By Akin Olukiran

As a social liberal, instinctively persuaded by the virtues of liberal economics, yet, equally committed to the principles of fairness, proportionality and social justice, I approached MTN Nigeria’s recently released half-year results with decidedly conflicted sentiments. As a publicly quoted company, employing thousands of Nigerians, contributing substantially to government revenues and almost ubiquitous in its support for socially responsible causes and community initiatives across the country, MTN is unquestionably entitled to extract whatever legitimate commercial value the market permits. Indeed, I would ordinarily be among the first to defend its right to maximise returns for its shareholders.

Yet, there is something profoundly disquieting about the magnitude of those returns when juxtaposed against the economic circumstances of the very population from whom they are being extracted. MTN Nigeria reported revenue of approximatelyN3 trillion for the six months ended 30 June 2026, with an astonishing N1.7 trillion derived from data alone. Profit before tax stood at approximately N1.09 trillion, while profit after tax was about N707.5 billion.

These are, by any reasonable measure, extraordinary numbers. From the perspective of an investor, they are probably exhilarating. From the standpoint of corporate management, they constitute an emphatic vindication of strategy, investment and execution.

But numbers, particularly such prodigious ones, require interrogation beyond the sterile confines of corporate balance sheets. Nigeria is a country in which an overwhelming proportion of its citizens are battling to preserve even a modest standard of living. The national minimum wage is still N70,000 per month, while inflation has progressively eroded the purchasing power of ordinary Nigerians. Yet telecommunications data, once regarded as a discretionary luxury, has metamorphosed into something approaching a basic necessity. Hence the need to view this from the prism of free-market efficiency and social equity.

People now require data to conduct businesses, search for employment, attend online classes, check WAEC results, apply to universities, access banking services, advertise products, consume news and participate in the increasingly digital architecture of contemporary society. The smartphone has effectively become an office, classroom, marketplace, bank, entertainment centre and social environment compressed into the palm of one’s hand.

And then there is social media. Nigeria has developed an extraordinary appetite for TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, WhatsApp and YouTube. For an increasingly large number of people, particularly the young, waking up and immediately immersing themselves in an endless stream of videos, skits, messages and digitally manufactured distractions has become almost ritualistic.

What was once a means of communication has, for many, become an environment in which they spend substantial portions of their waking lives.

This creates an extraordinary commercial paradox. Those with the least disposable income are increasingly among the heaviest consumers of an almost limitless service. Telecommunications companies are entitled to monetise this demand. Indeed, that is why they are in business and that is capitalism.

My objection begins when what the market permits is conflated with what society ought reasonably to permit. Markets efficiently allocate resources, but they are not intrinsically moral institutions. A transaction may be legal, voluntary and commercially rational, yet still socially inequitable.

This is particularly pertinent where the product in question has ceased to be a luxury and become an essential utility. In the United Kingdom, I find the contrast instructive. One can obtain a monthly Pay As You Go package there for around £10 (N18,500) providing substantial allowances for unlimited calls, texts and 30GB of data, together with international calling allowances.

In Nigeria, where incomes are incomparably lower, the cost of mobile data can constitute a disproportionately significant component of household expenditure.

Consider someone earning N100,000 a month. A monthly expenditure of N9,000 will only get you 25GB of data allowance, without calls. This may appear insignificant to someone earning hundreds of thousands or millions of naira, but it represents a materially different economic burden to the low-income worker who must simultaneously contend with food, transportation, electricity, rent, school fees and healthcare.

MTN’s figures reveal the extraordinary expansion of Nigeria’s appetite for data. Rising consumption and tens of millions of active users demonstrate not merely successful corporate strategy, but the country’s growing economic and social dependence on connectivity.

One wonders whether a transaction can remain entirely voluntary when participation is increasingly indispensable. A graduate seeking employment, trader seeking customers, student supplementing education, freelancer earning online, or business communicating with clients cannot realistically “switch off” connectivity.

This is the distinction that uncritical apostles of unfettered capitalism conveniently overlook. Matthew 25:29 captures an unsettling economic parallel: those who have are given more, while those without risk losing even what they possess.

Broadly, those who own shares in MTN can leverage connectivity for education, commerce and wealth creation, while the poor expend substantial sums on data, consuming endless videos and skits – often watching those who profit from their consumption.

For the sake of clarity, I am not advocating that MTN should be condemned for being profitable. That would be intellectually incoherent. Nigeria desperately needs profitable corporations, successful entrepreneurs, foreign investment and businesses capable of generating employment and paying substantial taxes. What I question is whether profitability without proportionality should be regarded as an unquestionable virtue.

If telecommunications companies are becoming gatekeepers of an indispensable component of economic and social participation, regulation must evolve accordingly.

The regulator must assess not merely affordability, but its relationship to disposable income, competitive intensity, and the disproportionate burden on the poorest. Crucially, flat pricing may penalise poorer communities where inferior network quality diminishes the value received. Nigeria’s regulatory problem is that we frequently oscillate between laissez-faire complacency and belated intervention after public outrage has reached fever pitch.

MTN’s extraordinary results should consequently be regarded as both a commercial triumph and a social warning. The company deserves credit for its investment and execution. Its shareholders deserve their returns. Its employees deserve their remuneration. Its investors deserve the rewards associated with assuming commercial risk.

But the Nigerian consumer deserves something too. He deserves an economy in which poverty does not automatically translate into paying disproportionately more for the necessities of modern life, especially when network is usually pretty poor in the community where his data is consumed. By comparison, in electricity supply, those on Band B pay significantly less than those on Band A per kilowatt hour of electricity consumed. The same could apply to telecoms.

Capitalism is at its most defensible when competition stimulates innovation, broadens access and progressively reduces the cost of goods and services. It becomes considerably more problematic when the indispensability, vulnerability or compulsive consumption of the customer becomes the principal engine of profitability.

There is, therefore, nothing inherently obscene about a corporation making billions. The obscenity begins when we become so mesmerised by the magnitude of corporate profits that we cease to interrogate the economic circumstances that make those profits possible. And that is the uncomfortable question posed by MTN’s extraordinary numbers. At what point does legitimate profit cease to be the reward for creating value and begin to resemble obscene profiting from an inadequately regulated system?

Olukiran, a social and political analyst wrote from London. He can be reached via:[email protected]