Telecom
MTN, Etisalat Ask Court to Dismiss Subscribers’ Suit
Telecommunications companies, MTN Nigeria Communications Limited and Etisalat Nigeria, have asked a Federal High Court in Lagos to dismiss a suit filed against them by aggrieved subscribers whose lines were allegedly wrongfully deactivated.
Airtel Nigeria and Globacom Nigeria are also joined as defendants in the suit filed as a class action by two Lagos-based lawyers, Ayodeji Olorunkunle and Oluyinka Oyeniyi and seven others.
The plaintiffs sued for the enforcement of their fundamental rights preserved by sections 34, 37, 42 and 44 of the 1999 Constitution.
They are seeking a declaration that the defendants had mutilated their social status by not only wrongfully deactivating their lines but by also leaving voice prompts for callers stating that “their lines have been barred due to incomplete information.”
The aggrieved subscribers also accused the telecoms companies of “trading in their phone numbers (without their consent) and relaying their bio data to marketing companies,” which inundate them with unsolicited calls and text messages.
They are seeking, among other reliefs, an order of the court mandating the telecoms companies to reactivate and restore their lines to them and to compensate each of them and other members of their class with N1m each.
They also want the court to perpetually restrain the telecoms companies from further trading in their lines by giving their bio data to marketing companies, which place and send unwanted calls and text messages to them.
Besides, the aggrieved subscribers are also seeking published apology in five national dailies to run for one week, in addition to a claim of N10m, being the cost of filing the suit.
But MTN, in its preliminary objection, urged the court to dismiss the plaintiff’s suit for non-compliance with Order IV Rule 1 of the fundamental human rights enforcement action, which stipulates that such an application must be heard within seven days of its filing.
Counsel for MTN, Ike Imo, also argued that the subscribers failed to establish in their affidavit that MTM indeed breached their rights as they claimed.
Imo urged the court to dismiss the suit for want of jurisdiction.
In its counter-affidavit, MTN claimed that its decision to deactivate certain lines followed an instruction given to it by the Nigerian Communications Commission to disconnect all phone lines which were not accurately registered.
It said the lines of the plaintiffs could only have been affected if they had not properly registered their lines.
On alleged unsolicited calls and text messages, MTN said it had secured the permission of NCC to provide telemarketing services to its subscribers adding that the subscribers were at liberty to opt out of the set up which it described as a prevailing practice worldwide.
On its own part, Etisalat, through its counsel, Bolarinwa Osiyale, challenged the jurisdiction of the court.
It described the suit as an abuse of court processes and urged the court to strike out its name as a respondent, for not being a juristic person that could be sued.
Justice Mohammed Yunusa has adjourned till January 19, 2016 to decide the case.
Clydestone Ghana Plc has filed a writ of summons and statement of claim against MTN Ghana, MTN Group Limited and Mobile Money Fintech Limited, alleging unauthorized use of its intellectual property.
The company announced the court action at the Ghana Stock Exchange, confirming proceedings in the Commercial Division of the High Court of Ghana.
The case relates to work commissioned in 2007 that Clydestone alleges was later used without authorisation or compensation.
Clydestone said the claim involves proprietary intellectual property, confidential commercial information and operational methodology developed during the engagement. The company is seeking declarations, damages and equitable remedies.
In a statement, Clydestone said MTN Ghana engaged it in 2007 to develop a commercial and operational framework for a mobile money business.
“The work was developed and delivered by the company’s founder and Group CEO, Paul Jacquaye, and included a full mobile money ecosystem covering the commercial model, operational architecture, implementation methodology and business case.”
Clydestone said the work was commissioned on the understanding that a non-disclosure agreement and memorandum of understanding would be signed.
It alleges these agreements were not finalised despite repeated requests.
The company further alleges MTN Ghana later used its proprietary work and methodology without authorisation or compensation, including in MTN Mobile Money Ghana and other markets.
Clydestone said the alleged use has continued since the launch of MTN Mobile Money Ghana in 2009.
“The wrongful use of that work has been ongoing since 2009. What has changed is the availability of independently verifiable information that documents its scale and commercial significance,” the company said.
