The Thread: Will Dino Melaye’s allegation against MTN ever catch fire?

Nigeria has been hit hard by recession and in these desperate economic times, every kobo counts. It is the reason Dino Melaye cited for going after MTN for allegedly making illegal transfers to the tune of $12 billion dollars out of Nigeria over a 10 year period.

Senator Melaye put forth this allegation to the Senate and asked their permission to investigate further. Senator Melaye said that after MTN purchased their license of operations in Nigeria in February 2001, it has “moved over $12 billion out of Nigeria. That is about half of our external reserves”.

According to Senator Melaye, “all hands must be on deck to recover every loot in the country. We are in a precarious situation and now is the time to recover every stolen money in the country.”

MTN has been in the crosshairs of the Nigerian government for a while now. There was that episode with Nigerian Communications Commission last year, for which they were fined 3.9 billion. Then there was also the Copyright Society of Nigeria 16 billion naira suit against MTN this year.

So this allegation is not surprising. But is it accurate? These tweeps don’t think so, considering who made the allegation – Senator Dino Melaye.

Dino has had his fair share of controversy for making baseless accusations. For instance in 2005 when he accused three principal officers of the House- Tunde Akogun (House Leader), Baba Shehu Agaie (Deputy House Leader) and Emeka Ihedioha (Chief Whip) – of mismanaging funds(N 130/160) million released to them to organize events in the House. He later recanted his words, saying he did not accuse them of fraud. In 2015, it was Remita/System specs, where he alleged that N25billion was collected by the firm for remitting government funds into the single Treasury Account. This also was found to be false.

See the discussion below.

We do not hope that this allegation actually has merit and is not another wild goose chase inspired by Senator Dino Melaye.

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