China’s telecoms giant Huawei planned to invest US$627 million in the now defunct Nigerian Telecommunications Limited (NITEL) following NITEL’s acquisition by Transcorp.
This was revealed this morning by Nicholas Okoye, former Chief Operating Officer of NITEL, while speaking at the ongoing Social Media Week Lagos 2013.
NITEL finally went bust in mid-2012 after protracted attempts at a sale by the government, which dragged on for nearly 10 years.
Okoye said had the corporation not had to contend with sabotage by politicians and ridiculous litigations by state governments, which sued NITEL’s new owners for the national telecoms company’s taxes dating as far back as 30 years, the company would have been profitable.
He confirmed the Huawei interest by revealing the official letter his office received from the Chinese firm.
He said this was as a result of his committee’s meetings with the management of Huawei which resulted in the agreement.
