The Nation Newspaper

Category: e-Business

  • Criticisms could hurt FDI, say operators

    Telecoms operators in Nigeria have decried the barrage of criticisms of the performance of the telecoms sector using quality of service (QoS) as the only parameter. They contended that it could hurt further inflow of foreign direct invetsment (FDI).

    They said the sector had done far more than just providing telephony services, creating direct and indirect employment, growing the gross domestic product (GDP) and opening up a flood gate of FDI into the economy. They spoke through their umbrella association, the Association of Licensed Telecoms Companies of Nigeria (ALTON).

    Its chairman, Gbenga Adebayo who spoke in Lagos at the weekend, said the banking sector that adds just four per cent to the GDP always has issue of low QoS but receives less bashing from the people, warning that constant criticism of the sector could erode the gains so far made as investors would be kept at bay.

    Adebayo who is also the Group Chief Executive Officer, CNSSL Group, a business process outsourcing (BPO) outfit servicing the telecoms sector, said the criticisms were all an ill wind that blows no good to anyone.

    He said: “All the good of the industry is been assessed from QoS which has seen the rating of all players going down south: no one is talking about the impact of employment creation, no one is talking about the FDI of telecoms, no one is talking about the development of our national economy for an industry that is contributing over eight per cent to our GDP.

    “The banking sector is doing four per cent but they have been able to manage public perception better. There is scarcely anybody who does not use the banking service and there is no one who does not have poor costumer service related experience with the banks, but as an industry, the banking sector is still well respected, because they manage better their public perception.

    “We all must discourage the trend of sweeping condemnation of the telecom industry in the public place, the industry is key to our economy and key to our future development as a nation: we must encourage operators, we must not discourage practitioners and we must not discourage investors by creating an image of a bad industry using only QoS as a factor.”

  • Shortage of security professionals hits IT

    Global shortage of skilled security professionals has hit the information technology (IT) sector impacting negatively on organisations’ ability to monitor and secure networks.

    It is estimated that there is a shortage of nearly a million skilled security professionals, a situation that has made individuals and several organisations vulnerable to attacks.

    Such attacks are the socially engineered theft of passwords and credentials, hide-in-plain-sight infiltrations, and exploitation of the trust required for economic transactions, government services and social interactions.

    According to the Cisco 2014 Annual Security Report, there is now an increased sophistication and proliferation of the threat landscape as simple attacks that cause damage have given way to organised cybercrime operations that are sophisticated, well-funded, and capable of significant economic and reputational damage to public and private sector victims.

    It also showed that there is increased complexity of threats and solutions due to rapid growth in intelligent mobile device adoption and cloud computing which provide a greater attack surface than ever before. The report lamented that new classes of devices and new infrastructure architectures offer attackers opportunities to exploit unanticipated weaknesses and inadequately defended assets.

    “Cybercriminals have learned that harnessing the power of Internet infrastructure yields far more benefits than simply gaining access to individual computers or devices. These infrastructure-scale attacks seek to gain access to strategically positioned web hosting servers, name servers and data centres—with the goal of proliferating attacks across legions of individual assets served by these resources. By targeting Internet infrastructure, attackers undermine trust in everything connected to or enabled by it,” the report noted.

     

     

     

  • ‘Research vital to knowledge’

    ‘Research vital to knowledge’

    Indigenous undersea cable operator, MainOne, has identified National Research and Education Networks (NREN) services as a factor for the increment of knowledge development in the country.

    The firm’s Chief Executive Officer, Ms Funke Opeke, listed transformation vehicle, innovation incubator, economic development engine and essential global platform for national and educational development as major features of NREN.

    Opeke was represented by Head, Public Sector Sales, Gbenga Osinoiki, at a forum held at the ICT Centre of Software Engineering, Ile-Ife, Osun State. She made the presentation titled “Sustainable national development through research and education networks: The MainOne advantage” at the forum with the theme, “Sustainable National Development through Research and Education Networks.”

