Pan African Towers (PAT) Ltd, provider of digital infrastructure has announced the appointment of Jyoti Desai and Vivek Gupta as Non-Executive Directors, with effect from May 21st, 2024.

Jyoti Desai, a former Group Chief Operating Officer of MTN, is a banking and telecoms professional with more than 35 years in the industry.

Her achievements in banking, including a stint at Standard Bank, include driving largescale transformation in the banking industry to streamline operational cost and shifting focus to customer centric, segment-based value propositions.

An experienced professional with a demonstrated history of working in the financial services industry as well as fixed and mobile telecoms, she has more than 15 years’ experience in Africa and the Middle East.

Desai is also skilled in startups in emerging markets, notably in the technical, commercial and operational aspects of the telecom business, and has more than 25 years’ experience in cost and operational transformation, including digital transformation, large scale project execution, Service Delivery, 3G, LTE, Mobile Communications, Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS), and more recently 5G.

Vivek Gupta is a first-generation entrepreneur, investor and telecoms veteran. As Founder and Director of iSON Group, he has built a dynamic ecosystem of businesses in IT & ITeS, BPO and Telecom Infrastructure and Services, employing 20,000+ resources, spanning 40 countries across Africa, Asia and Middle East.

Gupta became an entrepreneur in 2008 as CEO of Zamil Infra, iSON’s first joint venture with the $8B Saudi conglomerate, Zamil, that specializes in build and managed services for telecom passive infrastructure.

Under Gupta’s leadership, iSON Group diversified in Renewable energy, Digital infrastructure, Digital Healthcare and Health insurance sector. iSON Group has grown both organically and inorganically in last few years.

He spent two decades creating an illustrious career within the telecom sector, working for multinationals such as Ericsson and IBM.

In 2008, he was recognized by Fortune as “IBM’s All-Star Salesman” for contracting over $5 Billion worth of business and executing high value transformational and ‘out of box’ deals, particularly path-breaking strategic outsourcing deals with Bharti Airtel, Idea & Vodafone that have gone on to become one of the most successful business models for the company.

“As can be seen from their profiles, both Desai and Gupta’s extensive global experience, and their contributions to the advancement of telecommunication, technology and infrastructural development in Africa and beyond make them invaluable assets for us at Pan African Towers, especially at this point in time where we are on a continuous improvement drive across our operations within Nigeria, and with a vision to grow our digital infrastructure base,” said Azeez Amida, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer at Pan African Towers.

Pan African Towers was established in 2017 to capitalize on the growing demand for wireless communications across Africa and has since emerged as a prominent telecommunications and tower infrastructure provider.

It would be recalled that in November last year, Pan African Towers announced a strategic investment from Development Partners International (DPI), a premier investment firm focused on Africa, and Verod Capital (Verod), one of the continent’s leading investment management firms.

DPI and Verod are investing in PAT to fuel its continued growth and will work with management to build on the company’s recent achievements and reaffirm its position as Nigeria’s largest homegrown digital infrastructure provider.

With this appointment, Jyoti Desai and Vivek Gupta joins Adefolarin Ogunsanya, Daniel Adeoye, Marc Stoneham and Azeez Amida on the board of Pan African Towers.

By Dr. Ajibola Obafemi

Compliance is often touted as a virtue in business and governance, implying a willingness to adhere to rules and regulations. However, in times of citizen agitation and social unrest, compliance can become a double-edged sword. On one hand, it demonstrates a commitment to upholding the law and respecting authority.

Dr. Ajibola Obafemi

On the other hand, it can be perceived as complicity with a government that citizens are agitating against, hence the compliant company is perceived as an enemy of the people. The recent experience of MTN Nigeria, which suffered social media and physical attacks merely for complying with the regulator’s directive, serves as a stark illustration of this dilemma.

Citizen agitation in Nigeria has been simmering for years, with growing discontent over the government’s handling of various issues, including economic stagnation, insecurity, and corruption. The latest expression of this frustration is the planned August 1 protest, which has been gaining momentum on social media. The basis of the proposed protest is a demand for better governance, which includes bringing down the cost of living with inflation at 34.2%, ending corruption, hunger and highhandedness of the security agencies.

