If abusive exploitation had a corporate mascot, it would be the logo of any African telecommunications company.
These modern-day colonialists – MTN, Vodacom, Airtel, Safaricom, and their parasitic brethren – have turned Africa into a vast, unregulated casino where the house always wins, and the customers are the suckers. These modern-day colonial conquerors shamelessly swindle Africans, knowing that there will be little or no blowback.
Not satisfied with dumping ancient equipment on our continent, they commit theft on a grand scale; they do it openly and without shame.
These companies spend more money on sales and marketing than getting the latest equipment to make life easier for their hard-suffering, long-exploited customers. They get away with shoddy services they would never dare offer in Europe. They would then pay good money to hire celebrities who wine, dine, and paint lipstick on the pig. Rather than provide top-notch modern like in Europe and elsewhere, they organize nonsensical jamborees, festivals, and whatnot, where gullible people dance away their sorrow.
With their shiny degrees and suits, these well-curated modern-day imperialists sell us dreams of “digital transformation” while peddling internet speeds slower than a donkey cart loaded with bricks. They charge us prices that would make a Swiss banker blush for services so shoddy they’d be illegal in Europe. And when we dare to complain, they gaslight us with empty corporate jargon: *”network upgrade,” “temporary outage,” “please bear with us.” Don’t let us even talk about the “Helplines,” where you are made to navigate imponderable mazes only to be faced with ladies with some atrocious mimic of Yankee accents.
In Europe, internet access is a “basic utility” like water or electricity. You can get 500 Mbps fiber for €30 a month in Germany or the Netherlands. In South Africa? You’ll pay R1,000 ($55) for 100 Mbps if you’re lucky enough to live in a neighborhood where the infrastructure isn’t held together with duct tape and prayers. MTN Ghana charges GH₵350 ($30) for 92GB; that is what the Germans and the Dutch paid for a full-month unthrottled internet connection so fast you would think that you are imagining things.
In Kenya, Safaricom—the company that fleeces M-Pesa users with predatory transaction fees—sells “unlimited” data that throttle to “dial-up speeds” after the first 10 GB. Imagine paying for a Ferrari and getting a wheelbarrow.
And let’s not even talk about Nigeria, where MTN and Airtel advertise “4G” that delivers speeds closer to 1998 AOL. A Zoom call? Prepare for pixelated faces, frozen screens, and the inevitable “Can you hear me now?”
In Ghana, it’s an open secret: telecom companies brazenly subscribe customers to useless services – daily news alerts, football scores, “spiritual” messages – and then deduct money without permission. When users notice, they’re told to “text STOP to 1234″**, knowing that most people won’t bother.
Not me. It bothers me that a company can have the audacity to steal my money and force me to waste time texting stupid messages. My tactic is simple: I call and ask that my name be removed within the hour, or I will report it to the regulatory organization, the National Communication Authority, NCA. I make sure that I always escalate if they fail to comply.
The picture below was the latest remit from AirTelco after the NCA forced them to repay the money they stole from my account. No, it is not about the amount, but the idea that some colonial entity will fleece me is unacceptable. I should add that the NCA has always helped whenever I contact them; kudos to them.
In South Africa, Vodacom and MTN have perfected “bill shock,” customers wake up to find half their airtime gone, siphoned off by ghost subscriptions. Complain, and you’ll be tossed into customer service purgatory: “Please hold… your call is important to us.” (Translation: “We already have your money, colonial peasant.”) MTN Ghana used to have what they call “expired data,” when data paid for by customers were made to vanish. How does data expire? Only in Africa will these criminal telecoms get away with their vast crimes.
The questions I asked when I receive calls from these Telcos when forced by the NCA to offer their insincere apologies are:
Are you people unaware of the country’s laws, or you wilfully decide to break them?
Do they teach only criminality in your school, forgetting about corporate ethics and personal morality?
How do you sleep well at night after helping modern colonialism cheat your people and destroy your country?
