Nitel, Nigerian Telecommunications Limited, was the government corporation company with statutory responsibility for the provision of telephony and related services in Nigeria. Over time, as a monopoly, Nitel threw away the concept of customer-centric business ethos. As the only telecoms service provider in a huge country, they arbitrarily determined the installation cost of a telephone line, the service tariff, and the lead time from application to line installation and activation. None of these considerations was driven by market forces.
We remember the factors that led to the behemoth’s inevitable death. Nitel died at a time the telecoms industry, in which it was a monopoly, was opened up to players with business acumen and agility. The newcomers grabbed the opportunity that Nitel had on a platter of gold and threw away due to the greed and shortsightedness of its managers, as well as government interference. As an applicant for a telephone line, you had to pay for poles and cables to take the service from the nearest service point to your home or office. This was not cheap! To get approval, a lot of hands had to be greased. Nitel was the centre of sleaze where bribery and corruption walked on all fours! The Minister of Communications, their supervising minister, famously said that “telephones are not for the poor”.
While the rich or powerful were able to get telephone service, as inefficient as it was, the rest of the people had had to do with a few lines installed at the Nitel offices. It was common to find people in long queues at Nitel offices waiting to make telephone calls. In many cases, after paying the required fee, the connected line went dead. You may be lucky to say a few words before that happened. Other long-suffering customers in the queue pushed you out to take their turn and try their luck! No refunds were made.
When cybercafe businesses began in the early nineties with the advent of the internet, those who needed to install telephone lines for commercial purposes had Nitel to contend with. When I needed a telephone for my cybercafe at Aerodrome Close in Benin City, the Nitel manager, an MBA course mate, demanded a bribe of N20,000 in addition to the exorbitant fees. I opted for an internet phone which started working the same day it was bought. Nitel lost a customer through greed and inefficiency. It is likely that this experience happened throughout Nigeria.
When the Obasanjo government opened up the telecoms space to private investors about 2000, Nitel got a preferential treatment. While MTN, Econet Wireless (now Airtel) and Globacom paid exorbitant license fees, Nitel was awarded a telecom license as a government baby. That was how Mtel was born. While all the newly licensed companies had to install new masts, hire offices, install multi-million-dollar equipment and hire staff, Nitel which had the advantage of nationwide presence and telecom masts across the federation, failed to maximize their advantage.
They did not realize that the game had changed. Customers dropped their inefficient and overcharged Nitel lines for the new mobile handsets that everyone could take along, make calls and send SMS messages. I bought my first line (Econet wireless) in 2001. The first buyers of MTN sim cards paid N50,000 per line. Nigerians were prepared to pay for the convenience that the new gsm service offered! Nitel gradually got abandoned. Mtel could not cope. It attempted to take Nigerian League skills and attitudes to a Premiership game against Arsenal.
Today, the power companies who inherited NEPA assets, are treading the same path. They bill for services not rendered, promise meters that never come, meters that ought to be free get sold behind the scenes. Like the Communications Minister of old who said telephones are not for the poor, the distribution companies now give uninterrupted power only to the rich who can pay the Band A exploitative tariff. The rest are given NEPA rationing treatment – Never Expect Power Always!
The rich they want to exploit, who can pay the high tariffs, soon discover that they cannot do so sustainably. Many of them are migrating to solar power as you can deduce from the rooftops bearing solar panels across the land. Those with enough resources disconnect totally from the grid and DISCOS lose massive revenues as a result. River Park Estate is one of the highbrow sprawling residential neighbourhoods along Airport Road in Abuja. That estate is on band A supplied by AEDC. Majority of the houses and businesses there today have disconnected from grid power supply. So has ASO Rock that assured us of regular power supply during the campaigns of 2023.
There is no one who experienced the Nitel tumble and death who would not discern a similar pattern developing in the Nigerian power sector today. The signs are ominous. When the government itself, and those who can pay sustainable tariffs are voting with their feet, how will Gencos and Discos survive? That is the billion-naira question.
By Austin Isikhuemen, 29th September, 2026.
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