    She commended efforts of the UbuntuNet Alliance for Research and Education Networking schemes across Kenya, Malawi, Rwanda, Mozambique, South Africa and eight other NRENs, noting that though they were successful, there is still need for the provision of high speed internet connectivity to universities at even lower costs.

    She also acknowledged the efforts of the National Universities Commission (NUC) and the Committee of Vice Chancellors of Nigerian Universities (CVC) towards the development of Nigerian Research and Education Network (NREN), noting that the network service would be beneficial for the development of e-education and social networking.

  • Broadband to grow GDP by N190b

    Broadband to grow GDP by N190b

    Wireless broadband will grow the nation’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) by N190 billion next year, Director, Regulatory Affairs and Special Projects, Airtel Nigeria, Osondu Nwokoro has said.

    He, however lamented that the absence of fixed infrastructure and the punitive cost and burden to put same in place are daunting challenges. He added that wireless remains the only option.

    According to him, the National Broadband Policy (NBP) acknowledges the need for spectrum for mobile broadband and proposes to publish plan for freeing up spectrum for long term evolution (LTE) rollout; conduct licensing of 2.5/2.6 Gigahertz (GHz) spectrum this year; and facilitate accelerated wireless infrastructure expansion and upgrade with operators.

    He warned that the 700/800 megahertz (MHz) Digital dividend and 2.5/2.6GHz spectrum availability could be delayed till 2016 or beyond.

    Right of Way (RoW) permits and other planning approval processes and associated charges between different ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs) at federal, state and local government levels remain a strong disincentive for infrastructure development.

    He said though the NBP proposes to secure RoW waivers with states and also pursues expedited RoWs, achieving these goals between the three tiers of government remains a daunting challenge.

    As a way out, he called on the Federal Government to mandate the National Frequency Management Council (NFMC) to articulate a spectrum roadmap to address timely availability, cost-effective pricing and licensing of the 700/800 MHz Digital Dividend spectrum band to support mobile broadband penetration.

    He also called for the resuscitation of the NFMC and expansion of its membership to incorporate private sector representation.

    “Consider 900 MHz and 2.5/2.6 GHz spectrum re-farming to support mobile broadband on LTE, design spectrum policy and regulation to support flexibility while supporting regional integration,” he said, adding that transition to a converged regulatory and spectrum environment by the merger of Nigeria Communications Commission (NCC) and the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC) is consistent with international best practice.

  • MultiChoice builds resource centre in Bayelsa

    MultiChoice builds resource centre in Bayelsa

    Pay Tv service provider, MultiChoice Nigeria has extended the MultiChoice Resource Centre (MRC) initiative, which it started in 2004 to 10 additional public secondary schools in Bayelsa State. According to a statement, it is part of the firm’s corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiative, which kicked off in Abuja and Lagos State. It saidthe initiative will avail students of 10 public schools in Bayelsa State access to world-class learning facilities.

    The intervention comprises a TV set, a HD PVR decoder, satellite dish, a power generator, uninterrupted power system (UPS), a set of chairs and desks for the laboratory, in additional to training for teachers. The MRC facilitates teaching and learning enhancement by enabling school children access educational TV channels that include: Education TV, Discovery Channel, National Geographic, BBC Knowledge, BBC World, History Channel, Animal Planet and Mindset Learn, at no cost.

    The novel intervention which has been introduced to 274 schools in 27 states and proved to make critical impact on the knowledge levels and understanding, especially of technical subject areas by students, is now within the reach of students of the public secondary schools in Bayelsa State, bringing the total to 284 in 28 states, including the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).

    A commemorative inauguration of the 10 new MRC in Bayelsa State held at Saint Jude’s Secondary School, Yenagoa, on Thursday, January 16. It is in furtherance of the Ninth Phase of the project, which include scheduled launches in other beneficiary schools in some select states to be announced by the company.

  • Firm offers businesses free assessment

    Firm offers businesses free assessment

    An Information Communication Technology (ICT) firm, Venema Advies Nigeria Limited, has announced its readiness to offer free assessment services to companies to enable them optimise resources and save substantial operating cost (Opex).

