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The Board of Etisalat Nigeria has been dissolved over the recent loan crisis rocking the telecommunications company. A transition management board has been appointed.
Sources say former Deputy Managing Director of Celtel Nigeria (now Airtel Nigeria), Boye Olusanya, will take as the Chief Executive Officer of Etisalat during the transition period. This follows the resignation of Matthew Willsher on Monday.
A deputy governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Joseph Nnana, will be the chairman of the board, taking over from Keem Belo-Osagie, who resigned as part of the agreement reached for a seamless transition.
Funke Ighodaro will take over as Chief Financial Officer (CFO) after the resignation of Olawole Obasunloye.
Another member of the transition team is Seyi Bickersteth, the national senior partner and CEO of KPMG Professional Services Limited.
Etisalat, Nigeria’s fourth largest telecom operator with 21 million subscribers, owes a consortium of banks N541 billion, leading to a take-over attempt.
Mubadala Group, the major investor from the United Arab Emirates, has pulled out of the company.
The transition agreement was brokered with the banks by the CBN and NCC.
NCC has warned the creditors that the licence awarded to Etisalat Nigeria is not transferable, effectively stopping the banks from taking ownership of the company.
The new CEO, Olusanya, was a member of the pioneer team of Airtel in 2001 and lived through the various boardroom crises — a factor said to have contributed to his choice to manage the Etisalat affair.
Airtel started out in 2001 as Econet, transiting to Vodacom briefly before changing to VMobile, Zain and Celtel.