Leading telecommunications company, MTN Nigeria, has urged traders and other subscribers to regularly check their background applications and ensure they are minimised or turned off when not in use, in order to save data.
The sensitisation followed a series of complaints and misconceptions by subscribers over alleged unauthorised data usage on their mobile devices.
The company, however, clarified that neither it nor any of its officials is stealing subscribers’ data.
It said unminimised applications running in the background, among other factors, were responsible for the rapid exhaustion of data on their devices.
Speaking through its partner firm, Multinz Communications Company, at the launch of an awareness campaign tagged “Data Truth” at Mile 3 Market in Port Harcourt on Wednesday, the telecoms giant said subscribers needed to understand some of the technicalities surrounding data usage.
Terry Igho, an official of Multinz Communications Company, said MTN had planned the sensitisation in phases to reach traders, students and high-value segments of society.
Igho stated, “We are here to just educate people on how their data is being dispensed. That it is actually being used by them and nobody is actually scraping it. That is basically what it is about.
“So we are basically organising this as an educational series for different calibre of users. We have market segments which are called Data Truth. We have high value and for students, which is Data on Trial.
“A lot of us feel that once we close our phone, we are not pressing it, it means we are not using our data. But there are apps that run in the background and use data.
“A lot of people don’t even close apps they used even after they are done. So those are the things that sap your data.”
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Igho further explained that, in a bid to earn more, content creators were posting heavy videos that consume large amounts of data during streaming.
He added that changes in time, technology and gadgets had also affected the rate at which data is consumed.
“Creators want to earn from their content, so they go for high-quality videos. So the data used to stream those quality videos is different from the data used to stream lower-quality videos.
“So the time has changed, the gadgets and technicalities people are using now have changed. But the concept of data users has not changed with the individuals and I think that is the problem, and this is what we are here to sensitise them about,” he added.
Igho advised data users to regularly minimise the applications on their phones and reduce the number of videos they stream at a time to save data.
He also advised traders to activate proper settings on their gadgets to prevent automatic download of photographs and videos, especially those in many WhatsApp groups.
Data depletion remains one of the most contentious issues in Nigeria’s telecoms sector.
The complaints have grown louder since the 2025 tariff adjustments approved by the Nigerian Communications Commission, which raised the cost of calls, SMS and data.
In June, MTN held a public hearing in Lagos to address subscribers’ concerns about how their data is consumed and depleted.
The company has denied manipulating or secretly depleting customers’ data, blaming most complaints on changing digital habits and background activity on smartphones.