    Speaking in Lagos, its Chief Operating Officer (COO), Wuraola Jinadu, said the firm delivers a bouquet of IT solutions and projects related to connectivity.

    She said: “What we see in this country is that most companies spend a lot of money on IT and still it is not working. What we would like to offer the companies is a free cloud assessment of the environment and see how we can upgrade to a private or public cloud without any or minimal capital cost. No public data centre or rack space is needed. Your own private cloud in your company without high costs upfront. We deliver complete private clouds with subscription models for VMWare, Microsoft, Symantec, RES and Trend Micro.”

    According to Jinadu, the firm delivers a broad range of services from satellite to fibre connections for connecting to the cloud, complete private cloud infrastructure, and other related IT services on subscription based models, where software licenses are paid per usage and of course service level agreements are signed while all other IT solutions that can be outsourced in a contract for a fixed price per month.

    She said the company delivers IT solutions together with our partners, with current services and products that deliver turnkey projects that are related to connectivity, to computing environments and to communication.

  • NBC decries monopoly in pay TV sector

    NBC decries monopoly in pay TV sector

    The Director-General, National Broadcasting Commission (NBC), Emeka Mba has decried the high mortality rate of cable television stations in the country, a situation that has given rise to a Multichoice, owners of DsTv.

    Mba, who spoke when he hosted ICT editors in Abuja, said though there were structural deficiencies, players in the sector were also not getting their business models right.

    While FSTV and HiTv came attempting to have a slice of the market direct to home (DTH) or pay Tv services market, they all fizzled out no sooner they came.

    As a way of extending reach to all the nook and cranny of the country, the NBC chief has promised to license community radio stations in the country, arguing that when community radio comes onboard, the security situation in the country would also be addressed.

    According to him, a platform such as community radio will not only allow members of the community to ventilate their anger, it will also help them to bring to the fore, issues that affect them for proper attention.

    Mba said the NBC is not happy about the absence of local players in the sector, adding, however, that the NBC could not go beyond providing a level playing field to every operator as a regulator.

    He said: “NBC is not happy about (the absence of competition) in the pay Tv sector. There are structural deficiencies which NBC will look at. Players in the industry are however not applying the appropriate business model. NBC cannot spoon-feed businesses, ours is to regulate.”

    For most Nigerians multi-channel TV is a big dream. Apart from Nigerians living in Lagos, Abuja, and may be Port Harcourt, most Nigerians have access to less than five free terrestrial TV channels. This implies that most people rely on terrestrial, satellite, or cable Direct-to-Home DTH TV for multi-channel TV.

    The major players in this segment are Multichoice with DSTV Access on their satellite TV service, GOtv also from Multichoice, and Star TV network with StarTimes. Although there are others like MyTV, Daarsat, they do not have much impact as they ought to be.

  • Here comes Big Data

    Here comes Big Data

    As big data continues to grow, the most successful, competitive organisations will be the ones with the ability to turn that data into  new revenue opportunities and operational effectiveness, LUCAS AJANAKU reports.

    Increasingly, technology scholars and analysts the world over are in agreement on the most important technology trends that are shaping the world today. The four mega-trends in leaderahip today are Cloud, Social, Mobility and Big Data.

    According to the Chief Technology Officer (CT), Microsoft Nigeria, Olayinka Oni, there has been a lot of discussion around three of these trends in the country. These are cloud, social and mobility. What has not yet gained prominence, or entered into main-stream conversation and dialogue, is Big-data. Some may argue that it is not near, or that it is still far from us, but some recent developments in the country seem to challenge this notion and point to the fact that the time of Big Data is here.

     

    What is Big Data?

    Oni explained that big data was coined by the sciences like astronomy and genomics, which first experienced data explosion. According to Mayer-Schonberger & Kenneth Cukier, authors of Big Data: A Revolution That Will Transform How We Live, Work, and Think, in the real sense of the word, there is no rigorous definition of big data; one simplistic way to think of it is: big data refers to things one can do at a large scale that cannot be done at a smaller one, to extract new insights or create new forms of value, in ways that change markets, organizations, the relationship between citizens and governments and more.

