Nigerian president, Muhammadu Buhari on Tuesday accused South African Telecommunication company MTN of fuelling the Boko Haram insurgency as a result of failing to disconnect unregistered SIM cards. Buhari said the slow registration of Nigerians on the MTN network led to the death of many Nigerians during Boko Haram attacks. He said many terrorist now use unregistered lines.
The fine, imposed by the Nigeria Communications Commission (NCC) in October 2015, has been a subject of controversy for months. The commission initially asked MTN to pay N1.04 trillion ($5.2bn) for failing to disconnect the 5.1 million unregistered subscribers, but later reviewed the sum to N780bn ($3.9bn). After missing repeated deadlines for payment, MTN announced late February it had paid N50 billion in “good faith” towards an amicable resolution of the matter. Read more on the fight against Boko Haram insurgency in Nigeria