Nigeria's Communications Minister Adebayo Shittu has said neither his ministry nor the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) facilitated the NGN50-billion payment from MTN and the deal was brokered by the Attorney General of the federation, Abubakar Malami. It was reported that the mobile operator last week made a payment to the country's federal government towards a settlement of the fine imposed by the NCC in October 2015.

The mobile operator also announced that it will withdraw its legal action taken in mid-December 2015 against the NCC.

The communications ministry had initially been accused of going behind the NCC to broker a deal with MTN and a PR disaster ensued when the NCC denied any knowledge of the payment.

This prompted the minister to issue a statement on the subject matter on Monday.

"I have not negotiated with anybody," Shittu said. "Remember I was not yet a minister when the matter started. At no time was any file ever brought to me on the matter even after my resumption. (The) MTN went to court to buy time, but then realised that they were not likely to win in court, and now they are anxious to negotiate. They only told me unofficially that they were withdrawing the case; that they had gone to the Attorney General of the Federation who, they said, asked them to make some down payment for any negotiation to begin."

After having initially denied knowledge of the payment, the NCC has now confirmed that MTN made payment of NGN50-billion to the government for possible settlement of the NGN780-billion fine.

In a statement released yesterday Tony Ojobo, NCC's Director of Public Affairs said the commission was informed about the payment on Monday by the Office of the Attorney General who also doubles as Nigeria's justice minister.

Ojobo stated: "The amount was an unconditional good faith payment, on the basis that this sum would be applied towards eventual settlement agreement for payment of the fine imposed by the Commission, where the ongoing negotiations between the Federal Government and the company reaches a final resolution."

He added that the receipt of the amount from MTN and the operator's decision to withdraw the suit is without prejudice to the final decision of government on the terms of payment being proposed by MTN.

All attempts to solicit a response from the Attorney General's office proved unsuccessful at the time of publishing.