Nigeria rejects $2.5 billion telecom bidder

Nigeria has revoked the bid of a consortium that had offered $2.5 billion for a majority stake in the failed state-run telephone company, Nitel. It comes as the country’s telecom sectors continued success following a number of government initiatives.

Chukwuma Nwokoh, a spokesman for Nigeria’s Bureau of Public Enterprises, told The Associated Press that the New Generation Telecommunications Consortium had failed to pay a down payment for Nigerian Telecommunications Ltd., known locally as Nitel.

The consortium was supposed to pay $750 million of the total sum by Nov. 5, but the deadline was extended by months.

He said the reserve bidder offered just over a third of the amount.

Nitel, in principle, provides landline telephone service in Nigeria, Africa’s most populous nation with 150 million residents. However, the state company’s telephones now rarely work.

By Staff