South African mobile phone company, MTN, fuelled the Islamist-led insurgency in Nigeria by failing to disconnect unregistered sim cards, President Muhammadu Buhari said on Tuesday.
Buhari made the comment during a visit to Nigeria by his South African counterpart Jacob Zuma.
Last year, Nigeria fined the South African-owned firm N780billion for missing a deadline to disconnect cards.
Nigeria believes Boko Haram militants use unregistered sim cards to co-ordinate attacks.
“You know how the unregistered [sim cards] are being used by terrorists and between 2009 and today, at least 10,000 Nigerians were killed by Boko Haram,” President Buhari said at a joint press conference with Mr Zuma.
Other mobile phone operators complied with a mid-2015 deadline to register all sim cards, but “unfortunately, MTN was very very slow and contributed to the casualties”, Mr Buhari added, in his first comments on the issue.
Nigeria initially imposed a N1.4trillion fine on MTN in October, but brought it down to N780billion.
Boko Haram has sworn allegiance to Islamic State and often displays its trademark black flag
Buhari said MTN, which was in talks with Nigeria to reduce the fine further, could make gradual payments, Reuters news agency reports.
Last month, MTN said it had dropped court action to challenge the fine, and had paid N50billion as part of efforts to reach an “amicable settlement”.
MTN has 231 million subscribers in 22 countries across Africa, Asia and the Middle East. However, Nigeria is its biggest market.
In September, the company was named as most-admired brand in Africa in the Brand Africa 100 awards, beating Samsung, while it was also awarded the continent’s most valuable brand, worth $4.6bn.
MTN was South Africa’s second mobile operator when it was set up in 1994 after the end of apartheid.
Buhari said it was unfortunate MTN went to court over the fine imposed on it in Nigeria “and once you go to court, you virtually disarm the government, because if the Federal government refuses to listen to the judiciary, it is going against its own constitution.
“Therefore, the government has to wait and I think MTN has seen that and decided to withdraw the case and try to go back and negotiate with government agencies on what they consider a very stiff fine can be reduced or may be given time to pay gradually.”
Zuma, on his part, spoke on the xenophobic attacks in South Africa by citizens of the country against other African nationals.
he said Nigeria and South Africa are currently working the issue of confiscated funds.
“Relevant structures are working on it and there are some that have been discovered and recovered, but there are some that the necessary departments are doing investigation. We would certainly appreciate if we succeed in recovering all other issues so that they would be returned back,” he said.
On Xenophobia, Mr. Zuma said it was an unfortunate experience because, as he said “all Africans are the same. It is the colonialists through borders that make us to think we are different from one another”.
He said as far as the South Africa government is concerned, all Africans are the same and that view is what is being used to address the unfortunate incidence of xenophobia adding, “we believe we have dealt with these issues and we need this kind of inter action among countries.
“We like our people in both countries and other countries to realize that we are the same. We have the same objectives and the same interest and we have the same kind of destination as Africans,” he said.
Zuma said Nigeria and South Africa have signed over 30 bilateral agreements and memoranda of understanding.
These agreements, he said, cover a wide range of cooperation areas including trade and industry, transport, energy, defence and security and immigration among others.
“We have directed the relevant Ministers to move with speed in implementing all signed agreements.
“We have also directed our Ministers to identify joint projects in the key high impact strategic development areas, which will have socio-economic benefits such as employment creation to our peoples,” he said.
