THE BOOMERANG DEAL WE STRUCK

It is interesting that the coming into being of the cell phone business in Cameroon, more or less, coincided with the rough birth of multiparty politics in Cameroon, with all the hot feelings that it entailed. In the heat of the moment, many customers West of the Mungo overwhelmingly rejected Orange Cameroon (at the time called Mobilis) in favour of MTN Cameroon. The argument was that since Orange was a French company, it should be boycotted in retaliation for ‘what the French are doing to us by propping the Biya regime ’. Since MTN was South African and even Anglophone,it is easy to understand why they were the favourite service providers of the mobile phone to Cameroonians. So not surprisingly, most Anglophone Cameroonians are today customers of MTN, not Orange. Today,though,the balance sheet is mitigated, to say the least. MTN has largely become a big disappointment. The services it offers break down too often leading to frequent blackouts, credit transfers not reaching their beneficiaries and reception of calls being sub standard. It is an open secret that users curse MTN on a daily basis. On the other hand, Orange seems to be cruising on hitch-free.