales arrangement was negotiated in consultation with the Federal Ministry of Finance after a number of traders and international banks threatened to call a default on the Federal Government of Nigeria and enter into legal action to recover about $3.5 billion, "a situation that would have embarrassed the country."
Director General, DMO, Dr. Abraham Nwankwo, who was at the investigative hearing, endorsed the explanations given by NNPC.
"They have made it very clear that they are not taking a loan. Therefore we do not need to comment on this issue. It does not fall within our jurisdiction and we do not believe we have a role to play in the matter," Nwankwo said.
However, the lawmakers appeared dissatisfied with the explanation as many of them raised more questions on the source of the crude oil that NNPC was planning to use in the forward sales deal.
Some of them said they were confused and could not tell the difference between the said internal arrangement and a loan facility.
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Friday 8 February 2013

N65m alleged theft: EFCC arraigns Speaker’s PA


By BARTHOLOMEW MADUKWE

The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, yesterday arraigned the Personal Assistant to the Lagos State Speaker, Hon Adeyemi Ikuforiji, Mr Oyebode Atoyebi over alleged stealing of N65 million belonging to Resourcery BDC Ltd.
Atoyebi, was charged along with a former regional manager of Intercontinental Bank Plc (now Access Bank Plc), Olayinka Sanni, on a two count charge of stealing the money.
Sanni and Atoyebi were said to have on June 29, 2011 conspired among themselves to commit felony to wit: stealing N32.5 million property of Resourcery BDC Ltd.
The duo, who are also facing a N672 million fraud charge before Justice Deborah Oluwayemi, however, pleaded not guilty.
Counsel to Atoyebi, Mr. Abiodun Onidare, asked the court to grant his client bail, noting that Section 249 of the Administration of Criminal Justice Law (ACJL) of Lagos State 2011 gives only Lagos State the power to prosecute such matters in the state High Court and not EFCC.
However, Counsel to Sanni, Chief Sobo Sowemimo SAN, in his application, urged the court to grant his client bail since he will not jump bail, saying that the EFCC had earlier granted him administrative bail which he did not jump.
“The applicant (Sanni) has no criminal record and he is in poor health which further detention will compound matter. I graciously urge your Lordship to grant the defendant bail,” Sowemimo added.
He argued that Sanni was granted bail by Justice Lateefat Okunnu on similar proceeding and urged the court to be bound by the same terms under which his client was admitted to bail, adding that if his client had committed the alleged offence, it should be the Lagos State Government that would prosecute in such circumstances.
“If EFCC wants to initiate such proceedings, they should go to the Federal High Court. If you are intiating any proceeding in the Lagos High Court, it has to be in the name of Lagos State and not Federal Republic of Nigeria, FRN,” Sowemimo said.
Opposing the application of defence lawyers, EFCC prosecutor, Mr. Oyedepo Rotimi, argued that they cannot raise an objection after the plea of their client has been taken with their consent.
Citing FRN vs Bode George (2011) 10 NWLR, part 1254 page 1, Rotimi said that EFCC was a common agency for both Federal Government and state governments, and urged the court to commence trial.
“Raising this objection today is to delay trial. We have two witnesses here in court and if my Lordship gives another adjournment, I would be closing my case because I am not calling more than four witnesses. I do not know any miscarriage of justice anybody would suffer if the matter is prosecuted by FRN or by Lagos State,” he added.
On the defendants’ bail application, Rotimi urged the court not to be bound by Justice Okunnu’s ruling, stressing that the grounds which Sanni was granted bail was not same with charge LCD/177/2012.
“In this case, we have what it takes to convince this court and I did not take part in that prosecution,” he further added.
After listening to the argument of all the counsel, the judge adjourned the case till February 13 for both continuation of argument and ruling.
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Nigeria: NNPC, NPA, NCAA Others Diverted N12.1 Trillion in Four Years

Daily Trust (Abuja)

