The spiralling rate of unemployment has
made the need to bring in foreign direct
investment a buzzword especially among
junketing public officials to justify their
frequent travels. The relationship
between the so-called investors and the
regulatory agencies is akin to that of a cat
and mouse as it’s a well-known fact that
the investors have scant regard for the
nation’s laws and carry on with the toga
of indispensability.
The Nigerian Communications
Commission issues a clear directive on
the deactivation of SIM lines in
performance of a statutory duty. The
South African telecommunication giants,
MTN Nigeria, still went ahead to fail to
deactivate well over five million lines
without biometric verification since
August this year and has thereby
attracted a fine of $5.2bn to be paid on
November 16.
For the first time, our dormant regulatory
agency has attracted global respect as the
news of the sanction led to a 25 per cent
loss of its market capitilisation, its share
trading being placed on technical
suspension in the Johannesburg Stock
Exchange and the resignation of its Chief
Executive Officer in South Africa, Sifiso
Dabengwa. The Iroko has truly bellowed
as the Nigerian market with the largest
population in Africa is not one that can be
ignored. MTN has implicitly admitted that
it is guilty of the infraction as it has not
contested the position of the NCC so far
whether in court or out of it. What it has
been pleading for is some sort of leniency
as the fine would take a heavy toll on its
operations.
Impunity has been a problem the nation
has been dealing with in its thorny
relationship with investors. The foreigners
have taken advantage of our weak
institutions especially with regards to our
regulators to give us a raw deal. The
international oil companies have wrecked
the environments of their host
communities with their persistent oil
spills and their slap in the wrist fines
which hardly clean up the battered
communities. From Shell to Chevron, it
has been tales of agony, tears and blood
by the impoverished communities whose
lands and rivers have rendered farming
and fishing impossible. This is the remote
cause of the militancy in the Niger Delta
region as the penalties the IOCs get are
worse than ludicrous jokes. The Chinese
and Indians exploit our workers with
reckless abandon and nothing happens.
There was the case of a Chinese company
which used to lock up its premises and
there was a fire incident which killed
some Nigerian members of staff. The
Nigerian authorities simply looked the
other way as business and life simply
went on. It’s an open secret that there is
no insurance policy for factory workers
who handle deadly chemicals with most
of them not even given safety kits and
the dearth of Health, Safety and
Environment in these sweat shops.
The inertia of the regulatory authorities is
not the case in other climes especially in
the advanced economies. In Japan for
example where there is relative job
security, foreign investors are forced to
ensure the job security of the employees
of their host countries despite the
vagaries of a free economy which may not
make it profitable in all cases. British
Petroleum will now pay $18.7bn in the
largest oil spill compensation in world
history. The American justice department
and four other states successfully sued
the oil giants and the Heavens didn’t fall.
The fine against MTN wouldn’t make the
Heavens fall either. It will even be a
surreptitious compensation for its poor
services. Many Nigerians including this
writer have been victims of the brazen
deductions of airtime by the
telecommunications giant and our
collective helplessness in our quest for
justice. It’s high time that the fear of our
regulatory authorities became the
beginning of wisdom for these conceited
so-called foreign investors who trample
on the rights of the proletariat with so
much contempt and scorn.
Some Nigerians especially the Chairman
of the Silverbird Group and the Senator
representing Bayelsa East on the platform
of the opposition Peoples Democratic
Party, Ben Murray-Bruce, raised an alarm
that the fine was sending a wrong signal
to investors on the harshness of the
regulatory authorities and that the act of
the NCC would discourage them from
trooping in. It is sad that a section of
Nigerians could prefer the mediocrity
being exhibited by our regulatory
authorities and the unhealthy power
being enjoyed by the investors. Should
we take bunkum because we want every
Tomiwa, Dike and Haruna to come in and
further exploit us in our own country?
Should we become hewers of wood and
drawers of water in our motherland
because we want to bend over backwards
to appease the insatiable appetite of the
so-called foreign investors who would
continue their rape and pillage of us till
they get tired and move on to saner
climes?
Foreign investors would be happy that our
regulatory agencies are working as this
would be assured that they won’t be
operating in a Thomas Hobbesian jungle
where nothing works. Every investor
wants to be assured of some sort of sanity
and not the madness that is currently
going on. The MTN deterrence would not
in any way prevent them from coming in;
rather it would make them more
sensitive to the needs of the people and
operate within the ambits of the legal
system. If they decide to pack up and go
because we stuck to our guns and insisted
on doing the right thing, their loss would
be our gain as the other giants would
simply share the booty without the loss
of a single job. Let us stop being ruled by
fear as nature abhors a vacuum.
November 16, 2015 which is also the
111th posthumous birthday of one of our
founding fathers, Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe,
should be the dawn of a new era in the
advent of the death to impunity beginning
with the telecommunications sector and
then surreptitiously spreading to all other
sectors of the economy. The NCC should
resist any pressure to reduce the fine as
that would make it a toothless bull dog
and the object of scorn and derision.
MTN should fully face the music.
