NITEL Sale Annulled, Four New Bidders Emerge

February 2008 | Privatisation Alert

The Government of Nigeria has formally annulled the 2006 sale of incumbent fixed-line telecommunications operator Nigerian Telecommunication Ltd (NITEL) and its mobile phone unit M-TEL to a consortium headed by Transnational Corporation (Transcorp), claiming that poor management and a lack of investment have brought the operator close to collapse. The decision to cancel the sale came as the government received new expressions of interest from at least four major international operators: Telkom SA and its mobile affiliate Vodacom of South Africa, Orascom Telecom of Egypt and France Telecom.

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