Festus Sanmi Onifade, subscriber and legal practitioner, has withdrawn his lawsuit challenging alleged unfair price hikes by MultiChoice Nigeria Limited, filed at the Federal High Court in Abuja.

Also listed as a defendant in the suit is the Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (FCCPC).

In a notice of discontinuance, dated April 1, 2025, the claimant formally informed the court of his decision to wholly withdraw the suit, marked FHC/ABJ/CS/363/2025.

However, the notice, signed by Onifade, did not advance reasons for the withdrawal.

Onifade had earlier approached the court to challenge what he described as an unfair and unjust price increase announced by MultiChoice Nigeria, slated to take effect from March 15, 2025.

In the originating summons, he asked the court to determine, among other things, whether, given Section 128 of the Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Act, 2018, and other relevant laws, the notice of the impending price increase issued by the first defendant was not unfair, unjust, grossly inadequate and a breach of his consumer rights; whether, considering the subsisting appeal in MultiChoice Nigeria Ltd & Ors v. Festus Onifade & Ors, the defendant was not stopped from further increasing the price of its services.

The suit centred on legal tussle between Onifade and MultiChoice over price hikes, which the claimant insisted were being implemented in defiance of regulatory standards and without adequate consumer engagement.

Ralph Mupita, president,MTN Group, has announced plans to reduce its shareholding in MTN Nigeria through a public offer after it returns to profitability.

The group aims to cut its stake from 76 percent to 65 percent in line with its longstanding commitment to deepen local ownership, according to ITWeb, South African tech publication.

Mupita, who disclosed the plan during an editors’ roundtable meeting this week, said “The only localisation we have as MTN Group is we have potentially a sell-down in Nigeria at some point in time, approximately 11 percent. This is something we have said long ago, that over time, we would want more Nigerians owning the company, and we are prepared to sell down to 65 percent. We are at around 76 percent,” he said.

The anticipated offer would mark MTN’s second major retail public offering in Nigeria, following its 2021 sale of 575 million MTN Nigeria shares to local investors.

That offer was oversubscribed, resulting in the allocation of 661.25 million shares, including a 15 percent greenshoe option. This reduced MTN’s stake in its Nigerian unit to 75.6 percent from 78.8 percent.

More than 126,000 investors participated in that round, including retail and institutional investors such as Nigerian pension funds, representing approximately 6.5 million contributors.

At the time in 2022, MTN Group announced plans to further reduce its stake to approximately 65 percent from 75.6 percent.

Mupita confirmed that the Group would only proceed with a new offer once MTN Nigeria resolves its negative equity position and resumes dividend payments.

Currently, MTN Nigeria’s shares are trading at N235 per share.

Despite reporting a revenue of N3.36 trillion in 2024, a 36.03 percent bump from N2.47 trillion in 2023, it posted a loss after tax of N400.44 billion, a 192.25 percent rise from N137.02 billion in 2023.,

This negative performance was driven by macroeconomic headwinds, including record inflation and a steep devaluation of the naira, which raised operating costs and wiped out investor value.

MTN Nigeria has fallen behind MTN South Africa as MTN Group’s largest revenue contributor.

However, the Group is projecting a rebound in 2025, citing key drivers such as recent tariff adjustments, operational restructuring, and improving macroeconomic indicators in Nigeria.

Speaking at the roundtable, Mupita highlighted that the Group is anticipating a V-shaped recovery in Nigeria’s service revenue. He pointed to the recent structural reforms, such as the removal of fuel subsidies, the naira stabilisation, and improved dollar availability.

“The continued normalisation of these factors, particularly naira stability, should have positive impacts on consumer spending power and our business operations,” Mupita noted in the Group’s financial statement for 2024 recently.

A new report by Sophos, ybersecurity firm, has said that attackers primarily gained initial network access—56 per cent of all MDR and IR cases—by exploiting external remote services like firewalls and VPNs using valid credentials.

The 2025 Sophos Active Adversary Report details attacker behavior and techniques from over 400 Managed Detection and Response [MDR] and Incident Response [IR] cases in 2024.

According to the report, the combination of external remote services and valid accounts align with the top root causes of attacks.

For the second year in row, compromised credentials were the number one root cause of attacks [41% of cases]. This was followed by exploited vulnerabilities [21.79%] and brute force attacks [21.07%].

When analysing MDR and IR investigations, the Sophos X-Ops team looked specifically at ransomware, data exfiltration, and data extortion cases to identify how fast attackers progressed through the stages of an attack within an organisation.

In those three types of cases, the median time between the start of an attack and exfiltration was only 72.98 hours [3.04 days]. Furthermore, there was only a median of 2.7 hours from exfiltration to attack detection.

“Passive security is no longer enough. While prevention is essential, rapid response is critical. Organisations must actively monitor networks and act swiftly against observed telemetry.

Coordinated attacks by motivated adversaries require a coordinated defense. “For many organisations, that means combining business-specific knowledge with expert-led detection and response.

Our report confirms that organizations with proactive monitoring detect attacks faster and experience better outcomes,” said John Shier, field CISO.

The 2025 Sophos Active Adversary Report further reveals that attackers can move quickly, with a median of just 11 hours between initial access and a breach attempt on Active Directory, a critical asset in Windows environments.

Akira emerged as the most prevalent ransomware group in 2024, followed by Fog and LockBit, the latter still active despite a major takedown.

Attack detection has improved overall, with dwell time—the time attackers remain undetected—dropping from four days to just two, thanks largely to the inclusion of MDR (Managed Detection and Response) cases.

Dwell time varied depending on the type of case: it held steady at 4 days for ransomware and 11.5 days for non-ransomware cases in incident response (IR) investigations.

In contrast, MDR cases showed much faster response times—3 days for ransomware and just 1 day for non-ransom – ware attacks.

The report also highlights that 83% of ransomware deployments occurred outside local business hours, showing attackers favor overnight activity.

Additionally, Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) was exploited in 84% of cases, making it the most commonly abused Microsoft tool.

To strengthen their cybersecurity posture, Sophos advises organizations to take several key steps.

First, they should close any exposed Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) ports and implement phishing-resistant multifactor authentication (MFA) wherever feasible to reduce unauthorized access risks.

Additionally, companies should prioritize timely patching of vulnerable systems, especially those exposed to the internet. Deploying Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) or Managed Detection and Response (MDR) solutions with 24/7 monitoring is crucial.

Finally, having a well-defined incident response plan—and regularly testing it through simulations or tabletop exercises—can greatly improve preparedness for potential attacks.