President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s effort to open up the digital financial system is dealing with severe challenges, that are coming within the type of knowledge exploitation. The transfer is having a damaging telling impact on many, particularly at a interval when the financial system is clearly struggling. It’s apparent that knowledge is the foreign money of participation within the government-planned digital financial system drive.
It’s due to this fact stunning that MTN Nigeria, an organization that guarantees to be a accomplice on this revolutionary drive, has been partaking in underhand techniques to derail the expansion of the nation’s digital development drive, as investigations have revealed it’s manipulating utilization metrics to inflate knowledge consumption and extract extra worth from unsuspecting Nigerian customers.
A rising physique of proof means that Africa’s largest cell operator, valued at over ₦5.98 trillion as of Could 2025, has been neck-deep in practices that quantity to shopper fraud on a nationwide scale, and on the heart of the unfolding controversy is Mojisola Savage, a pc science scholar and aspiring AI engineer whose private investigation is now exposing what she believes to be systemic manipulation by MTN.
Her journey started on Could 1, 2025, when she bought 165GB of knowledge from MTN to assist her research in know-how and machine studying. Surprisingly, the telecommunication firm despatched her a message inside simply seven days that the information was absolutely exhausted regardless of what she describes as minimal utilization.
Systematic Testing on MTN Router That Uncovers MTN Discrepancies
Irritated and decided, Mojisola Savage on Could 9 repurchased 165GB of knowledge, however this time, she determined to conduct an in depth check, monitoring her knowledge utilization via three unbiased sources accessible:
Precise utilization logs from her Huawei 4G router,
Day by day SMS utilization summaries despatched by MTN, and
Knowledge stability readings from the official MTN cell app.
Preliminary findings of her investigation revealed inconsistencies; SMS alerts have been erratic, with lacking updates, particularly on Could 10, when no replace was despatched, and, as anticipated, it was declared on Could 16 that the information she bought about seven (7) days earlier was depleted, despite the fact that her logs confirmed far much less utilization. The contradictions of the recorded knowledge utilization have been so apparent and alarming; for instance, on Could 16, when MTN claimed her total 165GB was used up, her router logs indicated solely about 17GB had been consumed.
Date MTN SMS MTN App
Could 9 22GB 22GB
Could 10 (No SMS) 77.98GB
Could 11 4GB 4GB
Could 12 2GB 2GB
Could 13 6.9GB 6.7GB
Could 14 6.1GB 5.9GB
Could 15 48GB 47GB
Could 16 (No knowledge) 17GB
The Confrontation
Believing she had gathered sufficient proof to exhibit a significant fault in MTN’s system, Savage visited the MTN service heart at Shoprite, Victoria Island, presenting full screenshots of her router logs, MTN SMS alerts, and app data.
However to her shock, the MTN workers claimed that on Could 10, the precise day no utilization alert was despatched, Apple Providers alone had consumed 80GB of knowledge. What the workers is saying is that even if she’s not utilizing Apple TV or upgrading her Apple telephones, her telephone was mentioned to have consumed a whopping 80 GB in a day, which by the way was the day they skipped sending utilization SMS.
This additional confirmed her suspicion of a rigorously orchestrated knowledge fraud racket by the telecommunication firm, because it appears greater than only a billing error however a manufactured justification to cowl up a a lot deeper drawback.
In the midst of looking for clarification on the preliminary discrepancies, Mojisola Savage later found one other contradiction within the readings of the third unbiased monitoring supply whereas nonetheless on the MTN heart: when her MTN-issued router dashboard confirmed zero, the MTN cell app reported she nonetheless had 19 GB remaining, whereas the 2 (2) sources are each being operated by MTN, and the truth that they fully contradicted one another means there may be certainly one thing fishy.
“Proper there, I spotted one thing was very unsuitable,” she mentioned. “MTN’s claims didn’t simply fail so as to add up; they actively canceled one another out.” She concluded.
A Managed Experiment: The 200GB Check
Decided to take away any remaining doubt, Mojisola Savage takes her investigation a notch larger. Whereas nonetheless on the MTN service heart, she bought 200GB of knowledge and configured her Huawei MTN-issued router with exact inner bandwidth administration guidelines:
1. Restrict complete utilization to 50GB out of the 200GB.
2. Set off a notification as soon as 80% of that restrict (40GB) was reached.
3. Routinely lower off web entry when 50GB was absolutely consumed.
This setup would make sure that not more than 50GB may presumably be used underneath any situation.
Based on her, “This time, I wished to watch each byte instantly from the system, remoted from any exterior interference, particularly from MTN.”
However just like the proverbial witch that cries a day earlier than a loss of life happens, simply 5 (5) days later, MTN as soon as once more claimed that the total 200GB had been consumed. Whereas, the router’s personal dashboard reported a mere 12GB of precise utilization, making it convincing that knowledge utilization fraud is definitely being perpetrated by the telecommunication firm.
