Telecom
Airtel to Feed 5000 IDPS at Christmas in ‘Airtel 5 Days of Love’

Telecommunications services provider, Airtel Nigeria, has announced plans to feed 5,000 Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) across five different IDP camps under its annual Christmas programme, “Airtel 5 Days of Love”.
The initiative to distribute 1,000 palliative packs to five select IDP camps in five states across the country over a period of five days will kick off on Monday, 13th December in Ugha IDP Camp, Benue State. Next stop will be in Kasaisa IDP Camp in Damaturu, Yobe State on Tuesday, 14th and on Wednesday, 15th December, we will be at the IDP camp in Ekiti State.
On Thursday, 16th December, the programme will hold in Anka, Zamfara State. The distribution will be concluded at the IDP Camp in Ekende, Ogoja, Cross Rivers State on Friday, 17th December.
Speaking during a virtual press conference yesterday, Surendran Chemmenkotil, Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director, Airtel Nigeria, noted that this year’s edition of “Airtel 5 Days of Love” is symbolic as it coincides with the company’s 20th anniversary in Nigeria which he described as a landmark achievement and glowing testimony to Airtel’s commitment to the government and people of Nigeria.
“Against the backdrop of our 20th anniversary and 20 years of GSM operations in Nigeria, I must express my profound appreciation to all the stakeholders in Nigeria’s telecom’s ecosystem. Airtel appreciates you all and most importantly, we value all our customers, especially those that have been with us since 2001,” said Mr. Chemmenkotil.
The Airtel CEO added that 2021 has been an interesting year and as the year winds down, it will be good for well-meaning individuals and corporate organizations to express love and appreciation to their stakeholders especially the less privileged.
“It is that time of the year when we all count our blessings, appreciate our friends, help and uplift the less privileged and generally show love to one another and everybody.
Aside the special token we are extending to our fellow Nigerians in these five IDP Centres, we would like to seize this opportunity to wish all Nigerians a merry and safe Christmas and prosperous New Year”, the CEO concluded.
The Airtel ‘5 Days of Love’ programme, which is in its 7th edition, is designed to identify with less privileged persons as well as support the downtrodden in communities where Airtel operates.
Through the programme, Airtel says it is uplifting the less privileged and providing support for the vulnerable as this aligns with its overall CSR theme of touching lives and improving the standard of living of the less privileged.
Telecom
PAT Taps Osi as CEO

Pan African Towers (PAT), a Nigerian infrastructure provider serving 9mobile and Spectranet, has appointed Echezona Osi as chief executive officer.

Echezona Osi
Adefolarin Ogunsanya, company’s, board chairman, explained in a statement that Osi would succeed Oladipo Badru, whose tenure lasted nine months in acting CEO position. Osi has more than 28 years of experience in the telecommunications sector across various regions of Africa.
Prior to his appointment as CEO, he had served as the head of network deployment at Airtel Nigeria, operations director and chief technical information officer at MIC Tanzania, chief technology officer roles at IPT PowerTech Nigeria, Rhino Niger Networks and Biswal Nigeria.
He obtained a degree in electrical/ electronic engineering from the University of Benin and a postgraduate diploma in data science and business analytics from the University of Texas.
Telecom
NCC Introduces N10m Licence Fee for Bulk SMS Service

Companies sending bulk international text messages, also known as Application-to-Person (A2P) messages, will now have apply for a licence that costs N10 million.
This is part of new rules introduced by the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) aimed at cleaning up the system, fighting fraud, blocking spam messages and stopping money from leaving the country unchecked.
These A2P messages are the kind customers get from banks, online stores, hospitals and political campaigns, automated texts sent from apps to their phones.
According to the commission, the bulk international text message system has been poorly regulated, allowing misuse and invasion of privacy.
“The International SMS Service Ecosystem in Nigeria has not been fully brought under regulatory control. It has been observed that the excessive use of the Short Message Service has led to fraud, spam and illegal activities,” the NCC said.
The regulator warned that without action, the problem would worsen as more people use mobile phones and digital services.
To solve this, the NCC is creating a central platform, or gateway, through which all international bulk text messages must pass through.
The agency said this would help to monitor messages in real time, ensure proper fees are paid, and make sure the money stays in Nigeria where it can contribute to the economy.
As part of the incoming change, service providers must follow strict rules, including strong data protection, spam filters, and message encryption.
Also, they must also work with local mobile networks and make sure all messages come from a verified sender
The NCC warned that any message without a proper sender ID will be blocked and not delivered to users.
To protect users from unwanted texts, the new rules say companies must get clear permission before sending any promotional content.
The rule also says people must also be able to choose whether they want to receive such messages or not.
Companies are now required to keep records of all messages for at least six months and must clearly state all charges involved.
The NCC said fees for help requests, cancellations, or service info must be transparent and not include hidden charges.
The commission will issue licences to several providers to encourage healthy competition but may limit new licences if needed.
Only companies that show they can stop fraud and safely deliver messages will be allowed to operate. They must also regularly report their message traffic and finances to the NCC.
It warned that any company that breaks the rules risks getting fined, suspended, or having its licence revoked.
Offences like charging illegal tariffs, ignoring security rules, or avoiding taxes will be punished, the NCC said.
The commission added that the new rules follow the Nigerian Data Protection Act 2023 and support the federal government’s goal of strengthening cybersecurity and controlling Nigeria’s digital space.
The framework will also be reviewed from time to time to keep up with new technology and market trends.
Telecom
MTN Nigeria Targets $1Bn Cloud Market with Largest Modular Data Centre

MTN Nigeria has launched what it claims is the country’s largest prefabricated modular data centre, marking a bold push into the country’s fast-growing cloud market and taking aim at global giants such as Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud.

Karl Toriola, CEO, MTN Nigeria.
The shift comes as demand for cloud services in Nigeria soars — driven by the uptake of mobile apps, fintech tools and e-learning platforms — while foreign providers have become costlier in the wake of the naira’s sharp devaluation.
“This is one of the biggest data centres in West Africa and probably one of the biggest in Africa,” said Karl Toriola, CEO, MTN Nigeria.
He described the new Tier III-certified facility, with locally hosted cloud services, as “transformative for the technology ecosystem in Nigeria and very supportive of the federal government’s agenda”.
MTN Nigeria, the country’s largest telecoms provider, has so far invested $120m in the first phase, delivering an IT load of 4.5MW. A second phase, set to double capacity to 9MW, is budgeted at $135m.
“We already have data centres that are running our existing capacities,” Toriola said.
“We will go to 9MW in short order, possibly 14MW, and we can expand even further.”
He said the facility would allow local hosting for tech developers, large enterprises including banks and oil companies, and government agencies — markets long dominated by foreign cloud providers.
“Multinational companies such as Netflix, Facebook and Instagram can also host a lot of their data here. That improves the quality of service and reduces the cost of storage,” he added.
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