Nigerians To Drag FG To Court Over 50% Telecoms Tariff Hike

Nigerians have vowed to file a l@wsuit against the Tinubu-led federal government for approving a 50 per cent increase in calls, data, and other telecommunication tariffs.

Following a disagreement in a meeting with operators who had sought a 100 percent tariff hike, Bosun Tijani, Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, hinted last week that telecom tariffs will increase by either 30 or 50 percent.

The latest telecom tariff hike approval comes 13 years after NCC announced the price template in 2013, unsurprisingly, in an instant multiplier effect, Point of Sales Operators have hinted at plans to increase their service charges.

When it is implemented, Nigerians could have to pay N16.5 per minute for calls from N11, N431.25 for one gigabit of data, and N4 for SMS to N6.

Additionally, the new tariff regime alone may generate N6.7 trillion in revenue for telcos each year upon implementation. This is because, according to national telephone traffic data from 2023, the total amount of outgoing and incoming telephone traffic was 205.3 billion minutes and 203.2 billion minutes, respectively.

The President of the National Association of Telecoms Subscribers, Adeolu Ogunbanjo and the National Spokesperson for the Association of Mobile Money & Bank Agents in Nigeria, Ogungbayi Ganiyu revealed they might fight against the new tariffs in court.

Reacting, Ogunbanjo said subscribers had agreed to a 5 or 10 percent tariff hike, not the 50 percent as announced by the NCC.

Ogunbanjo decried that the hike will further impoverish Nigerians already grappling with the Premium Motor Spirit price hike, transportation and food price hike, which is at 38.90 percent in December 2024.