MTN Nigeria says it invested N900bn in network expansion and maintenance in 2025 and plans to spend over N1tn in 2026.
The Chief Executive Officer of MTN Nigeria, Karl Toriola, argued that the recent tariff increase was necessary to prevent the telecommunications company and the wider industry from slipping into insolvency.
Toriola disclosed this during the company’s recent stakeholder engagement on internet data spending, themed ‘Data on Trial’, held in Lagos. The event featured a law court-style debate session hosted by Ebuka Obi-Uchendu and attended by content creators, MTN subscribers and regulators.
Speaking on the rationale for the tariff adjustment, Toriola said that the company faced severe financial pressure before the increase was approved.
“The tariff increase was implemented for one primary reason: to allow the industry to survive. At the point in time when the tariff increase was implemented, we practically could not pay our bills,” he explained.
“There was not enough money coming into MTN’s accounts to pay our bills for diesel, rent and software licences. We were effectively bankrupt. Without that tariff increase, we would have had to shut down the network,” he said.
Toriola said that the company was technically insolvent at the time, with negative equity and warned that network operations were at risk.
“In the period when the tariff increase was implemented, technically speaking, we were insolvent. We were in negative equity, for those who are financial people. So it was necessary for the industry first just to survive. It was really on the verge of breaking down. And then to allow us to continue to invest,” he said.
The MTN boss said that the company invested N900bn in 2025 and would exceed that figure this year as it continues to expand and maintain its infrastructure.
“Last year, we invested N900bn. This year, we’re going to invest in excess of a trillion. We invest more in the expansion and maintenance of this company than we make in profits,” he said.
Toriola also linked network quality challenges to the country’s operating environment, citing vandalism, insecurity and disruptions at telecom sites.
“We’re in a country where area boys will block us from network sites. We’re in a country where someone, for the heck of it, will light up a telecom manhole that will affect 30,000 subscribers, or base stations serving up to two million people,” the MTN boss said.
Despite the challenges, he maintained that MTN delivers services comparable to international standards.
“I still believe that I’m proud that we provide pretty much a global standard of service,” he said.
On complaints about data costs, Toriola argued that mobile operators cannot sustainably offer unlimited data packages because of capacity constraints.
“We cannot give unlimited internet data to everyone, as much as we would desire it. We will not be able to build the networks that we will use in any way whatsoever,” the Punch newspaper quoted the MTN Nigeria chief as saying.
He further claimed that data prices in Nigeria remain among the lowest globally despite the tariff review.
According to him, “Go and check in Kenya, go and check in Congo, go and check across the world, and tell me if you are not going to tell me that data in Nigeria is one of the cheapest in the world, even after the tariff increase.”
GIK/APA