Nigeria has revoked the bid of a consortium that had offered $2.5 billion for a majority stake in the failed state-run telephone company. It comes as the country's telecom sector continues to prove successful after a number of government initiatives. Chukwuma Nwokoh, a spokesman for Nigeria's Bureau of Public Enterprises, told The Associated Press that the New Generation Telecommunications Consortium had failed to pay a down payment for Nigerian Telecommunications Ltd., known locally as Nitel. The consortium was supposed to pay $750 million of the total sum by Nov. 5, but the deadline was extended by months. He said the reserve bidder offered just over a third of the amount. Nitel, in principle, provides landline telephone service in Nigeria, Africa's most populous nation with 150 million residents. However, the state company's telephones now rarely work. BM
