Like the Draconian measures that were
doled out on the Israelites by Pharaoh’s stooges, having them make bricks from
nothingness, MTN has done no other than ferociously rape the proverbial goose
that lays the golden egg-Nigeria. Sans a scintilla of sympathy, in over a
decade of carrying out its telecommunications business in Nigeria, MTN garnered
over 35 million subscribers in oil rich Africa’s pride but what percentage
of these devotees are genuinely happy?
They endure the eccentrics of this service
provider like a wife whose love for her husband has run dry but remains in a
sour marriage out of obligation, societal values and the future of her seeds.
Like several other Nigerians, I was also stuck in
that catastrophic and dysfunctional marriage to a Machiavellian who rapes me of
air time as he pleases, never gives me bonuses even in festive periods, avariciously
yanks away my subscription fee but never gives me internet till my blood
pressure almost reaches 250 from nagging and works an irksome voodoo on my
data, making it disappear magically.
But I stay married to this piece of garbage, why?
I tell myself these hideous lies, like several other wives of the beast- ‘he is
my first love (my first phone line), we have many children (all my contacts
know this line), and we have been married for so long (I have used this line
for over a decade).
The truth actually is that we all fear a divorce
because we know deep in our hearts its impacts on our lives – businesses and jobs.
How do we wake up and throw into the incinerator a SIM card we have used to
build our businesses? We fear we may lose our clients and our concerns are
genuine. For this reason, we stay, bleating our euphoria dry in an ill fitted
marriage. I did the same too, till our husband went totally crazy and started
shutting us out.
He called it – SIM card re-registration and we
were all caught in the middle of the crossfire. Could you forget the SIM
registration brouhaha? I couldn’t even if I tried but our husband made the National
Communications Commissions (NCC) his alibi.
Insisting it was the body’s directive and subtle threatened us to get re-registered or have our phone lines
disconnected. At least, the lucky subscribers got the pre-information; some
were just cut off without prior notification. However, in the sea of these traumatic
experiences, Nigerians marched out in multitudes- hundreds and thousands of
Nigerians stormed MTN offices nationwide to comply with a directive that was
brutishly disseminated or not.
I remember visiting the MTN office at the cradle about three months ago-
precisely in September while the storm of SIM re-registration fiercely raged.
What I was unfortunate to behold that hellish day in Lagere, Ile-Ife awakened
the dragon that has been for centuries, innocuously asleep inside of me.
I saw the scorching sun roasting a heavily pregnant woman tottering at
the edge of labour pains, students who had deserted their school work sat on
burning concretes waiting for the registration exercise to begin. The aged men,
whose heads have become a forest of grey, leaned on parked cars for support and
in a split second, a protest brimmed as irate youths protested the mannerism of
attendants. But in the face of all of these tribulations, Nigerians remain in
this marriage, enduring a union from the pit of hell like the proverbial
patient dog. Turning the other cheek demurely like a docile woman, dusk turns
into dawn, days into weeks, weeks into months and months transform into years
of enslavement.
Alas, providence threw that dog a
very fleshy bone and simultaneously delivered the docile woman of her dumbness
as the NCC slammed MTN Nigeria the super mega N1.04trn fine.
Who says the God of the tailless cow is asleep? Please have a rethink
for it was he who showed up for Nigerians hooked in devastating matrimony with
this beast.
Not one Nigerian that I know and share this husband with, displayed a
tinge of sympathy for His Royal Highness, the great usurper of the nation’s telecommunication
realm as the tenebrous wind uprooted him.
Consequently,
our insensitive, inconsiderate and obnoxious husband began to kowtow as he
realised the destruction his once docile wife has grown capable of unleashing.
He saw the volte face in her and trembled as her power grew beyond his
imagination.
In desperation, he began to seek out the elders, wishing their wisdom
could cool the impending eruption of molten magma from the bosom of a pained
ex-lover but the elders, like Humpty Dumpty, sat still and fiddled away.
All pleas by the
MTN Group to make President Muhammadu Buhari intervene in the N1trillion fine
slammed on it by the NCC, fell on stony grounds like some of the seeds of the
proverbial Sower from the parable in the new testament of the holy writ.
‘Stop begging, pay the fine’,
‘that serves you right’; ‘just what MTN deserves’ and a myriad of other songs
of triumph rent the national atmospheric.
Now that the chips are down, the lion is running from pillar to post,
groveling like a common dog, beseeching the presidency for pardon and the NCC,
for discount.
The latter had been benevolent enough to grant a 25 or is it 35 per cent
discount on the huge fine? That isn’t my concern. I maintain however that our husband must makes restitution and paying that fine is a
beautiful start.
Now, I relish the words of great Newton “to every action, there is equal
and opposite reaction” but for the sake of the non- scientific minds, I will
say it in ancient Sanskrit- karma – “the sum of a person’s action in this and
previous states of existence.” Yes, this is sweet nemesis for MTN and our
husband must dance naked in the full moon, he must pay his debts! We have taken
the bad services; unavailable network and no service provided by the self
acclaimed service provider demurely but today, is vindication day.
Though he tries to buy back our love with free airtime attached to
re-registration, I have taken the bold stop to end this unholy matrimony, I
ported, I left MTN after over a decade and ironically, I am enjoying the bliss
of divorce. While our husband struggles to pay alimony, he must understand that
perhaps, he won’t be losing only one wife, are more subscribers going to break
the sacred vows?
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