Once again, MultiChoice Nigeria, providers of popular DSTV subscription television services, has come under withering attacks due to its latest upward adjustment of tariffs.

Responding to ballooning operational costs which pushed inflation to 33.20 per cent as of April 2024, the company like other providers of goods and services, hiked the prices of its services with effect from May 1, 2024. Nigerians expressed their discontent, especially in the social media. While some campaigned for the boycott of the company, others prevailed on government to intervene and force a reversal.

The Acting Executive Vice Chairman of the Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission, FCCPC, Dr Adamu Abdullahi, assured of a price review. A lawyer, Festus Onifade, also secured an interim order from the CCPC Tribunal restraining the implementation of the new tariff. When the case came up on May 7, MultiChoice reminded the Tribunal of its earlier ruling of September 6, 2022 that the FCCPC lacked the power to regulate the prices of goods and services.

Other groups which took action against the tariff increase included the Association of Cable TV and Internet Subscribers of Nigerian, ACTIS, and the National Association of Nigerian Students, NANS, which vowed to picket the company’s premises. The National Assembly was widely expected to, as usual, make resolutions.

The people’s reactions to the latest DSTV price hikes are not different from the way they have reacted to other avalanches of price increases arsing from the withdrawal of petrol subsidy, floating of the Naira and its subsequent crash, electricity tariff increases and others. These increases come even as the people’s purchasing power has continued to dwindle.

It should be borne in mind that MultiChoice, just like other corporate entities operating in a hostile economic environment, has to survive. It is also a victim of the same inflationary costs which have driven many rooted multinationals out of Nigeria.

It is very unhealthy to reduce the situation to the politics of suspicion and crisis of confidence, if not xenophobia, that frequently brews between Nigerians and South African companies in Nigeria on the one hand, and Nigerians and South Africans in South Africa, on the other. Undue hostility is unhelpful because MultiChoice is beneficial to our economy, with thousands of Nigerians on its payroll directly and indirectly.

The company should also appreciate the wide patronage it enjoys in Nigeria by moderating its tariff increases rather than its frequent exponential hikes. It should seriously consider the suggestion by ACTIS, of the “pay as you go” option to enable subscribers adjust their costs to the sizes of their pockets.

MultiChoice’s DSTV is not a monopoly. There are other service providers in the industry. It is a free market of willing buyers and sellers. Consumers are free to exercise their choice.

Government must moderate excesses on both sides.