“The deadline remains,” Tony Ojobo, a spokesperson for NCC, said, Wednesday.
The NCC will consult with lawyers about what to do if the Johannesburg-based company doesn’t pay the fine on Thursday, he said, without providing detail on possible actions the regulator may take.
MTN is challenging the penalty in the Federal High Court in Lagos, the country’s commercial capital, after it said earlier this month the NCC did not have the power to impose the fine.
The regulator took action after MTN failed to meet a deadline to disconnect 5.1 million unregistered subscribers as security agencies seek to fight crime and Islamist militants in a country with poor identity records.
The regulator “will allow” the courts to do their work and the NCC is planning to challenge the MTN dispute filed in Lagos, Ojobo said.
However, MTN spokesperson Chris Maroleng declined to comment beyond a December 17 statement announcing the decision to go to court.
While MTN chairperson Phuthuma Nhleko has been leading negotiations with the NCC after CEO Sifiso Dabengwa resigned, Ojobo said he was not aware of any talks currently being held between MTN and the NCC as well as the Federal Government.
The question is whether the NCC will be overruled by the lenient telecommunications ministry in Nigeria.
On December 24, a Reuters story that revealed that Nigerian authorities will wait for the outcome of the court challenge before deciding on whether to the fine.
“The federal government, NCC (regulator) or any government agent will not do anything at the expiration of the December 31 deadline,” said Victor Oluwadamilare, the telecommunications ministry’s media assistant.
“Now that they (MTN) have gone to court we will await the outcome of the case,” he added. “This is a government that believes in the rule of law.”
The ministry appears to have taken a softer stance than the regulator on the dispute.
It would be recalled that the minister of Communications, Adebayo Shittu said last month Nigeria did not want MTN to “to die” from the fine.
Other telecoms firms operating in Nigeria disconnected unregistered users within the deadlines set by the authorities.
