MultiChoice: Nigeria’s favourite Scapegoat

Scapegoat or sitting duck?” This was the question I posed to a friend about MultiChoice Nigeria in relation to the eruption of social media anger at the company’s upward review of rates on its DStv and GOtv platforms. My friend, a young business owner, submitted that both are appropriate. She, however, disagreed a bit when I said MultiChoice is the country’s favourite scapegoat or sitting duck, arguing that the title belongs to telecommunications giants, MTN, before quickly adding that it may be too close to call.

A scapegoat is blamed for things he or she did not do or wholly responsible for, while a sitting duck is an easy target. MultiChoice, I am convinced, is a hybrid of both descriptions. I have held this view for a while and it has received reinforcement, though not needed, with the reactions to the just announced price adjustments. I have seen really hot takes-mostly absurd, spectacularly ignorant and borderline xenophobic, with a few sane ones.

To put things in perspective, StarTimes, MultiChoice’s major competition, announced an upward review of prices on its packages, which took effect on April 14, two clear weeks before MultiChoice take-off date of May 1. The announcement provoked no reaction. MultiChoice’s appearance in social media snipers’ gunsights is no new thing, as it has happened every time the company adjusts prices. It is usually accompanied by calls for boycott of its services; for a government-legislated price freeze, other less-classifiable indices of rage.

This time, it has attracted the attention of the National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS), which has issued a one-week ultimatum to MultiChoice to adopt a pay-as-you-view subscription model or have its offices sealed nationwide. None of these threats has gone in the direction of StarTimes, which adduced the same reason-debilitating levels of operational costs-as MultiChoice.

There had been stranger interventions. In 2015, two lawyers filed a suit against MultiChoice (to widespread acclaim), asking the court to order the company to reverse the price adjustment made that year. The court dismissed the case, saying the lawyers were not obliged to use MultiChoice’s services.

Also, last year, an Abuja-based lawyer, Festus Onifade, and Coalition of Nigerian Consumers dragged MultiChoice before the Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (FCCPC), asking that the company be restrained from carrying out the price adjustments it announced at the time. The three-man tribunal ruled, unanimously, that though MultiChoice occupies a dominant position in the pay TV market, it found no evidence that it was using its position to the detriment of consumers and subsequently affirmed its right to fix prices for its services.

Legal reprieves are law-based and have no room for the riot of emotions that inhibits the grasp of pricing decisions determinants. Totally ignored by many, I suspect willfully, is the effect of the economic situation in the market businesses play. In the case of our import-dependent country, stubbornly high inflation, occasioned by, among other factors, continuously frail national currency responsible for rise in import costs, has left businesses with breathing difficulties.

Other major drivers are continuous increases in electricity tariffs, diesel and petrol pump prices. Additional upward pressure has come from transportation costs and those of miscellaneous goods and services. These have made victims of businesses, whose operational costs keep rising. And consumers, naturally.
Last year, inflation rose 10 months on the bounce, reaching a 17-year high. The first three months of this year have not been different. In March, figures released by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) show a rise to 22.04 percent from 21.91 percent in February, leaving businesses with no place to hide.

According to the NBS Selected Food Price Watch for February 2023, the average price of 1kg beef (boneless) stood at N2,445.96, an indication that on a year-on-year basis, the price rose by 27.43 per cent from the value recorded in February 2022 (N1,922.2), and 1.12 per cent on a month-on-month basis from N2,418.91 in January 2023.

The average price of 1kg of Tomato increased on a year-on-year basis by 19.08 per cent from N393.08 in February 2022 to N468.09 in February 2023. On a month-on-month basis, the average price of this item increased by 0.22 per cent in February 2023. The average price of 1kg of rice on a year-on-year basis rose by 19.30 per cent from N436.58 in February 2022 to N520.84 in February 2023. Also, on a month-on-month basis, it increased by 1.17 per cent from N514.83 in January 2023.

In a similar vein, the average price of 1kg of onion bulb rose by 18.99 per cent on a year-on-year basis from N378.26 in February 2022 to N450.07 in February 2023. While on a month-on-month basis, the price rose by 0.81 per cent.

The average price of 1kg yam tuber on a year-on-year basis rose by 28.45 per cent from N339.76 in February 2022 to N436.41 in February 2023. Also, on a month-on-month basis, it increased by 1.17 per cent from N431.36 in January 2023. In the same vein, the average price of vegetable oil stood at N1,196.68 in February 2023, showing an increase of 25.91 per cent from N950.46 in February 2022. On a month-on-month basis, it rose by 1.10 per cent from N1,183.67 in January 2023.

Airlines and food sellers, who are businesses like any other, have been compelled to raise prices to remain afloat, with their actions provoking no concertedly voluble protests by consumers. Exactly how MultiChoice or any other business in its sector should respond to this harsh economic climate without raising prices eludes this writer. Perhaps, there are things we do not know that generate the coarseness against MultiChoice. Is it a victim of its size, nay success? Is it, as some have suggested, on account of its South African heritage?

Why can other providers of goods or services, including the government, raise prices and the public acts like nothing has happened? I am struggling to find the answers.