Etisalat’s CEO, CFO resign

The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of embattled telecommunications firm, Etisalat Nigeria, Matthew Willsher and Olawole Obasunloye, respectively have stepped down from the board of the company.

This is coming some days after the resignation of the Chairman, Hakeem Bello-Osagie and some Mubadala directors of the United Arab Emirate (UAE) firm.

Their resignations came on the heels of the protracted loan impasse of the N541 billion the telecommunications firm is owing a consortium of 13 banks, which has subsequently led to the pull out of the parent body and major investor, the Mubadala Group.

An industry source, who confirmed this development to The Guardian, said the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) in Lagos brokered the transition agreement with the banks yesterday.

As part of the transition programme, the firm is also expected to announce a new management team. However, as at press time yesterday, it was yet to do that.

Efforts to get the NCC’s angle of the development proved abortive as the mobile phone number of the commission’s Director of Public Affairs, Tony Ojobo, was said to be switched off by the network operator.