Nigeria is undergoing a real clash between President Muhammadu Buhari and the South African mobile operator MTN, accused the president of having favored the militant Islamist group Boko Haram . Already several months ago, the Communications Commission (NCC) has fined the phone giant for 3.9 billion dollars for not having disabled 5.1 million anonymous SIM cards : all the mobile operators operating in Nigeria, in the middle of 2015, they had been invited to turn off utilities to unidentified customers for safety reasons. The deadline granted by the Nigerian authorities was just a week: “It is known to all as the SIM from being used by terrorists [...] and this is the reason why the NCC has asked MTN, GLO and others to the ID numbers of users. [...] Unfortunately, MTN has been very slow and this has played an important role in causing more casualties at the hands of Boko Haram. This is the reason why the NCC consulted the law and imposed a fine “ Buhari himself explained to reporters, quoted by Jeune Afrique .
The question is very important, in Africa a working SIM card and a mobile phone can literally save a life or another mieterne: Buhari, who used verbal assaults MTN on the sidelines of the security with ‘ South African counterpart Jacob Zuma, on a visit to Abuja at the head of a large delegation of South African businessmen and politicians, has focused almost all the election campaign and more recently his speech at the last African Union summit was built entirely around the question security.
Even 9 March 2016 of the Nigerian House of Representatives has called for an audition the chief of staff of President Buhari, Alhaji Abba Kyari, to report on his alleged involvement in the agreement between MTN and the Commission.
MTN has already made a provision of 9.8 billion Rand (about 550 million euro, half of which has already been paid) and late February announced for 2015 a decline of more than 50 per cent of earnings over the previous year, just because of the NCC fine and explaining not not want to comply with the request of the Nigerian authorities, but it has not been able to do in so little time.
the 3.9 billion dollar fine worth as much as a year and a half of the total turnover of the South African telecom giant, which before the order to deactivate anonymous SIM has allowed millions of customers buy a phone card without being identified initially MTN had been fined US $ 5.2 billion ($ 1,000 for each anonymous client) but after negotiations with the Nigerian authorities the fine was reduced. The giant South African telecommunications in Nigeria has its main market, with 63,000,000 customers, and operates in 22 countries across both Africa and the Middle East.
In short, policies of private companies are not targeted only structures such as the FBI or the Brazilian government: in recent months there are many in the telecommunications sector companies to have abandoned the Nigeria , one of the markets flourishing across Africa, precisely because of the restrictions and new security measures required by the Abuja authorities. In Nigeria you can end up arrested and accused of terrorism and threats to national security if found in possession of a letterhead anonymous SIM to someone else but this is an absolute novelty in the African view: no one, until now, had never dared to get angry with mobile operators. This is because the phone companies are the foundation of the African economy as well as the main carrier of the technological leap of the continent, containers very popular advertising and sponsor spaces of various social activities: in this regard the words of Buhari against MTN, spoken not by chance in the presence of the President of South Africa, have a decidedly political flavor.
in fact the words of the Nigerian President has a double implication: Nigeria is not the only country to give a close on the spread and use of anonymous SIM – Cameroon in August 2015 decided to identify and register all SIM cards in circulation, 8 million customers, and the same thing happened in Burkina Faso after the attacks of 15 January – but right now the most urgent concern of the Abuja government quell the bud, preferably in international silence, the revolt in Biafra.
the match between Biafra and Nigeria is played on two fronts , on both of which Abuja seems to do the lion’s share. The first front is judicial and is staged at the Federal High Court in the Nigerian capital, where it is in place a tug of war between Judge John Tsoho and Mazi Nnamdi Kanu , a member of the organization separatist Indigenous people of Biafra (IPOB) and director of Radio Biafra in London: the Court refuses, so controversial, to grant bail to Kanu, among the recognized leaders of the separatists in Biafra. According to a IBTimes Italy by spokespersons IPOB Barrister Emma Nmezu and Clifford Chukwuemeka Iroanya the judge Tsoho would be imposed directly by the President Buhari with the promise to become the next Chief Justice of the Federal Court.
the second front instead it plays all locally, in Biafra, where it is increasingly strong repression by the army sent from Abuja to quell the riots separatist , mostly peaceful. In a press release the delegate dell’IPOB Anderline Amamgbo appealed to Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International to monitor the human rights situation in Biafra: January 9, 28 people were reportedly killed by the army Nigerian, another 16 between 22 and February 24, 26 rather than 22 people were arrested as they returned from the rite of burial of other activists killed by the military, and targeted killings occur almost daily, according to the complaint IPOB.
L ‘ body representing the people of Biafra also states that Buhari uses for the suppression of the riots in Biafra former members of Boko Haram but this information is to be verified: as is evident in IBTimes Italy State the army would employ Muslim soldiers previously stationed in northern Nigeria, in the territories occupied by Boko Haram . The reason would be to “vent” about the Biafran – Christians for the most part – the soldiers frustrated by the fact that he had to fight previously against other Muslims, even if Islamists.
Following on national security and close on telephony operators, the interests of the government of Abuja and President Muhammadu Buhari is to prevent the situation in Biafra can escalate in terms of documentation made available to the international public: there are currently very few and poorly equipped, the Western journalists in Biafra and white is almost impossible to reach the Nigerian federal state. Abuja does not issue permits for foreigners to travel to Biafra and monitor the protests and repression, and this is an advantage that the government in Abuja can not afford to lose.
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