Talks over $3.9 billion fine imposed MTN Nigeria between President Zuma, visiting Nigeria, and President Buhari have yielded results, fin24.com reveals. Indeed, Nigeria’s president, Muhammadu Buhari, at a joint press conference held on March 8, 2016, with his South African counterpart, said “NCC will find ways to reduce the fine and give MTN more time to gradually pay”.

MTN Nigeria will thus have the chance to renegotiate the $3.9 billion fine which had already been reduced from $5.2 billion in December 2015. At the news conference, President Buhari, for the first time, talked concerning the fine imposed the Nigerian subsidiary of the South African telecom giant, MTN. He told journalists present that the penalty being so severe was not about money but rather about the need to teach companies which operate in the country to respect the laws on which depends its security.

“You know how terrorists use unregistered SIM cards... That was why Nigerian Communication Commission (NCC) asked MTN, Glo and other operators to identify their subscribers (…) Unfortunately, MTN was too slow to comply thus allowing Boko Haram to kill more people,” said Buhari. The identification program launched by the Government aimed to improve the fight against Boko Haram who has up till now killed 17,000 people and drove 2.6 million people away from their homes since 2009.