The Court of Appeal in Abuja has ordered MTN Nigeria Communications Limited to pay N15 million in damages for the unlawful deduction of airtime from a subscriber’s account due to unsolicited services. The court, in a unanimous decision by a three-member panel of Justices, condemned the telecom giant for repeatedly deducting customers’ airtime for the auto-renewal of services they had not subscribed to.

The court described this practice as fraudulent and concluded that the sending of unsolicited text messages by MTN constituted a violation of subscribers’ right to privacy under Section 37 of the 1999 Constitution (as amended), and a breach of Regulation 28 of the Consumer Code of Practice Regulations.

The ruling stemmed from an appeal (marked CA/ABJ/CV/137/2022) brought by an aggrieved customer, Mr. Ezugwu Anene, who had filed a complaint against the telecom company. Anene claimed that between 2016 and 2018, MTN sent him over 244 unsolicited text messages for a service he never subscribed to—Weekly Guidance and Counseling. Additionally, he alleged that N20 was unlawfully deducted from his airtime balance each time he received such messages on his mobile line.

Despite protesting at MTN’s Abuja office and attempting to activate the Do Not Disturb service using the code 2442, Anene argued that the deductions continued, including for a Caller Tune service imposed on him.