BY TURAKI A. HASSAN
A House of Representatives committee report yesterday revealed that the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) and the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) and 60 other federal agencies had withheld trillions of naira in revenues in four years, much more than previously discovered.
The agencies generated a total of N12.268 trillion between 2009 and 2012 but only remitted N255 billion, according to the report prepared by the House committee on Finance and approved at a plenary yesterday.
NEITI audit report published last week said the NNPC alone withheld N1.2tr between 2009 and 2011. But NNPC denied the claim. The corporation had three years previously (2006 to 2009) diverted N450 bn which it had started repaying now, NEITI said.
But the House Finance Committee report said the NNPC failed to remit N6.132 trillion revenues to the treasury. "From 2009-2011 the NNPC group including all its subsidiaries have generated internal revenues amounting to N6.132 trillion excluding its statutory function as marketer of Nigeria's crude oil and. Gas and no remittance has been made to the treasury," the report said.
The committee led by Rep. Abdulmumin Jibrin (PDP, Kano) submitted the report after three months of investigation of allegations of non-remittance of Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) by money generating agencies.
The report also revealed that in 2009, 60 agencies excluding the NNPC generated the sum of N3.06 trillion but remitted only N46.8 billion representing 1.53 percent of the total sum.
Also, in 2010 according to the report, they generated N3.07 trillion while remittance was N54.1 billion or 1.76 percent.
In 2011 N3.17 trillion was realised but remittance was N73.8 billion or 2.33 percent," the report said.
Consequently, the House gave the Minister of Finance, Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala 90 days "to mop up all funds derived from internally generated revenues of government owned agencies and corporations, alleged to have been kept in secret bank accounts and be paid into the Consolidated Revenue Fund of the federal government."
The House directed the Fiscal Responsibility Commission to sanction any revenue generating agency that fails to submit its audited annual accounts as and when due. It also asked the Accountant General of the Federation to submit to the Finance Committee, detailed monthly remittances of the government's revenues.
NNPC did not respond when asked for comment.
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Nigerian Politicians and the Craze for Recognition

BY UCHE IGWE  is a governance researcher, based at the University of Sussex, United Kingdom
OPINION
Why are Nigerian politicians so obsessed with awards when most of them have nothing to show in terms of quality service delivery to the citizens who elected them?
The tragedy of the Nigerian political class is multi-dimensional. They are greedy, dubious and desperate. They are gullible almost to the point of nincompoopery. They also have a queerstrange false impression of themselves because they assemble various grades of charlatans, perpetual sycophants and praise singers around them who see nothing wrong in everything they do. Many of them are not exposed, they talk before they think, yet they conduct themselves in a queerdubious messianic fashion. They crave for recognition at all costs- anyone, everyone. It is public knowledge that they procure some of them from all over the world with public money just to continue to insult our psyche with their faces in the media as do-gooders, undeservedly.
The story of drama around the purported Mo Ibrahim award to the former Governor of Yobe State, Senator Buka Abba Ibrahim, exactly mirrors the mindset of the Nigerian political class. This big man woke up and informed his colleagues at the Senate that he had won the Mo Ibrahim Exemplary Leadership Quality Award, for his efforts in the alleviation of poverty. He was so certain that he deserved to get such a globally coveted award without even thinking about the congruence between what he stood for and what Mo Ibrahim personified in the continent. I was told that even Nigerian Senate President David Mark congratulated him at the floor of National Assembly. His friends even took paid advertorials in the media and started putting together a delegation to accompany the award winner for the investiture in Capetown, South Africa before it was discovered to be false. But who is Senator Abba Ibrahim? I must confess that I have not met this Senator before and have only read his comments on national issues in the public arena. I recall that he is of the Committee on Housing and had made interesting comments on the relationship between the insecurity in the North, poverty and budgetary allocations by the federal government. I will return to that shortly. I am also aware that his third wife, Hon Khadija, is a current member of the House of Representatives. However this is what former finance Minister, his kinsman, Mallam Adamu Ciroma had to say about him and his phantom award in an interview to the Daily Sun on the 12th of January. "This man is one of the worst governors that have ever ruled any part of this country. Yobe is the most wretched of all the states in Nigeria. It is the poorest and the least developed. What happens is that some people who have no honour will meet and create something and send it to somebody and ask him to finance the offer. The man receiving it is not worth it. You can never see me receiving any of these awards because a lot of them are worthless".
According the European Union, 2.1 million of the 3.4 million that make up the total population of Yobe state live below the poverty line in 2011, lacking in infrastructure, healthcare and safe water. Eighty four percent of the women population are uneducated and 105 babies die out of every 1000 deliveries. So how come a man who superintended over these squalid situations could ever imagine that he will receive an international award? Really? Who could have nominated him? Why are Nigerian politicians always struggling to procure award international awards when their homes are on fire? Who are they trying to deceive?
Let us ponder further on how giving and receiving awards gradually became popular. One would ask; Are the awards actually given in recognition of verifiable achievements or some other considerations? Has it just become another thriving industry for wheeler dealers? The trend is now something like an annual ritual of many media houses and politicians compete for it and are ready to part with huge sums in exchange. If you visit the offices of many of them, you will see plaques of assorted sizes and shapes displayed on the walls. What for? Now we can see that some of the awarding organizations do not even exist or rather exist only on letter headed papers. I remember many years ago, the National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS) had more than six factions. What was central to the NANS crisis and fictionalization, among other things was the issue of awards and how to share the money that accrued from gullible politicians. Many students who were dismissed from tertiary institutions across the country relocated to Abuja and found a new business in selling unmerited awards to the likes of Senator Bukar Abba Ibrahim.
In the National Assembly, Senator Bukar Abba Ibrahim does not guise his motives, as a sectional politician in words and in practicedeed. He is always quick to align with anything and everything potentially divisive and unpatriotic. He is one of those who are viciously opposed to the principle of derivation for resource bearing communities in the Niger Delta as contained in the Petroleum Industry Bill(PIB) and has vowed to mobilise against its passage. As a governor, he was one of those who supported and allegedly bankrolled the infamous third term bid of former President Obasanjo. Often he has publicly defended the activities of insurgents in the North and even threatened that as far as the Federal government continued to allocate paltry sums as budgetary allocations to North East Zone, the insecurity situation will continue. Hear him: " Boko Haram is product of poverty. It is a product of unhappiness. We are unhappy with Nigeria. Unless something is done to address it, Nigeria should expect bigger Boko Haram insurgency Insha Allah".
At another time he said "Injustice is the basis of the entire crisis in the world. Insecurity comes from injustice, if injustice continues, there will be no peace. We are being ignored, we are being considered as if we are not part of Nigeria and continuous injustice will bring more and more insecurity". Almost true to his prediction, our country has sadly witnessed more and more attacks. Thousands of lives have been lost and millions of properties have been destroyed. The economy of Northern Nigeria is threatening to shut down as many businesses have deserted the region. Poverty is quadrupling and children are too frightened to go to school. The most recent of the attacks targeted the respected Emir of Kano, Alhaji(Dr) Ado Bayero. How does such distasteful commentary and unsavoury posture of such individual Senators affect the public perception of the Senate? Is it not time that the Senate evolves its own way of dealing with issues that could impinge on its collective image?
Now in a sane, civilised society where there is rule of law, where patriotism is valued above parochialism, where will such a man as Senator Buka Abba Ibrahim be by now? Travelling around the world collecting phantom awards or somewhere else? I leave you to judge.
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Thursday 7 February 2013