    In 2012, leading global IT research and advisory firm, Gartner, wrote: “Big data is high volume, high velocity, and/or high variety information assets that require new forms of processing to enable enhanced decision making, insight discovery and process optimisation.”

    To address the challenge of data that is so large that it no longer fits into the memory that computers use for processing, engineers came up with new processing technologies that allows people manage large volume of data than before, and more importantly, the data needs not be structured, such as in tidy rows or classic database tables.

     

    Big Data in aviation sector

    With the spate of air mishaps in the country for example, could big data be of any help?, yes, Oni admitted: “What if our aviation industry and its regulators had capabilities that are able to use predictive tools (basically using mathematical models and historic data) to determine before a flight takes off to a near perfect prediction that a flight may most likely go wrong mid-air, then many air mishaps would’ve been averted. A model that match data that includes weather conditions (like wind and storm, others), data created by jet engines in real time sensors collecting data on the surrounding environment (temperature, humidity, air pressure, others), air-craft maintenance data, number of hours clocked, are needful.

    Regulators are, therefore, able to ensure compliance and safety in real-time by setting up all the compliance rules and safety criteria and validating them against a streaming data set comprised of data from flight sensors, flight management system and vertical navigation system. The system is built to trigger alerts, in real-time, if there is a potential compliance breach, or a safety concern.”

     

    Banking industry

     

    Oni said another occurrence that comes to mind is the banking crisis that the nation recently came out of. According to him, may be if the regulators of the banking sector had capabilities to simulate in a near to real time, the sensitivity of each bank’s Capital Adequacy Ratio to moving data feeds like (both external and internal); Sectoral Risk tied loan-book exposure, Cash Reserve Ratio, Foreign Exchange Rate movement, Consumer Price Index, Loan Account Velocity, Asset/Collateral Cover & Quality, Quality & Sophistication of Loan Management Process & Organisation, Frequency of Approach to Re-discount Window and others. Maybe, just maybe they could have saved the day by knowing the best time to stop the systemic hemorrhage possibly with the right ‘policy-dosage.’

    He said beyond these situational scenarios, increasingly, enterprises are finding new use for big data that was hitherto not possible, adding that before now, when people think of big data, they think of social media and internet sites but this is changing very quickly due to advances in technologies which is bringing to mainstream and within affordable reach the discuss and relevance of big data in enterprise and government.

    Advances in technologies, like in-memory technologies that allow for processing of millions of rows of data in seconds, increased sophistication of analytics software and tools allowing for deeper/greater data visualisation and self-service business intelligence technology (BITechnology). These are coupled with the connected trend powered by cloud & mobility fueled by proliferation of mobile devices

    “Would it be interesting to a CEO of a bank when the banking relationship starts to wane with a particular customer segment; say after a number of complaint and complaint type, in a particular branch, category/location running a particular product based on their social profile (tribe, creed, current status in life, network, others.)? Assuming he gets to have an early-warning signal just as that threshold was about to be reached. This is powerful and business value in that it ensures that organisations get to know something is happening and needs immediate attention before it truly happens and we are left with situational analysis as to causes.

    Would it also be interesting to be able to generate liquidity risk of millions of customers on the fly from their millions of cash flows whilst doing real-time sensitivity analysis using data like exchange rate movement, interest rate and others? A practical example and common scenario that bankers would easily relate to in this locale is the concept of “Follow the Money” consider a situation where all inflow across channels and across locations can be consolidated for the source of the fund to bubble up a new customer to capture just purely be able to leverage big data technology and analytics tools.

    A similar scenario is where a large and unusual deposit into a customer’s account triggers real time alert to the relationship team and contact centre of the moment of truth opportunity to make a new product offer real time. Increasing the opportunity to trap and lock the funds in the bank and deepen the bank’s share of the customers’ business. And you can extrapolate the value of this to other relevant banking scenarios like real time and granular transactional risk-based pricing, real time interaction of data across multiple channels to detect fraud threat as it happens real time in order to provide live responses/action, enhancement of data quality/data cleansing, and others. With the increasing IT consumerisation trend, customers are being preconditioned and stereotyped to expect high level of personalisation in the channel interaction with their bank. Reality is that most of the banks are non-starters when it comes to leveraging big data for personalisation of customer experience.

