By Safiu Kehinde
The world seemed to have come to an end earlier today for MTN users who experienced a sudden shut down of the largest telecommunication network in Nigeria.
MTN users across the country were thrown into a state of confusion over what appeared like an apocalypse after the telecommunication network suffered from outage earlier today.
Without prior notice, MTN subscribers experienced another telecommunication disappointment within a short span of days after Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp did the same.
The disruption in MTN’s service was a display of regulatory laxity and disregard to consumer rights, according to an aggrieved user.
The user further cited the Consumer Code Practice Regulation as curtailed in the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) Code. According to the user, “The Code prescribed that in the circumstance of service disruption, a service provider must give advance warning to consumers. In addition, the service provider must state details, duration, and areas that will be affected by such disruption.”
Meanwhile, it can be recalled that MTN allegedly warned Nigerians of service disruption back in June. TechCrunch reported that the telecommunication service provider expressed their concern over the rise of insecurity across Nigeria.
“Sadly, we must inform you that with the rising insecurity in different parts of Nigeria, service delivery to your organization may be impacted in the coming days. This means that in some cases, our technical support team may not be able to get to your site and achieve optimum turnaround time in fault management as quickly as possible,” MTN reportedly said in the message.
Two days after, MTN disregarded the allegation, labelling it as “misleading media coverage”. They further claimed that the message was a routine notification to a small group of businesses affected by a specific challenge in very few specific location.
During the incident, MTN Nigeria CEO, Karl Toriola, mentioned that any potential disruption will be communicated firstly to their consumers before such happened.
“In line with MTN Nigeria’s standard practice, this includes communicating to and informing customers of any potential disruptions in a timely manner, whether due to maintenance on the network, outages due to faults or other circumstances that may pose a risk, enabling them to plan appropriately and put in place business continuity measures,” he said.
However, with no prior information given before today’s service disruption, MTN Nigeria took to their official Facebook page to apologize over the break in transition.
“Some of our customers are having difficulty connecting to the network today. We’re looking into this and are truly sorry for any inconvenience caused,” the post read.
