• Nigerians react, blame APC over direct charges on subscribers 

Mobile Telephone Network operator in Nigeria, popularly known as MTN, on Sunday, messaged all their customers, notifying them of the introduction of direct charges on all customers accessing banking services through the use of USSD, Starnews has learnt.

The message reads: “Yello, as requested by your bank, from Oct 21, we will start charging you directly for USSD access to banking services. Please contact your bank for more info.”

Another similar message reads: “Yello, Please note that from Oct 21, we will charge N4 per 20 seconds for USSD access to banking services. Thank you.”

The messages above indicate that MTN will charge customers directly for subscribing to USSD to access banking services.

The implementation of the said charges on subscribers was in obedience with the directive of affected banks according to MTN.

Starnews reports that USSD means – Unstructured Supplementary Service Data, which is a communication tool being used to send message between a mobile phone and an application program in the network.

Further investigation by Starnews.com.ng  reveals that affected banks in Nigeria could no longer bear the cost of the use of USSD code by their respective customers following alleged several unfavourable tax policies of the All Progressives Congress (APC) led administration in Nigeria according to the Executive Director of a generational bank in Nigeria who pleaded under the condition of anonymity.

Meanwhile, Nigerians have taken to their Twitter pages to condemn the action of MTN while another group of Nigerians accused the APC government of being cruel act of desperation to generate revenues at the expense of the masses through taxes.

See reaction below: