The Nigerian Communications Commission has said false speculations surrounding the sale of 9Mobile has reduced the telecommunications company’s subscriber base from 21 million to 17 million.
The Executive Commissioner, Stakeholders Management, NCC, Sunday Dare, said this during an interview with newsmen on Thursday in Lagos.
The telecommunications operator’s customers, which was 20,521,952 as at January 2017, reduced to 17,075,813 as November 2017.
Dare said contrary to reports that Teleology had emerged the preferred bidder for the company, the NCC had not been informed of any new owner of 9Mobile.
He said the interim board of 9Mobile was yet to communicate to NCC who the winner was and that was because the process was still on going.
He said: “There are two regulators involved in the issue, the financial and telecommunications regulators.
“Unless the financial process is complete, the licensing process does not really kick in.
“Until then and until we have evidence of the final report, these speculations will not do the brand any good, it will not do the subscribers any good.
“And because of all the unconfirmed reports, subscriber base of 9Mobile dropped from 21 million to 17 million.
“We just need to wait for another 30 to 40 days to have a clarity on true situation.”
According to Dare, the Central Bank of Nigeria and NCC were carrying out their oversight duties in order to make sure that 9Mobile does not sink.
He said: “In that process, which began several months back, we have saved 4,000 jobs and saved 9mobile from crashing and we kept up other creditors that have been working with them.
“Now we have come thus far and there are several litigations going and we have to be careful.”
Dare said Capital Trustees and 9Mobile interim board had the powers to guard the sale processes to a logical conclusion.