Nigeria opposition merges to form APC and challenge PDP

From BBC


Nigerian opposition politician Nuhu Ribadu (28 February 2011) Former anti-corruption chief Nuhu Ribadu's party is part of the new coalition

Nigeria - Troubled Giant

Nigeria's four main opposition parties have merged to challenge President Goodluck Jonathan in the 2015 election.
The parties said they had formed the All Progressive Congress (APC) party because the need for radical change had never been more urgent.
Mr Jonathan's People's Democratic Party (PDP) said it did not see the new coalition as a threat to its power.
The PDP and its presidential candidate have won every election since military rule ended in 1999.
"At no time in our national life has radical change become more urgent," said a joint statement read to reporters by ex-Foreign Minister Tom Ikimi of the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) party.

“Start Quote

They are not a threat at all... PDP is Messi in that contest”
Bamanga TukurgavePDP chairman
"And to meet the challenge of that change, we.... have resolved to merge forthwith and become the All Progressive Congress," he said.
The merger involves the ACN, led by Nigeria's former anti-corruption chief Nuhu Ribadu, the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC), headed by former military ruler Muhammadu Buhari, as well as the All Nigeria People's Party (ANPP) and All Progressive Grand Alliance (APGA).
PDP chairman Bamanga Tukurgave said the party was not worried about the merger.
"Beautiful. The more the merrier," he said, Reuters news agency reports.
"They are not a threat at all... PDP is Messi in that contest," he said, drawing a parallel with Argentina's football star Lionel Messi.
But correspondents say that if the merger succeeds, the PDP and Mr Jonathan could lose the 2015 election.
Previous opposition initiatives to unite have failed, as rival leaders fought to be the presidential candidate and bickered over policy.
Nigeria is Africa's leading oil producer, but most of its population live in poverty.
Critics also say there is widespread corruption in government.

