Buhari to Zuma: "MTN Nigeria Helped Boko Haram Kill More People"

President Muhammadu Buhari on Tuesday said South African mobile phone operator MTN Nigeria fuelled the Boko Haram insurgency in northeast Nigeria by failing to disconnect millions of unregistered users.

All mobile phone operators in Nigeria were ordered to disconnect unregistered SIMs by mid-2015 on security grounds but MTN missed the deadline.

Nigeria’s communications regulator last October slapped a $3.9bn fine on the Johannesburg-based firm, which has since paid out $250m towards the penalty.

The affair cast a shadow over the build-up to the visit of South African President Jacob Zuma and was expected to have been high on the agenda when he met Buhari for talks in the capital, Abuja.

via Fin24.com

In his first comments on the issue, Buhari told a joint news conference: “The concern of the federal government was basically on the security, not the fine imposed on the MTN.

“You know how the unregistered GSM are being used by terrorists… That was why (the) NCC (Nigerian Communications Commission) asked the MTN, Glo and the rest of them to register GSM.

“Unfortunately MTN was very slow and contributed to the casualties. And that was why the NCC looked at its regulations and imposed that fine on them.”