Raheem Akingbolu reviews the 25 years of MTN operation in Nigeria, pointing out how the brand has maintained the market leadership and the opportunities it offers subscribers
There is something unusual about seeing a part of your own lifetime displayed in a museum. An old mobile phone suddenly looks ancient. An advertising line you once heard almost every day returns from memory. A familiar image takes you back to a Nigeria where owning a mobile phone was still something of a status symbol, and receiving a call could attract the attention of everyone around you.
That was the feeling walking into MTN Nigeria’s Y’ello Street Museum, created as part of the company’s 25th anniversary celebrations. It was less like entering a conventional corporate exhibition and more like stepping into a carefully assembled memory of Nigeria’s telecommunications journey.
The atmosphere itself seemed to bring one of MTN’s most memorable payoff lines, “Everywhere You Go”, back to life. Everywhere you turned, there was something familiar, something that connected you to a moment, an experience or a memory from the past 25 years. There were phones and devices from another era, old campaigns, recharge-card memories, and representations of the different stages through which mobile communication has travelled. There was music, food, and drink, alongside cultural references and familiar expressions from advertising. Together, they made the story of MTN feel less like a corporate chronology and more like something Nigerians had actually lived through.
And indeed, we have. MTN began commercial operations in Nigeria in 2001 following the historic GSM licensing process under President Olusegun Obasanjo. Back then, mobile communication remained beyond the reach of many Nigerians. Phones were expensive, calls were costly, and the idea that one small device would eventually become a bank, office, television, marketplace, classroom, and entertainment centre would probably have sounded ambitious. Twenty-five years later, much of that transformation was sitting right before us.
From that beginning, MTN’s story unfolded alongside Nigeria’s own political and economic chapters. President Olusegun Obasanjo represented the defining opening, the administration under which the telecommunications sector was liberalised and GSM licences issued, clearing the way for MTN’s entry in 2001. From there, the journey moved through the Umaru Musa Yar’Adua years, when the young GSM revolution became more firmly established in everyday Nigerian life, and into the Goodluck Jonathan era, when growing internet and data usage began changing what Nigerians could do with the mobile phone.
The Muhammadu Buhari years coincided with a further push into broadband and digital services, culminating in another technological milestone with MTN Nigeria’s commercial launch of 5G in 2022. Now, under President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, the story has entered another phase, with 5G, fintech, fibre, cloud services and digital infrastructure increasingly shaping what connectivity means. Walking past these different chapters at the museum, the presidents appeared less as a roll call of administrations and more as signposts along Nigeria’s journey from the dawn of GSM to today’s digital economy.
The people who managed the business were part of the journey too. From MTN Nigeria’s earlier leadership, including Adrian Wood, Ahmed Farroukh and Brett Goschen, through Michael Ikpoki, its first Nigerian CEO, to Ferdi Moolman and the current CEO, Karl Toriola, each represented a distinct period in the evolution of a brand growing alongside Nigeria.
Perhaps some of the most fascinating exhibits were also the simplest: the devices. Seeing the progression of mobile phones across the years was almost a history lesson without words. What began largely as voice calls and text messages gradually became mobile internet, smartphones, social media, streaming, banking, e-commerce and countless digital services.
From 2G through 3G and 4G to 5G, every technological leap changed not only the network but something about how Nigerians lived. The mobile phone moved from being principally a communication device to becoming a companion woven into everyday life.
Yet the museum was not only about technology. It was equally alive with the lifestyle that had grown around those 25 years. Music, football, television, advertising, food and entertainment sat comfortably beside the technology. In that sense, the exhibition was also an album of Nigerian popular culture.
There were memories of the recharge-card era and the once-familiar umbrella lady. There were reminders of “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?”, football sponsorships and campaigns that travelled beyond advertising into everyday conversation. Saka’s memorable “I Don Port O” belonged to one period. “Everywhere You Go” belonged to another. Each brought back something about the Nigeria in which it first appeared.
Amid those memories, Dr Omobola Johnson, Non-Executive Director of MTN Nigeria, offered a useful perspective on what all that connectivity had ultimately produced. “We have connected millions of Nigerians. That’s the thing, and the connectivity has led to many other things, new businesses, new innovations, new entrepreneurs,” she said.
Standing among the exhibits, the point was easy to appreciate. The real story was never simply the handset, SIM card, mast or network generation. It was what Nigerians began to do once they became connected. A trader could reach a supplier without leaving her shop. An entrepreneur could find customers beyond his immediate neighbourhood. Families separated by distance could remain part of one another’s lives. Today, money moves through the same device, businesses are marketed from it, meetings are held on it, news arrives through it and an increasing number of young people earn livelihoods through opportunities created by connectivity.
That is where MTN’s 25 years begin to feel less like the anniversary of a telecommunications company and more like part of a lifetime experience. Someone who was a child when GSM arrived in 2001 may today be running a business largely from a smartphone. Someone who once searched for a recharge-card seller can now transfer money, pay bills, stream entertainment and conduct business from the device in his pocket.
The Y’ello Street Museum brought those changes together without turning them into a technology lecture. One object triggered a memory. One advertisement recalled another period. An old handset reminded you how desirable it once was until you looked at the smartphone in your hand and realised just how far things had travelled.
Even the music, food, drinks and conversations around the exhibition added something important. They made the experience social and familiar rather than ceremonial. It was possible to come for MTN’s anniversary and leave remembering something about yourself.
Twenty-five years is long enough for a brand to become woven into people’s routines almost without being noticed. Calls to parents, first business contacts, relationships maintained across distances, celebrations, transactions, music, football, work and countless ordinary moments have travelled through mobile networks.
Perhaps that is why walking through the museum communicated something that a chronology from 2001 to 2026 could not quite capture. Dates tell us when things happened. Objects and memories remind us what those things meant.
The phones will continue to change and networks will become faster. Artificial intelligence, cloud computing, fintech and technologies still emerging will create another generation of possibilities. Today’s smartphones may themselves look like museum pieces someday.
But somewhere between the old phones, presidents and CEOs, recharge cards, advertising, music, food, football and familiar memories at Y’ello Street Museum, one thing became particularly clear. Twenty-five years of MTN Nigeria is also, in many ways, 25 years of how our own lives have changed.