INVESTORS in MTN Group (and I am one of them), already 43% poorer in the past 12 months, will continue to lick their wounds for much of this year. There’s no end to the hard times in sight as chairman Phuthuma Nhleko’s efforts to solve the telecommunications company’s problems in Nigeria have so far proven less than successful.Now that Nigeria’s government has decided it has more urgent things to deal with, rather than talks with MTN to solve the record US$3.9bn fine it imposed on the company, the board must focus instead on finding a new chief executive.Nhleko will also need to be replaced soon after the CE has settled in. His continued presence and dominance of the board as executive chairman and CE has disturbing echoes of what happened at African Bank under Leon Kirkinis.Like Kirkinis, Nhleko has been the dominant figure at MTN since he was appointed chairman for a year in July 2001. Thereafter he served as chief executive for nine years before taking over as chairman again in 2...
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