A businessman, Sylvanus Ukpong, has sued telecommunication giant, MTN, for barring his line, Premium Times reports.
Mr Ukpong claimed in the writ of summons filed at the High Court of the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja, on March 12, 2021 that by barring his line, MTN stopped him from accessing business partners and potential customers.
He argued to the court that his Civil Construction and Agro-Allied Company based in Uyo, Akwa Ibom State, depend heavily on telephone calls to interact with business partners and transact with customers.
By barring his line, Ukpong added that the network provider cost him the huge sum in the last four months.
Therefore, he prayed that the court ordered MTN to unblock his line with immediate effect and the
sum of N55 million should be paid ro him as compensation – N50 million for general damages and N5 million to cover for filing and prosecution of the suit.
Ukpong said he was suddenly barred from using his MTN postpaid line of 0803-746-6663 on November 2020 over an alleged N31,560 airtime bill incurred in October, a bill he said had been off-set by his recharge card vendor, Ime Esema, whom he made electronic bank transfer to.
He said, prior to the incident, he had submitted a type-written letter to the MTN Nigeria branch office at 40, Ikot Ekpene Road, Uyo, Akwa Ibom State, requesting that his line 0803-746-6663 be migrated from postpaid to prepaid.
He said his request was rejected on the grounds of the company’s claim that it could only accept handwritten letters.
He however later sent them a hand-written letter which was later rejected because the service provider do not have internet network for them to process his request.
