Opposition to NITEL liquidation

Nigerian politicians are opposing a plan to liquidate the assets of the state-owned telco, NITEL, claiming that the Bureau of Public Enterprise (BPE) is ignorant of its actual worth.

In 2006 local company Transcorp bought a 75 per cent stake in NITEL for US$750 million during an earlier privatisation sale, but the government reclaimed the stake in 2009 following several years of neglect.

Since then there have been three aborted attempts to sell the company, with the last failing in June 2011 when the Omen International Consortium, backed by China Unicom, failed to pay a required US$105 million deposit on the sale.

Chairman of the Senate Committee on Privatisation and Commercialisation, Senator Gbenga Obadara has however said that NITEL’s liquidation would be harmful to the interest of Nigeria and Nigerians.

The director-general of BPE, Bolanle Onagoruwa has previously said that NITEL and its mobile network subsidiary, MTEL has debts of around US$2.2 billion.