Due to a communication service outage on Tuesday, MTN Nigeria customers were left stranded for a period of time.
Observations show that the communication blackout began in the afternoon and lasted for many hours. Many MTN customers expressed their regret over this network outage on social media.
Since it was Valentine’s Day, many people expressed concern about how their inability to call, text, or use the Internet might affect their ability to communicate with their significant others.
Furthermore, some people’s ability to transfer money and pay for goods and services was hampered by the network outage. Nigerians have had to rely more and more on Mobile Network Providers in order to send money since a Central Bank of Nigeria policy forced many transactions online.
On Facebook, Winston Rex, said, “Fix your network, I can’t do my job and you are here posting about love when you are having nationwide problems?”
Alberta Hman, stated, “Me that is chatting with my val before the network went off, MTN bring back my Val. His number is not connecting.”
Salisu Eleniyan, further said, “MTN, you almost mad me to wash plate at gusto food.”
Israel Musa, added, “My girlfriend is using MTN, now she’s offline on valentine day, MTN why you do me so?”
On Twitter, @m_settler tweeted, “Was conducting online interviews and @MTNNG pulled a Thanos on all networks. Phone, WiFi. All went to zero.”
@ToyosiGodwin said, “Did my data just finish, or MTN actually went off service? Any MTN user with data here?”
@Modupelolly said, “MTN network has disappeared for the past 40 minutes. What is happening?”
@mss_tobi said, “LMFAOO it is MTN that’ll scatter a lot of relationships today”
Many of the customers who spoke with our correspondent expressed annoyance at not being able to contact or use the internet. Many people claimed that it had an impact on their work.
A fibre cut may have been to blame for the disruption, claims a source at MTN. The insider verified that there had been network outages in Lagos and Abuja.
The source said, “Yes, the network was down for over one hour. We are still trying to understand exactly what happened. But preliminary reports suggest a fibre cut. We don’t know the extent yet, but I can confirm Lagos and Abuja.
“We are monitoring and trying to resolve this as quickly as possible. It’s sad on a day like this.”
“For things like this, when you have issues like this, the primary concern is to fix things before knowing what has happened.
“The primary focus now is to restore the network and ensure that the customers have the best experience. It is an important day for many people. We are trying to restore the network fully, to optimal capacity. We would investigate after we have restored capacity.”
