Former presidential candidate for the African Action Congress (AAC), Omoyele Sowore, has demanded a “total occupation” of MTN Nigeria by Nigerians, citing persistent service failures. In a post on his official X account on Thursday, Sowore expressed frustration over unexplained data loss and frequent dropped calls, despite MTN's dominant market position.
Sowore attached a 2026 chart from the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) showing that MTN controls 51.8% of Nigeria's 182 million telecom subscribers, far ahead of Airtel (34.1%), Glo (12.3%), and 9mobile (1.8%). He wrote: “Why MTN must face total occupation by Nigerians! They dominate Nigeria’s telecom space but operate with reckless disregard for their customers. Data vanishes without explanation, calls fail repeatedly, and accountability is nonexistent. MTN is totally and irreversibly irresponsible.”
The post sparked reactions from X users. Olu of Rage called for accountability rather than occupation: “I feel the frustration from MTN’s service issues (vanishing data, failed calls) are real and unacceptable for Nigeria’s biggest network. But 'total occupation' isn’t the answer. Stronger regulation, real enforcement by NCC, and genuine competition will serve customers better than government takeover. Let’s push for accountability, not occupation.”
Viasgris suggested that Glo should learn from Dangote Group on achieving dominance, noting: “With the Glo1 cable, Glo should be the one holding the largest share of the internet space, sadly, I don’t know what they are actually doing towards internet services stability.”
Mani expressed surprise that Airtel has more subscribers than Glo and advised Sowore to focus on fighting the Tinubu government first. Trende Oracle argued that MTN's size allows it to cut networks indiscriminately, especially if controlled by corrupt individuals. Benald Best shared his grievance over rapid data consumption, saying he switched to Airtel to see if data would vanish there as well.
John Emodi believed MTN has failed expectations due to limited competition: “MTN understands there is no much telecom competition in Nigeria because the citizens overwhelmingly depend on their services. We really need different internet service providers to step up and offset this imbalance. Even the government is complicit for tolerating their activities.”