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Nigeria - Troubled Giant

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Sunday 3 February 2013

Telecom operators fleece subscribers of N31bn in drop calls, others

From Vanguard News Nigeria



By Prince Osuagwu
On a rough estimate, Nigerian subscribers may have spent well over N31.02bn on dropped and unconnected calls since January last year, owing to poor quality of services from the telecom operators. Most networks in the country claim to have upgraded their network to 3G and 4G that never deliver services. Nigerians using ipad are worse off as downloads are so frustrating that in a day, a subscriber may not be able to connect or download music or video.
This figure of N31.02 billion was roughly estimated from the Average Revenue Per User, ARPU spending of 102.3 million subscribers (as at June last year) which amounted to about N103.4 bn, in relation to an opinion poll conducted by this reporter which saw many subscribers claiming that 30 per cent of their call costs were wasted.
From major part of last year, mostly during the yuletide period and even till now, telecom subscribers in the country have had to resort to hanging on the trees and roof tops to  complete their calls. The only time this was the case was at the early stage of GSM operation in Nigeria in 2001 when the networks were just building. Then, in addition to hanging on the trees, Nigerians resorted to high antennas to receive strong signals and incidentally, many buildings and other structures were dotted with embarrassing poles, antennas that did not beautify the Nigerian air space.
The situation compelled the operators into making massive investments in network and backbone infrastructure that launched the country into the top spot of African telecom market and spiralled into branding Nigeria as one of the fastest emerging markets in the world.
Although the quality of service after the investments cannot be described as perfect, subscribers lament that call completion has never been as bad.
30 per cent call costs wasted?
Although the operators have given both human and natural causes of the problem, the reality is that subscribers are still at the receiving end, spending hard earned money on calls that did not deliver value. In fact, it is believed that over 30 per cent of call costs in recent times are wasted in either dropped calls or entirely unconnected calls.
Nigerian subscribers, according to the Nigerian Communications Commission, NCC, hit 102.3 million mark as at June last year, with an Average Revenue Per User, ARPU, of N1.011 and spent about N103.4 bn in call cost within that period.
If 30 per cent of this is wasted, like many subscribers have alleged, that means that about N31.02b was wasted on calls that did not connect or deliver value.GSM-cartoon
No respite in sight
Meanwhile, the situation may still linger as both the operators and the regulator are trading blames and spoiling for war against each other. Late last year, the Director, Public Affairs, NCC, Mr Tony Ojobo had declared that the operators may be sanctioned this quarter over poor services if the Key Performance Indicator, KPI, which the commission put in place, indicated that their services were still poor.
Ojobo had said that the regulator would not fold its arms and watch millions of Nigerians who depend on the services of the operators to communicate to loved ones, friends and business associates to suffer losses due to poor telecommunications services, adding that operators should either shape up or face the hammers of the regulator.
According to him, “we will, however, take into account all those times the operators suffered disasters that were no fault of theirs. We know that there were times the operators suffered natural disasters but if the KPI says they had performed below par before those times, we will penalise them and I don’t think they should have any quarrel about that because the KPI is an agreement we made with them.”
But in a swift reaction, Chairman of the Association of Licensed Telecom Operators of Nigeria, ALTON, Engr. Gbenga Adebayo said that the operators would employ every legal means to resist any penalty from the regulator which did not take into account the spate of attacks and vandalisation the operators have suffered.
According to Adebayo, from wilful damages to vandalisation, flood and bomb attacks, the operators have been at the receiving end and on each occasion, they would be left to lick their wounds.
Adebayo said that although the damages on the operators’ facilities could not be quantified on the immediate, it, however, ran into hundreds of millions of dollars.
“Key performance indicators or not, I don’t think that the government would be fair to talk about sanctions now. Everybody is aware of the problems we have been facing, including the recent bomb attacks on our facilities. I think that the government should even be talking of giving us some form of compensation to help us recoup.
“We are not talking of cash compensation, rather some form of tax or import waiver to enable us import back some of these facilities which actually run into several hundreds of millions of dollars to replace. But in any case, we will employ every legal means to resist any penalty we deem as unfair to us by the government,” he added.
Where are the investments on new tech?
The irony of the whole situation is that these are happening despite recent announcements by almost all the mobile telecommunications operators in Nigeria that they have embarked on massive investments on their networks.
Subscribers have had to contend with teeth-gritting call completion rates and fluctuating network stability on their mobile phones in recent months. These, notwithstanding the millions of dollars the operators say they are expending on upgrading their networks to energy efficient and environment-friendly solutions.
For instance, MTN in June, announced a major development in its network expansion programme when it told journalists that it had began a comprehensive network overhaul that would gulp about $1.3bn, approximately N204bn.
