President Mohammadu Buhari, on Tuesday, said that thousands of lives were lost to terrorist attacks in Nigeria due to the failure of telecommunications giant, MTN to disconnect unregistered lines. Buhari made this known in a joint press conference with the visiting South African president, Mr. Jacob Zuma, at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.

The president remarked that MTN was fined due to security implications of the telecommunications inaction on lives and properties of Nigerians amidst terror attacks. “This is the first time I will be personally, as a president, making a public comment about it. The concern of the federal government is basically on the security and not the fine imposed on MTN.”

“You know how the unregistered GSMs are being used by terrorists. And between 2009 and today, at least 10,000 Nigerians were killed by Boko Haram.”

“That was why NCC asked MTN, Glo and the rest of them to register GSM. Unfortunately, MTN was very, very slow and contributed to the casualties,” the president noted.

Buhari also stated that the court action by MTN slowed the intervention of the government as it could not have interfered on the matter before the court.

It may be recalled that Ventures Africa pointed out four things that could happen to MTN following the resignation of the group CEO. One of the points included the fact that due to recent troubles with the law, security agencies could place further sanctions on MTN for breaching the SIM registration law.