MTN Apologises To Customers, Explains Outage

• Says ‘Fibre Cuts Affecting Voice, Data Services’
• NCC insists on Feb 28 deadline for SIM to NIN connection

BY EDMOND ODOK – Telecommunications giant, MTN Nigeria has apologised to its stranded customers over the network outage experienced for the major part of Wednesday, February 28, 2024, blaming the challenge on “multiple fibre cuts” in the network.

Against the backdrop of Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC)’s directives that telecom service providers should bar subscribers who have failed to link their phone numbers to their National Identification Numbers (NINs) on or before February 28, 2024, the MTN offices nationwide became a pilgrimage centre of sorts millions of stranded subscribers.

With many businesses witnessing sharp downturn due to the outage, reports showed that many Nigerians trooped to the MTN offices nearest to them demanding explanations on the challenging network issues they were experiencing all day.

Forefront News findings indicate that the about 87 million subscribers of MTN experienced difficulty making and receiving calls for hours during the Wednesday outage, a development that further fuelled speculations that the NCC may have carried out its threat given the expiration of February 28, 2024 deadline.

However, writing on its official X (formerly Twitter) handle, MTN blamed the unfortunate development on “multiple fibre cuts”, saying; “You have been experiencing challenges connecting to the network due to a major service outage caused by multiple fibre cuts affecting voice and data services.

“Our engineers are working hard to resolve with services gradually being restored in some areas. We apologise for the inconvenience and ask for your patience and understanding as the team works to restore full service as soon as possible.”

Available statistics with the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) indicate that MTN has over 87,038,768 subscribers as of December 2023, representing about 38.79 percent of the total market share, and the highest by any licensed Mobile Network Operator (MNO) in the country.

Interestingly, the network problem reared its ugly head on a day that the NCC had set as the deadline for telecom service providers to bar subscribers who have failed to link their phone numbers to their NIN.

The Commission’s Executive Vice Chairman, Aminu Maida, who spoke through the Director of Public Affairs, Ruben Mouka, at the 45th Kaduna International Trade Fair on Wednesday, said as a matter of critical national security, telecom consumers must link their NINs to their SIM cards or stay disconnected from the network.