One challenge of the government regarding the call for protest is that it does not know whom the organisers are. Perhaps, this is a good strategy for the organisers, as the government cannot be trusted to not arrest them. The government’s response to the protesters has been characteristically un-empathetic, with officials dismissing their concerns and warning against any form of unrest. This approach has only served to fuel the anger and frustration of the protesters, who feel that their voices are not being heard.

Social media has played a significant role in driving the conversation around the planned protest, with various hashtags trending on Twitter and other platforms. The online campaign has helped to galvanize support for the protest, with many Nigerians expressing their discontent with the government’s handling of various issues. The government has not stayed silent, as its spokespersons and advocates have also been speaking on social media, but they do not seem to be connecting with the agitators online as their approach is largely to use fear-mongering, threats and misinformation. For example, a top functionary of the Tinubu government, Bayo Onanuga, accused Peter Obi, former presidential candidate of the Labour Party, of spearheading the protest in expression of anger over losing the 2023 election. Such blatant attempts to mislead the public have only fueled the protest.

Suffice it to say that the recent wave of protests across Africa, including the violent clashes in Kenya and other parts of the continent, has emboldened Nigerians to demand change through similar means. The successes and challenges faced by these movements have served as a catalyst, inspiring Nigerians to take to the streets and demand better governance. However, this trend has sent jitters down the spines of Nigerian authorities, who fear a repeat of the violence that followed the EndSARS protests in 2020.

Businesses in Nigeria are caught in the web of the civil agitation in the country. According to the World Bank, “In times of social unrest, businesses are often caught in the crossfire, facing risks to their operations, employees, and assets.” MTN witnessed this but in a different form. While Nigerians agitated for good governance, the telcos, including MTN Nigeria, were bothered about a deadline from the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) to disconnect all SIMs not linked to NIN by the 31st of July. On July 27 to July 28, the company disconnected millions of unlinked lines, in compliance with the regulator’s directive. This action nearly devastated the company, triggering a swarm of unimaginable issues.

The backlash was swift and brutal. Protesters took to Twitter to express their outrage, with some suggesting that MTN had collaborated with the government to disrupt the protest. Omoyele Sowore, a former Presidential Candidate of the African Action Congress (AAC) and lifelong activist, even suggested that the protest would commence at MTN offices, implying that the company was complicit in the government’s plans to sabotage the planned protest. The next day, MTN offices were besieged by angry protesters, with the Festac office being destroyed and looted.

While it seemed like it might have been cataclysmic for the company, the Association of Licenced Telecom Operators of Nigeria (ALTON) and the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) came to the rescue, clarifying that MTN was only complying with an industry-wide directive and that the action of the company had nothing to do with the planned protest. To ease off the tension, the NCC mandated telcos to unblock lines that were blocked during the period, allowing for a de-escalation of the tension.

Critical questions come to mind on what MTN could have done differently in the circumstance. Could it have decided not to comply with the regulator’s directive? Perhaps. But this would only strain the relationship with the regulator, with the risk of a fine. It should be added that the company was once fined $5.2 billion for failing to disconnect millions of unregistered lines in the past. In light of this, can anyone blame the company for striving to be compliant, as it has been in recent years, winning the award for Most Compliant Listed company in Nigeria year after year?

While it is not abnormal to have businesses suffer attacks during civil unrest in Nigeria, as witnessed during the EndSars protest where many businesses were either vandalized or burnt, the subject of compliance amid civil agitation is a new perspective which has not received sufficient attention by scholars and commentators. This is a gap which needs to be filled in the field of regulatory compliance. The ball is now in the court of the scholars to interrogate the issues for corporates to take learnings. The business community has too much at stake for such a gap to exist.

The recent attack on MTN Nigeria, a company which is vital to Nigeria’s social, digital and economic life, shows that the Nigerian society needs a lot of conscientization of the people with regards to corporate issues. It appears that the Nigerian is angry against big businesses, hence they are quick to respond violently, unmindful of the overarching consequences even on themselves and their country. If MTN Nigeria were not a firmly rooted company in Nigeria, the social media attacks launched against the company could have crippled it. Nigeria needs more ‘MTNs,’ to raise its revenue generation, support the economy and ultimately improve the lives of the average Nigerian.