The story of Vodafone’s takeover of Ghana Telecom is a masterclass in neo-colonial looting.
In 2008, under pressure from Western “advisors,” the Ghanaian government sold 70% of Ghana Telecom to Vodafone for a scandalous $900 million. The company was grossly undervalued, and the deal was rammed through Parliament with allegations that MPs collected $5,000 as bribes to vote for a bill that drained Ghana of one of its most strategic assets. Ghanaians were left holding an empty bag. The plantation gatekeepers masquerading as leaders even sold the fiber optic in the scandalous deal. At the end of their inglorious terms, these shameless nation-wreckers collect ex-gratias, pensions, and whatnot.
Vodafone did what every heist company does – they asset-stripped the company, cut investment, and jacked up prices. Then, after milking Ghana dry, they flipped their shares and walked away with massive profits. Vodafone Ghana has metamorphosed into a zombie network – slow, unreliable, and a monument to corporate greed. It emerged as Telecel.
Safaricom isn’t just a telecom company in Kenya; it can best be described as a state-sanctioned cartel. With over 80% market share, they operate like a mafia. Despite citizens wailing and gnashing teeth, the Kenyan government plays dumb because Safaricom’s profits are too juicy to disrupt.
We would have thought that South Africa, with its advanced infrastructures, would be better, but while Europe enjoys cheap, fast broadband, South Africans pay some of the highest prices in the world for mediocre service.
Vodacom and MTN charge up to R150 ($8) per GB, which is outrageous considering that the same amount buys 10GB in Egypt. It is still apartheid, but this time, it is in the digital domain – fiber connection is a luxury reserved for affluent suburbs, while townships are stuck with overpriced, unreliable LTE.
And yet, with pomp and pageantry, these companies post billions in profits yearly. Where does that money go? Certainly not into improving infrastructure.
There are laws to regulate things and keep these companies in check. Unfortunately, they are obeyed in the breach. Why are African regulators paid to oversee and sanction errant providers who are not doing their job? Why should citizens always face double jeopardy, exploited by criminal-minded companies and stressed out trying to get justice?
In Nigeria, MTN failed to disconnect unregistered SIMs (a significant security risk). The NCC fined them N1.04 trillion, but they quietly slashed the fine after backroom deals.
– Safaricom dominates the Kenya market, yet the Competition Authority does nothing.
– In South Africa, Vodacom and MTN collude on pricing, yet the government looks the other way.
Given their shoddy performances across the board, we cannot consider African telecom companies as service providers—they’re extractive industries, no different from the colonial-era trading companies that looted our resources and left us with nothing. While they have removed their criminal roaming charges in Europe, they maintain them in Africa.
The regulators should wake up and do what is needed. For starters, they can:
1. Real competition – break up monopolies like Safaricom.
2. Strict regulations – force telcos to refund unauthorized deductions.
3. Public ownership – If private companies won’t serve Africans, nationalize the infrastructure.
4. Impose harsh sanctions on infractions.
We often quote Frederick Doug,lass, especially his admonition that the limits of tyrants are prescribed by those they oppress. As citizens, our silence, cowardly, and complacency empowered the colonialists and the plantation gatekeepers they installed as stooges in the colonial plantations they call countries. We must say that we have had enough of this digital colonialism. Africans deserve fast, affordable, reliable internet – not the overpriced, substandard scraps these telecom vultures throw at us.
Until then, every dropped call, every stolen airtime, and every buffering video is proof: African telcos are not just failing us – they’re robbing us blind, and we allow them through our inaction and, let’s face it, our cowardice.
©️ Fẹ̀mi Akọ̀mọ̀làfẹ̀
(Farmer, Writer, Published Author, Essayist, Polemicist, Satirist, and Social Commentator.)
My Mission: Stultitia Delenda Est – Stupidity Must be Destroyed!
I am an unapologetic Pan-Africanist who is unconditionally opposed to any form and manifestation of racism, fascism, and discrimination.
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