BUHARI: SOUTH AFRICAN MOBILE GIANT MTN 'CONTRIBUTED' TO BOKO HARAM DEATHS

BY CONOR GAFFEY ON 3/9/16 AT 10:12 AM

An MTN advert in Lagos, Nigeria, March 8. The mobile provider was fined $3.9 billion for failing to disconnect unregistered SIM cards in the country.PIUS UTOMI EKPEI/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari has said that a South African mobile giant’s failure to disconnect unregistered SIM cards in Nigeria “contributed” to Boko Haram’s insurgency.

The Nigerian telecoms regulator imposed a record 1.04 trillion naira ($5.2 billion) fine on South Africa’s MTN in October 2015 for failing to disconnect more than five million unregistered SIM cards. MTN is the biggest mobile network in Nigeria, with almost 62.5 million subscribers. The fine was later reduced to 780 billion naira ($3.9 billion) in December 2015.

Speaking on Tuesday during a joint press conference with South African President Jacob Zuma, who is on a state visit to Nigeria, Buhari said the Boko Haram “terrorists” use unregistered SIM cards to communicate and plan operations. Boko Haram, which has pledged allegiance to the Islamic State militant group 

(ISIS), has killed some 20,000 people and displaced more than 2 million during a six-year insurgency, mainly in northeast Nigeria.