Ego. Kudi. Owo. You take your language – MTN knows how to grow it: “Multinational mobile telecommunications company, MTN, has announced that the firm made a total profit of N181 billion for the first half of the year 2022. This profit with a 28% increase, was disclosed to be higher than the amount that was recorded in the same period of last year which was at N141.8 billion.”
As you grow that digital business and move more activities from the meatspace to the cyberspace, you create more opportunities for MTN, Airtel, etc, since they are the companies that will power that future. Indeed, when we hire and pay search engine experts to make it easier for Google to discover our websites (and in the process Google becomes more valuable), little do we argue that in the real sense, Google should pay for those experts, since they are working for it!
Of course, that is not the case because just like MTN, Google has a strategic positioning. In business, when a company has a strategic positioning in the market, it becomes “osisi na ami ego” [ a tree that produces money as the fruits]. MTN is setting new standards in Nigeria.
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H1 2022 – MTN Nigeria Reports N181 Billion Profit In 6 Months
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And once our misguided people in government see these numbers, they will conclude that there’s still money in the pockets of Nigerians, and they slam another tax. They are irredeemable.
This is one of few places in the world where government officials detest seeing businesses that record successes, it’s always met here with more contempt than gratitude, why won’t people hide their true numbers?
We really have to change a lot of things in mentality and bad behaviour, MTN Nigeria is the poster child of Corporate Nigeria, the annual profit is still less than $1 billion, and yet we don’t want to inspire many more by encouraging and celebrating fine numbers when they are reported.
If the private sector is the engine of economic growth, then we must give them the space to breathe; enough with having funny creatures who see success as threat to societal wellbeing.
Better numbers from MTN next time.