It cited the GSMA State of the Industry Report on Mobile Money 2026 and MTN Ghana’s 2025 annual report as evidence of the platform’s scale.
According to Clydestone, the reports show approximately 19.3 million active users and annual revenue of about GHS 6.0 billion ($516m).
The company said it reviewed its records following these publications and concluded there were sufficient grounds to initiate legal proceedings.
It added that it has received no payment or acknowledgement for the work since December 2007, and that pre-action correspondence in 2026 received no substantive response.
“The Board of Directors has unanimously authorised the commencement of these proceedings,” the company said.
Jacquaye said: “This case is about accountability for commissioned intellectual property.
“When independent publications in 2025 and 2026 revealed the scale of the mobile money business, we reviewed all documentation relating to the original engagement and concluded these proceedings were necessary.”
MTN Group Limited, named as a defendant, had not commented at the time of publication.
In a development that underscores the fragile state of Nigeria’s telecommunications grid, an incident of infrastructure vandalism in Delta State has severely disrupted network connectivity, leaving thousands of subscribers stranded.
The breach, where a robber attacked the sites, occurred at an IHS-managed telecom node in the ASB region on July 8, 2026, immediately knocking 33 base stations offline across 2G, 3G, and 4G spectrums.
The situation in the region escalated drastically by morning when a separate fibre-optic cable cut severed primary transmission lines. Because the compromised node serves as a critical fibre convergence point, the secondary fibre cut triggered a cascading failure.
This secondary disruption ballooned the number of dark sites from 33 to 103, temporarily paralysing digital communications, banking, and commerce in the affected communities.
Industry sources reveal that the financial and logistical toll of such incidents is becoming unsustainable for Mobile Network Operators (MNOs).
Currently, network providers are utilising 20 per cent more spare parts than initially budgeted for the fiscal year.
This unpredictable depletion of technical reserves has stripped operators of their supply buffers, making inventory management and financial forecasting increasingly difficult for telecom executives.
Consequently, engineering teams have been forced to cannibalise materials originally designated for network expansion and new site rollouts just to perform emergency restorations on the damaged sites.
This diversion of resources significantly delays the rollout of new infrastructure, stifling the nation’s broader broadband penetration targets and stalling anticipated revenue generation for the telecom companies.
The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) recently noted an average of 1,744 weekly attacks on telecom infrastructure nationwide, including over 1,100 fibre cuts.
As operators endure protracted back-and-forth negotiations with insurance firms to cover these sudden hardware losses, stakeholders are intensifying calls for the strict enforcement of the Federal Government’s recent designation of telecom assets as Critical National Information Infrastructure (CNII) to safeguard Quality of Service (QoS).
Viral rumors about a “Tesla Pi Phone” a new phone, being developed by Elon Musk, CEO and largest shareholder of Tesla and SpaceX, are entirely fake.
AI Generated Tesla Pi Phone and Elon Musk
Instead, the tech giant said on Monday it has filed an application with the US Federal Communications Commission for permission to deploy the constellation by 2028.
It said the system would provide voice, messaging, data and emergency services.
A quick fact-check revealed that Tesla Inc. has never manufactured, developed, or released a smartphone.
Videos and articles claiming a release (often priced between $150 and $800 with solar charging or satellite-only connections) rely on AI-generated concept art and recycled internet hoaxes dating back to 2021.
Musk has only mentioned a phone in hypothetical remarks, stating Tesla would build one only if major app stores completely blocked or censored essential apps like X (formerly Twitter).
On Monday however, his company said that “Amazon looks forward to delivering on the promise of D2D [direct-to-device] connectivity, including to the millions of people living, travelling and working in places beyond the reach of existing networks today,”
The filing is the first step from Amazon into satellite mobile connections, which has until now been dominated by SpaceX’s Starlink service.
Musk’s group has signed partnerships with existing operators such as T-Mobile US and the UK’s Virgin Media O2 to provide phone services for customers where their conventional networks do not reach.
Starlink operates across more than 150 countries, offering high-speed internet connections through its constellation of satellites.
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