No doubt these are not the best of times for Plateau state, and for its governor, the main priority would be restoring the famed peace on the plateau, but that wasn’t what Governor Jonah Jang bargained when he made an unexpected faux pas on MTN Nigeria over a call centre manager’s decision to vacate the state for reasons of insecurity and safety of staff.

When news first broke on social media that the Plateau state government had called on residents and indigenes of the state to boycott services of MTN Nigeria, it was taken as one off the ever rolling mills of Nigeria’s rumour banks.

However, Yiljap Abraham, plateau state commissioner for information and communication, said last week in paid advertisement in select national newspapers that the state government took the decision following what he termed the mobile providers’ “discriminatory remuneration and underpayment of the over 1, 700 workers at the MTN Jos Call Centre, majority of whom are citizens of Plateau state, in comparison to their colleagues in other Call Centres across the country.”

The Plateau government has even set up a coordinating office let by its director-general, research and planning in the governor’s office to monitor and collate the effectiveness of its boycott call (or is it order?).

How do you order citizens to boycott services of a mobile operator that offers you the biggest coverage? What peace message would you be serving calling for a boycott when the issues could have been resolved otherwise if properly investigated?

Wale Goodluck, corporate services executive (CSE), of MTN Nigeria noted that the call centre was operated by an outsourced partner, Messrs CNSSL who employed about 650 staff. So it wasn’t yet up to the figure of 1, 700. The MTN CSE noted that the centre was to ultimately grow to employ about 2, 200 personnel.

He stated that continued ethno-religion violence in the state had put the lives of the call centre staff at risk prompting CNSSL to shut down the centre.

“MTN chose to open the call centre facilities in Jos with the hope of contributing to peace and harmony in the city by gainfully engaging the youth. It is sad that we are no longer in a position to do so, as our partners have had to close shop due to the prevailing situation in the area,” said Goodluck.

For a government desirous of maintaining good corporate relationship, especially with multinational big spenders, Governor Jang ought to have explored other avenues of mitigating the operator’s concern about security of its staff rather than choosing the war path.

Instead of stating: “MTN is not the only service provider and the obvious option for Plateau state citizens is to have recourse to alternative GSM services;” the government needed to have called the call centre operator and discussed terms of engagements.

No doubt Plateau state remains a keg of gun powder in the Nigeria security equation. Not until the deep rooted socio-ethnic-religious issues dividing the citizens are resolved, boycotting services of a mobile operator would rather add to the burden.

Often times, those who govern us appear oblivion of the real issues but rather chose to chase shadows as demonstrated by Governor Jang. By glossing over the Plateau crisis and using MTN as a scapegoat, Jang may possibly be opening up a Pandora’s Box.

Nigeria still grapples with issue of quality of service offered by operators. Broadband penetration remains a herculean task without feasible solutions in sight. Telecom services although largely seen as a big success story, remain largely an urban phenomenon.

Plateau state and the entire north region, (except Abuja) remains underserved due largely to factors other than insecurity. The issue of insecurity occasioned by activities of al Qaeda linked terrorists groups only adds to exacerbate an already bad situation.

Whereas Governor Jang, would want citizens to believe the call centre was direct investment of MTN Nigeria, truth is that CNSSL (communication network support services limited) is a wholly owned Nigerian ‘telecom support services company with expertise in design, implementation and maintenance of fibre optic cable networks, copper networks, access networks, and VSAT/ wireless networks.’

Writing in a post by Emeka Oparah, Airtel Nigeria Communications Diretor on facebook last week several commentators lampooned the governor for his action:

Emeka Ogbeide: You now know why we are where we are! Dis man na governor but na ororo dey him head. How can he produce concrete result? Warning; any location with a military chief executive will be no different. They never depart from barrack autocracy. Edo state just escaped. Watch out for others, joro jara joro.

Ifeyenwa Chybe: If this is quite tru…….pls i suggest he need medicals……

Ken Ogujiofor: What a shame, relocation of call centre which employs 1700 workers is more important to Jang than the security of about 3m people within Jos and environ to be d front burner for his state executive meeting. We sure do have ladders (sorry LEADERS) in this country. Next time they will meet to issue orders for boycott of beef by indigenes as a result of Fulani cattle rearers attack.

This is one experiment going awry and for Plateau government and indigenes, they still have time on their hand to ameliorate the situation by calling on the affected parties for meaningful dialogue.

Definitely, it is in the best interest of both parties to get the call centre up and working – it saves employment burden for the Plateau state government, raises MTN’s profile in the national spread and increases capacity of the young graduates who finds job in these centres.