In the midst of civil unrest, regulatory compliance can be a delicate balancing act. To minimize risk, regulators and companies must prioritize clear communication and empathy. In the case of the SIM-NIN linking deadline, the regulator could have considered postponing the deadline to diffuse tension and avoid exacerbating the situation. This would have allowed MTN and other telcos to comply with the directive without inadvertently fueling the flames of protest. Additionally, the regulator could have proactively clarified the reasons behind the directive, addressing concerns and misconceptions before they escalated into widespread outrage.

As a market leader, MTN Nigeria is becoming synonymous with the sector, and hence suffers attacks when there are sectoral issues. These isolated attacks on the company work in favor of competing telcos, raising the question of whether there are forces fueling the attacks against the company. Whenever there is a general network downtime in the country, such as on the commencement day of the hunger protest, MTN is singled out for heavy backlash, even when other telcos experience similar issues. While the social media attacks on August 1st were not a case of compliance by the telcos, it is pertinent for the public to realise that the digital industry is bound to occasionally encounter network challenges, even as the government may even be complicit in sabotaging networks to suppress the public. The telecom operators, such as MTN, Glo, and Airtel, are always at these crossroads as critical and strategic entities in the fabric of the country.

In conclusion, the recent SIM-NIN linking debacle serves as a cautionary tale for regulators and companies operating in tumultuous environments. By prioritizing empathy, clear communication, and strategic timing, they can minimize risk and avoid becoming entangled in the web of civil unrest. As Nigeria navigates its current challenges, regulators and companies must learn from this experience, recognizing that compliance and sensitivity are not mutually exclusive, but rather complementary aspects of responsible business practice.

Dr. Ajibola Obafemi is a Political Science Lecturer at the National Open University of Nigeria (NOUN) and the Head Researcher at QL Intelligence.

Flutterwave, a leading payments technology company, has recently been granted a Payment Service Provider license (Enhanced Category) by the Bank of Ghana.

The milestone marks a significant expansion of Flutterwave’s operations in Africa, enabling the company to offer a comprehensive suite of payment services directly within, and through Ghana.

Ghana presents an exciting market for Flutterwave’s innovative solutions. With a stable democracy, a tech-savvy youth population, and a high mobile internet penetration rate of 71%, Ghana is well positioned for rapid digital adoption.

The country’s digital payments market is projected to reach $7 billion in 2024, with an anticipated growth rate of 15.78%, resulting in a total value of $12.96 billion by 2028.

For potential customers in Ghana, Flutterwave’s license translates to more seamless and secure money transfers across the country. Businesses will benefit from direct collection and payout services, automated invoicing, payment links, and a checkout solution that supports multiple payment methods including cards, mobile money, and bank transfers.

Commenting on the license approval, Olugbenga ‘GB’ Agboola, Founder & CEO of Flutterwave said, “When we started this journey, our goal was to unite the fragmented payment infrastructure in Africa, and securing this license in Ghana brings us a step closer to achieving that mission.

“At Flutterwave, we are committed to using our platform to promote economic growth to the nation, while also providing unparalleled service to all our prospective customers in Ghana and in the diaspora ”

The Payment Service Provider license (Enhanced Category) allows Flutterwave to operate without the need for third-party services, streamlining payment processes for businesses and customers alike.

The Enhanced Category license further empowers Flutterwave to support other licensed fintech companies in Ghana by providing essential payment services, ultimately promoting a more integrated and efficient financial ecosystem.

Oluwabankole Falade, Chief Regulatory Officer at Flutterwave, said: “We are grateful to the Bank of Ghana for their trust and support in granting us this license. This milestone highlights our commitment to regulatory compliance and delivering secure, reliable payment solutions.

“We are excited to contribute to Ghana’s dynamic business ecosystem and support the financial inclusion of Ghanaians, both locally and globally.”