     

    Business automation, integration

    The Microsoft CTO said another scenario that would largely benefit from Big Data is the increasing need for business automation and integration as a result of the increasing complex status most of businesses have started to attain, most especially in the financial services and telecoms sector. Whilst there is nothing new about business automation and integration, leveraging cloud computing has greatly enhanced the extensibility of what is possible. For the technology savvy, it simply means that he could now expose or call Application Programing Interface (API) securely (whilst selectively gating access to more sensitive data) at scale combining hundreds millions of search terms/data to produce answer in near real time system automation. In lay terms, it means the traditional system automated processes now have the ability to be more intuitive and more granular in deciding and hinging closer to age long desire of business to unlock value from its already sunk huge investment in technology. Imagine for a moment a real life scenario when you have been on a trip for a while and wanted to place a call to loved ones and suddenly discovered we have been cut-off by our mobile operator? Would it not have been nice if the system before it went ahead to cut off your line that you are above your contract level, was able to pull several data and churn same to arrive at a decision, data like the average monthly spend of the customer, credit record of the customer, frequency of roaming, previous customer contact with the service/call centre, customer profile (status, preferences, sentiments, others). Other relevant telecommunication opportunity leveraging big data and Internet of things include;

     

    Criminal investigations

    Oni said another good use of Big Data is in criminal investigation. According to him, Microsoft recently published a case study on Thailand’s Department of Special Investigations (DSI), and its use of big data to dramatically accelerate and improve the accuracy of its investigations into criminal cases. Leveraging better BI and data-mining tools, the DSI was able to reduce complex and manual processes and establish a system that could automatically notify personnel of suspicious persons or activities related to criminal cases. For instance, when many foreign criminals pour into the country and all travel to the same location, or when there is a noticeably large sum of money being transferred into the country. The most impressive thing about DSI’s new big data implementation is the dramatic impact that it had on investigations overall. Before, conducting a traditional investigation could take as many as two years to search for tips, gather, and analyse data. Today, with the Microsoft big data solution, the DSI is able to conduct investigations in as few as 15 days, due to the automated processes, reduced complexity and more accurate insights afforded by the new system.

     

    Judiciary

    The key to achieving greater judicial efficiency is unlocking data so that it can be easily shared, analysed, and acted upon. Today’s case management solutions break down jurisdictional and organisational barriers to ensure that every stakeholder has an up-to-date view of case information from any location, and can update and distribute that data as needed. It’s about getting attorneys, judges, and law enforcement personnel on the same page, through one integrated solution that not only facilitates efficient collaboration, but enables high-level business intelligence analysis through powerful analytics.

    Oni said decision-makers need access to historical justice data to identify hidden trends and make better and more informed decisions. “We have seen the power of case management at work within organisations such as the County Commissioners Association of Pennsylvania (CCAP). CCAP was facing resource-constraints while operating several disparate case management solutions across its various courts, jails, and corrections offices, which severely limited information sharing and required redundant data entry at each location.

    To address these challenges and become more efficient, he said CCAP partnered with Microsoft to build a Unified Case Management system on Microsoft Dynamics CRM that brought stakeholder data together within one system, empowering users to easily search, share, and act upon all of the information at the organisation’s disposal. CCAP leaders are now able to extract better insights due to more accurate dashboards and reporting tools, and with manual data entry kept to a minimum, personnel are free to focus more of their time on pursuing justice and keeping citizens safe.

     

    Others

    Other big challenges that can be tackled by big data include; using sensors to better understand phenomena such as weather, pollution, or traffic patterns to analysing massive sets of “nanodata” to model the societal effects of policy, to the fast and low-cost mapping of the human genome to deliver better health outcomes.

    Some persons may say all these is, but another hype from the tech world, agreed some of it may end being, particularly when approached from just a technology purchase/nice to do IT Project standpoint (hmmm, nice to do IT Project is actually something I like to write about soon).

