Minister: Foreign Investors Jostling to Buy Over 9Mobile

• Minister: Foreign Investors Jostling to Buy Over 9Mobile

Many foreign investors are jostling to buy over telecommunication firm 9 Mobile (formerly Etisalat) from which Mubadallah recently pulled out, Minister of Communications Adebayo Shittu said at the weekend.

Shittu, speaking on ‘Political Circuit’, a political programme on Ibadan-based Fresh FM, said there is no cause for worry for the subscribers and workers of the company. But he did not disclose the names of the foreign firms.

Mubadallah left Nigeria this month over unresolved issues on loans by a consortium of commercial banks.

According to Shittu, the Federal Government intervened in the loan crisis rocking the company in order to prevent it from closing down with the attendant negative implications.

Shittu said thousands of direct and indirect jobs would have been lost while investors’ confidence would have been eroded.

The minister said the government would continue to strengthen the enabling environment for investments and job creation initiatives in the country.

Shittu said the country needed more Foreign Direct Investments (FDI) to strengthen the economy.

He said the government could not afford to fold its arms and let any good investment go under, pointing out that the telecoms industry contributed over 10 per cent to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in the last financial year.

He described the feat as unprecedented and a mark of the huge importance of the industry to the economy.

According to him, there are 150 million active mobile telephone lines in Nigeria.

The minister also hinted of his ministry’s plan to encourage telecommunication firms to begin to provide scholarships for students in support of education.