allAfrica.com: Nigeria: Obasanjo And the MTN Deal (Page 1 of 1)

It is difficult to avoid the urge to discuss the so many ills perpetrated by former President Olusegun Obasanjo during his eight years rule.

Whereas the dethroned despot pretended to be fighting corruption in the polity during those eight years, unfolding events indicate that he actually institutionalised corruption in the country.

In fact, the story of Obasanjo as President of Nigeria between 1999 and 2007 is congenial with the story of the "covetous man" who goes for a fly while carrying huge elephants on his head and shoulders. Remarkably, the story of the "covetous man" is an epigram of greed and rapacity, which often leads to doom. It is amazing how a man at Obasanjo's age and status could be so blinded by greed to have webbed himself in corruption the way he did!

Each passing day, revelations emerge as to how the old chicken farmer enmeshed himself in corruption. From the ground shaking sleaze oozing out from the House of Reps Committee probe on the power sector, to the sordid deals unfolding from the probe of the FCT under the Obasanjo administration, the man stinks of corruption. Ordinarily, one would have ignored some of his criminal activities while in office, but for the fact that he played god during his disastrous tenure.

Last week, a friend told me a story about Chief Obasanjo's deal with MTN, a major service provider in Nigeria's "nascent" GSM telephony industry. I was so shocked by the revelation that I decided to make the story the subject of this column today. It is startling and bizarre, besides depicting the former President as a man with an abnormal propensity for greed and avarice. The story is what I have titled: "Obasanjo and the MTN deal".

According to my friend, a lecturer at the University of Lagos, each time an MTN subscriber loads a recharge card using the code *555*1*, a percentage of the cost of the recharge card goes to Obasanjo's personal account. But when a recharge card is loaded without the mark of "*1", Obasanjo's personal account is denied the commission which he extracted from the service provider as consideration for the grant of licence to operate in Nigeria. He told me that the former President's illegitimate earning from that deal had all these years been treated as sacred and that even the slightest mistake in not crediting Obasanjo's account in any of the transactions was considered a crime, which attracted a summary dismissal.

As I tried to ponder over this benumbing story, another friend of ours confirmed that her two friends had lost their job with the company for inadvertently crediting the percentage that should go to Obasanjo's account to the company's account. She revealed that officers of MTN charged with the responsibility of effecting the paper work from the machine automated account are put on red alert and accordingly dealt with for any mistake or negligence. The position which according to her, has already recorded the sack of her two friends, is considered the "hottest seat" in MTN, especially while Obasanjo was in office.

However, I was further told that with Obasanjo's exit from office, information about that criminal transaction has been leaked to subscribers who now load their MTN recharge cards without the inclusion of figure "1". Random Strokes tried to confirm this story last week and behold, a lot of MTN subscribers seemed to have been aware of it. In fact, the confirmation I got from sampled members of the public was so startling that I had to experiment it in order to verify the claims myself. I bought an MTN recharge card which I loaded by pressing *555* and then the pin code, and behold, my "recharge was successful". I shuddered when I further noticed that MTN has even officially removed the controversial figure "1".

Now, if a President of a country could descend so low to enter into such a petty deal which clearly compromises his high office, how can his government enforce efficient service delivery code on the operators? In that situation, how could the supervisory ministry or agency get such service providers to do the right thing and provide their subscribers services that give them value for their money? Is it possible for the National Communication Commission, NCC, to enforce any performance code on operators in the industry when a President has so belittlingly compromised his office through pecuniary interests?

From the inception of the GSM operation in the country, Nigerians have consistently cried out against the poor services being provided by the companies engaged in the mobile telephone business. The public has maintained that it has been exploited by the service providers who charge high tariffs without making it possible for consumers to enjoy the services paid for as is the case in other parts of the world. Consistently Nigerians have shouted themselves hoarse in their demand for government's intervention to no avail. In frustration, most of the time, they call for the head of Engineer Ernest Ndukwe, the Vice-Chairman of the NCC, without factoring in the man's constraints. Certainly, Ndukwe cannot go beyond the powers allowed his office by a megalomaniac and avaricious President who goes for every available kobo for his personal pocket.

That is why the impunity of the Obasanjo administration still persists in the GSM industry till today. Because of the manner they entered the industry, virtually all of the service providers care less about the customers' interest. This culture of impunity is made worse by the deliberate absence of a functional cunsumer protection law that would put their activities in check, and keep them on their toes. As a consequence, the GSM providers in Nigeria operate virtually in a "sellers' market", with the result that the customers are treated with a fait accompli. Any wonder that the MTN has virtually crashed in recent times?

In the face of the agonising poor services delivered, what the regulators of the GSM industry do is to rely on what they call the "GSM Consumers' Parliament", which has largely remained a talkshop. Whereas the same companies are made to give their customers value for their money in other countries where they operate, through the instrumentality of law, in Nigeria they are allowed to function as lords of the manor and therefore above the law. But it was really bound to be so, given the immoral deals they struck with the authorities before they were issued licences to operate in Nigeria.

Certainly, there is no way a company which pays a percentage of its earnings to those in authority would care a hoot how its customers feel, especially in the midst of scarcity. Sad enough, Nigeria is about the only country, which leaves its citizens to their individual devices as far as the protection of their interest is concerned. Whereas the business philosophy of "the customer is king" guides commercial transactions elsewhere, such does not have any meaning in our clime. Unfortunately, the undue pressure exerted on Nigerians by penury and want has made it practically impossible for us to resist any humiliation, no matter how severe it may be. This sorry situation is worsened by the cant of the elite class, which has appropriated our national patrimony to itself.

Perhaps, the House of Reps or the Senate should launch an investigation into the GSM operations in Nigeria with a view to establishing why the service providers treat us with impunity. In the process, such a probe may likely fish out those public officials who have compromised the "sacred mandate" of their office and bring them to book. Let the probes go on and let the rotten heads involved in corruption roll!

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