Nigeria must not scare MTN away, says communications minister
‘You don’t throw away the baby with the bathwater’
Abuja — Nigeria must not scare MTN away, its communications minister said as MPs investigate claims of illegal money transfers three months after Africa’s biggest telecoms group was fined more than $1bn. The comments by Adebayo Shittu are the government’s first statement on the latest MTN investigation, indicating the government does not want to see the South African group punished unduly in Nigeria, its biggest market if the latest allegations prove true. "Nobody will say that MTN is not important to Nigeria — we must encourage them, we must not scare them away from Nigeria," Shittu said on Friday. MTN, the largest mobile phone group in Nigeria, threatened to pull out of the country last year during a dispute over unregistered SIM cards before the government agreed to reduce a settlement on the issue by nearly 70% to $1bn.
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