MTN tagged the exercise, network modernisation and swap out exercise, meaning that old legacy equipment it started business with, 10 years ago , would be phased out for a more recent and hybrid ones.
In fact, the company’s Corporate Services Executive, Mr. Wale Goodluck, who announced the development with his team including Chief Technical Officer, Mrs Lynda Saint-Nwafor and General Manager, Corporate Communications, Mrs Funmi Omogbenigun, among others, said the aim of the exercise was to increase capacity and improve services to its over 45 million subscribers.
He even promised that MTN‘s radio and transmission infrastructure as well as the core network would be fully optimised, adding that major cities, such as Lagos, Abuja, Ibadan, Kano and Aba would be given special attention.
However, Goodluck did give the hint that there may be some technical hitches which may disrupt the network quality due to the exercise, but pleaded that customers bear with the situation for the gains that would accrue at the end of the exercise.
He also assured that part of the massive project involving three technical partners, Ericsson, Huawei and ZTE, would be carried out at night to minimise impact on the quality of service.
Just about that time, Airtel Nigeria had also announced investment of over $600m in just one year to expand the capacity and enhance the robustness of its network in pursuit of world class Quality of Service.
At the launch of the company’s Green Site in Lekki, Lagos, the company’s Chief Operating Officer and Executive Director, Mr. Deepak Srivastava, hinted journalists that Airtel had entered into a landmark deal with Ericsson to upgrade 250 diesel-powered stations in Nigeria to Green-sites, adding that it was all to enable the company harness solar energy to operate its base stations.
According to him, the Green sites will contribute to a considerable reduction in carbon dioxide emissions and prevent network outages associated with inconsistent power supply.
Srivastava regretted that non-availability of regular grid power supply to sites across the country was responsible for over 70 per cent of down time resulting in poor QoS, adding that the Greensite would go a long way in addressing this critical challenge.
Meanwhile, Globacom and Etisalat also had a fair share of network optimisation to achieve better performance.
In addition to the mega bucks Glo1 submarine cable investment, Globacom also, shelled out early this year, a whopping $6m to contract wireless backhaul giants, Ceragon, to manage the end-to-end deployment of its Fibre air IP-10 and IP Evolution long haul systems across Nigeria.
Etisalat Nigeria also announced a deal with Aviat Networks  which charged Aviat to specifically establish a Network Operations Center (NOC) to operate 50 hops of Etisalat’s Enterprise Data Network, comprising 100 radios of the Eclipse Packet Node microwave networking solution, on its network nationwide.
In addition, the company will implement its element management system (EMS), for total network surveillance, fault escalation and reporting with up to six months of performance data stored for analysis; and quick replacement of mission-critical components in the field.
This was in addition to the already existing two-year managed services contract with Alcatel-Lucent covering the South-West of the country including Lagos, which is due to expire in May 2013.
Promos take a toll
However, just about when these investments were making meaning to the subscribers, almost all the subscribers also introduced grand campaigns and tempting customer-related promotions to get more customers onto their networks.
MTN came up with a pocket of promos including the Ultimate Wonder promo which promised to give one lucky MTN subscriber, an aeroplane. Airtel debuted with the Airtel 2Good series among others prospected to give subscribers cheaper tariff. Etisalat and Glo were not also left out as they introduced many. But the NCC said that as good as these promotions were, the untold effects on the networks culminated in the collapse that gave subscribers anguish.
On November 8, 2012, the regulator banned all telecom- related promos, saying it was to save subscribers from further anguish.
Subscribers still lament
However, two months after, subscribers still lament that unless they climbed to the roof of high rise buildings or tree tops, getting better services were almost impossible. An angry subscriber, who simply introduced herself as Ms. Clara Nduka told this reporter, “I don’t know how my operator manages to do it, but whenever I load air time on my phone, it disappears even without making a single call.
Also, I am regularly over- billed to the extent that I once made a call that finally dropped at 3 seconds but I was billed N15 for it. I think these are outrageous practices. The most annoying aspect is that when I complained, the customer service of my operator said it was because I never had a plan for my iPhone. Whatever that means, I don’t know but I have just resorted to loading N100 or N200 units only, whenever I need to make a call. It is as embarrassing as that,” she added.
Also, a Lagos State University, LASU, student, Kenneth Okpebho, described network congestion in Nigeria as a ‘culture’ adding that the best way to overcome it was to live with it.
“I have learnt to live with the network congestion because that is the only way to overcome it. You can’t imagine the heartache, when you need to get to your parents over demanding issues in school and you are stuck with a piece of metal in your hand instead of a mobile phone because no matter how hard you try, you hardly get through. Even in those rare times you get through, you will never get your father or  mother to understand what you are saying because the line boils like hot water. It has become a culture here in school and we have learned to live with it.”
The situation is even biting hard on recharge card dealers who are complaining bitterly that something must be done quickly before they go out of business.  Some of them complained that recharge card business was no longer attractive as many people refuse to patronise them.
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