  • Cyber Nigeria forum holds May 23

    Cyber Nigeria forum holds May 23

    CYBER Nigeria Forum (CNF), Tribe Media Company, will hold on May 23, this year.

    In a statement, the organisers said the event will attract big players in the nation’s ICT industry.

    President/Chief Executive Officer Tribe Media Company, Dr. Bayero Agabi, noted that though internet’s impact on global growth is rising rapidly and is a haven of economic activity, ranging from millions of daily online transactions to advertising, communications and smartphone downloads, little is known about how the web in its entirety contributes to economic growth, productivity, and job creation.

    He added that the forum was conceived to ensure that Nigerians fully gain the economic benefits of the internet. He said: “CNF has become the pre-eminent Nigerian internet event where entrepreneurs, CEOs of internet solution companies, investors, government and the youth gain deep insights into the economics of the cyberspace, network, analyses, policies and regulations and new business relationships.”

    The forum will offer a quantitative and qualitative assessment of the impact of internet related businesses and innovations on Nigeria’s GDP and growth, drawing inference from global statistics, while also considering the most relevant tools governments and businesses can deploy to get the most benefit from the digital transformation. CNF 2014 will provide a platform for service providers to share their innovative edge; how they are able to follow global technological trends in offering services that boost enterprises and improve government services in areas such as e-commerce, e-health, e-banking, cloud service, and big data the internet of things.

  • Recharge cards: MTN, dealers tango over price hike

    Towards the end of last year, telecom giant MTN’s recharge card prices suddenly shot up. MTN disowned the ‘hike,’ but its dealers are accusing it of being economical with the truth, LUCAS AJANAKU writes.

    After the Yuletide, a Mushin, Lagos Mainland recharge card retailer, who identified herself simply as Chigozie, went to buy cards from one dealer in her neighbourhood. She was shocked that the prices of MTN recharge cards had gone up steeply. The cards she used to buy at N1430 and sell for N1500 now go for N1500. The card she was buying at N198 and selling at N200 was increased to N199.

    “I was completely shocked by this development. My major problem was how much I was going to sell the cards to my customers and how I will explain the sudden hike to them. I spoke with the cashier about the development but she could not give any explanation. So, I left in exasperation,” she said.

    Chigozie is not alone; another retailer, popularly known as Iya Peter in Ayobo, a Lagos suburb, said the problem started during the Yuletide with scarcity of the cards. According to her, she had wanted to use the opportunity of the yearly conference of the Deeper Life Bible Church holding in the town to sell cards and make some money, but was shocked that all her efforts to get the cards to buy proved futile.

    “During the annual conference of the church, I noticed that pilgrims were also asking for recharge cards, so I sent my daughter to the dealer at Iyana Ipaja. When she came back, she could not get MTN cards. I then remembered a sub-dealer in Ayobo and went to her shop. She too had exhausted her stock of MTN cards,” she said.

    According to her, when the recharge cards eventually resurfaced early this month, it came with an increment. “I was shocked when I got to where I used to buy recharge cards to discover that the prices have been increased. Before now, I used to buy 10 pieces of the N100 recharge cards at N950, it was sold to me at N970. Similarly, I used to pay N95 for the N100 worth, it is now N99,” she said, adding that other operators have also stealthily increased the prices of their recharge vouchers by either N1 or 50k.

    Consequence of the hike

    MTN’s recharge vouchers come in the following denominations: N1, 500, N750, N400, N200 and N100.

    While the N1500 sells for N5550, the N400 sells for N420. The N200 worth sells for N220 while the N100 worth goes for N110.

    MTN reacts

    Meanwhile, MTN has said the face value of all its recharge card denominations remain the same.

    Speaking through its Customer Care Executive, Akinwale Goodluck, MTN said: “We have not effected a price increase and the retail prices of the various denominations of our recharge cards and recharge vouchers remain the same.

    “Any such hike is contrary to MTN’s wishes or knowledge. MTN has a well-established distribution structure and all our authorised partners within this structure are obliged to sell recharge cards at their face value. Any variance from the authorised face value of recharge cards is without MTN’s knowledge or authority.”

