Minister of Communications, Adebayo Shittu

The Federal Government on Monday confirmed that MTN Nigeria has paid N80bn of the N330bn fine imposed on it for failing to deactivate more than five million unregistered Subscriber Identification Module cards.

This was disclosed at the News Agency of Nigeria Forum in Abuja by the Minister of Communications, Mr. Adebayo Shittu. He said the company paid the sum for the first year.

MTN was initially fined $5.2bn (N1.04tn) for failing to deactivate more than five million unregistered SIM cards. However, the fine was later reduced to N330bn.

The minister sauid: “For the first year, they paid N80bn, including the initial N50bn, and they will have to pay for three years until they will complete the N330bn.

“It was inconceivable; so, when the thing was added N200,000 times 5.2 million lines, it came to N1tn plus.”