Majority stake owners in Nigerian Telecommunications’ (NITEL’s) Transcorp have sacked NITEL board Chairman Chief Ferdinand Alabraba for undisclosed reasons.
Transcorp sources, who confirmed that he was dismissed, said that the step is part of interim measures by Transcorp to make over the declining fortunes of NITEL. Industry observers expect other personnel changes will be announced soon.
“The stepping down of erstwhile chairman of the NITEL board, Chief Ferdinand Alabraba, is a key to the success of the current measures in changing the face of the company,” one source said.
The decision to change NITEL’s board leadership is meant to return it to profitability, before a proposed sale to new core investors is finalized in the fourth quarter. The move was approved at a Transcorp board meeting two weeks ago, said the source.
Meanwhile, last Thursday, Transcorp signed a contract valued at about 600 billion Nigerian naira (US$5 billion) with Hilton Hotels, which is expected to lead to 10 new hotels being built over the next five years by the management of the Transcorp Hilton Abuja.
In other NITEL news, a vigilante group in a Lagos suburb arrested three of four NITEL cable vandals. Onyebuchi Anazodo, 21, Steven Aleke, 18, and Monday Ebube, 27, are accused of cutting the high-capacity, fiber optic cable linking Lagos to the rest of the country.
Vandals usually cut, cart away and sell the cables to people who resell them to blacksmiths, who melt and use the cables to make jewelry, according to a NITEL spokesman.