    He said MTN’s 55 million customers can purchase airtime via recharge cards or recharge vouchers as well as through a virtual top up. The airtime recharge options are generally distributed via a very extensive trade and distribution network which has over the years successfully enhanced accessibility to airtime and customer convenience.

    Goodluck assured customers that the company is working assiduously to arrest the situation. In the meantime, he said: “We urge our esteemed customers in the affected areas to explore other options of purchasing airtime, such as MTN Virtual Top Up (VTU) or MTN Auto-Top Up.”

    Like Goodluck, General Manager, Corporate Affairs, Corporate Service Division at MTN, Funmilayo Onajide said the cost of every card remains the value of its worth.

    She said: “The cost of every recharge card is the value stated on it. Any third party selling recharge cards at a value at variance with the face value is acting illegally. MTN has a well-established distribution structure and all our authorised partners within this structure are obliged to adhere to this. Any variance from the authorised face value of recharge cards is without MTN’s authority.”

    Dealers kick

    Dealers of the telco said contrary to its claims that it was not aware of the hike, MTN indeed masterminded it. According to them, MTN had unilaterally hiked the prices of the vouchers to the detriment of the retailers who stand under the elements day in day out to push the cards to the final consumers only to go home with empty hands.

    A dealer said: “I have read in the papers and listened to the radio about the spirited efforts of MTN to distance itself from the hike. It is a lie. We, as dealers have told MTN that these retailers are working like elephants and eating like ants. They were formally getting N5 on some of these cards, you suddenly pushed it up and reduced it to N3. Where is it done?

    “For its trade partners too, MTN has told them unequivocally that they no longer will enjoy the 2.5per cent they were enjoying before.”

    According to another dealer, what MTN has asked them to do now is to appeal to the retailers to show understanding, adding that it will be difficult to ask people to show understanding in this matter.

    “A lot of these people pick their bills selling these airtime vouchers under the sun and rain. Others even keep vigil in their homes to ensure that subscribers get the cards anytime they wanted it. So, urging we the dealers to appeal to them not sell the cards at prices that compensate them for their labour is unreasonable,” he said.

    The dealers lamented that this is happening under Michael Ikpoki, a Nigerian and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of MTN. “Some people probably want the CEO to fail. For so long, the telco in the country was headed by CEOs who were no Nigerians. Now that a Nigerian has been appointed to head the organisation, people are pushing him to decisions that will spell doom for the telco, especially in the era of mobile number portability,” one of them said on condition of anonymity.

    Stakeholders react

    Stakeholders and subscribers have reacted to the development, urging the telco to take urgent steps to address it. President, National Association of Telecoms Subscribers (NATCOMS), Deolu Ogunbanjo, said across all the local government areas of Lagos State, only 20 per cent of phone users buy recharge cards at the value written on them.

    According to him, the remaining 80 per cent buy at prices not inscribed on the cards, adding that MTN is worst hit by the development.

    Ogunbanjo urged MTN to swing into action, warning that it is dangerous for the telco to keep quiet in an era of mobile number portability (MNP), which allows subscribers to dump an operator while still retaining his mobile number.

    President, Association of Telecoms Companies of Nigeria (ATCON), Lanre Ajayi, agrees but argues that the matter is not likely to be an operator problem but that of distributors who may have unwittingly masterminded an artificial scarcity to profiteer.

    He urged the telco not to resign to fate but move swiftly into action to reverse to the status quo ante. Ajayi urged the telco to look inwards to dealers that are credible and would not drag its reputation in the mud as it is happening now.

    According to investigation, MTN recharge cards are sold at prices far above their face value, especially in the south eastern and north eastern parts of the country.

    “We have never bought MTN cards at the value inscribed on its face in this community. We buy the N100 card at N110, N200 at N220 and N400 at N420. So, when we read reports that MTN cards were increased in the Lagos area and it was appearing as a big deal, it shocked me,” a man who simply identified himself as Chijoke from Enugu-Ezike in Nsukka Senatorial Zone of Enugu State, said.