Alton Chairman Says Telco CEO Summons Raises Serious Constitutional Questions

Bennett Oghifo

The Chairman of the Association of Licensed Telecommunications Operators of Nigeria (ALTON), Engr. Gbenga Adebayo, has said the recent summons issued by the House of Representatives Ad Hoc Committee to telecommunications company chief executives raises “serious constitutional questions” about the scope and limits of legislative investigative powers.

Engr. Adebayo, while fielding questions from journalists at the weekend, gave a detailed account of his appearance before the Committee and the legal reasoning behind ALTON’s position that the summons, as framed, exceeded the boundaries set by the 1999 Constitution.

The Ad Hoc Committee, chaired by Rep. Olumide Osoba (APC-Ogun), had on October 21 directed the CEOs of MTN Nigeria, Airtel Nigeria, Globacom and Mafab Communications to appear before it on October 28, warning that any executive who failed to attend could face arrest. The Committee was established to investigate the persistent decline in quality of telecommunications services across Nigeria.

According to Adebayo, he appeared before the Committee in his capacity as ALTON Chairman “not with the intention of preventing individual operators from discharging their legitimate responsibilities, but to ensure that the Committee understood the industry’s concerns and the constitutional issues arising from the nature of the summons.”

The summons had drawn attention across the business community, with the Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry among those calling for a measured approach that preserved the regulatory autonomy of sector-specific agencies.

Lawmakers, however, told Adebayo that he could not represent the individual operators in that capacity.

“The difficulty was that the Committee appeared to regard the operators themselves as subjects of investigation rather than private entities being invited to provide information or assist with a legitimate legislative inquiry,” Adebayo said. “We respectfully disagreed with that approach.”

He disclosed that ALTON formally communicated its position to the Committee in a letter dated 20 October 2026, setting out both its willingness to cooperate and its concerns about the constitutional framework governing the summons.

At the centre of the dispute is the interpretation of Sections 88 and 89 of the 1999 Constitution, which grant the National Assembly investigative powers for specific legislative purposes. Adebayo argued that the critical question is “whether those powers extend to compelling privately owned and regulated telecommunications companies to account for their commercial and operational activities in circumstances where the matters being investigated fall within the statutory jurisdiction of the sector regulator.”

ALTON has history on this point. In 2018, the association filed suit at the Federal High Court seeking a judicial interpretation of the Assembly’s oversight powers over telecoms operators. That case remains pending.

Adebayo cited several judicial decisions to support ALTON’s position. In DHL International Nigeria Limited v. Senate, the courts examined the limits of the Assembly’s investigative powers in relation to private companies. In Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria Limited v. Speaker, House of Representatives (2023), the Court of Appeal held that investigative powers must be connected to constitutional purposes prescribed by law. A July 2023 Federal High Court ruling in Wale Taiwo SAN v. Stanbic IBTC similarly held that the investigative powers of the National Assembly under Sections 88 and 89 must relate to matters within the Assembly’s legislative competence.

He also pointed to a pending appeal before the Supreme Court involving the Nigeria Employers’ Consultative Association (NECA) on the same constitutional provisions, arguing that “institutions should exercise restraint where substantially related constitutional questions are already before the courts.”

“These are not questions that should be settled through threats of arrest or institutional confrontation,” Adebayo said. “We must allow the courts to determine the outstanding legal issues while ensuring that the National Assembly, the NCC and industry operators work together within their respective constitutional and statutory mandates.”

He was, however, careful to distinguish his position from outright hostility to legislative engagement. “I would not dismiss legislative hearings outright. They can be useful instruments of accountability, public engagement and policy development,” he said. “However, we must distinguish between hearings that produce meaningful outcomes and hearings that simply generate headlines.”

The NCC, which has the statutory responsibility to regulate the telecommunications industry, had itself disclosed at the 95th Telecom Consumers Parliament in Lagos that over 75 million subscribers had been compensated for poor service and that operators had carried out more than 7,000 targeted network interventions in 2026.

“The National Assembly should complement, rather than duplicate, the work of the regulator,” Adebayo said. “When legitimate regulatory concerns exist, the most productive path is to strengthen the capacity and mandate of the NCC rather than to create parallel mechanisms of accountability that may ultimately produce more confusion than clarity.”

The NCC itself regulates over 220 million active telecoms subscriptions in Nigeria, and the sector contributes more than 14 per cent of GDP, figures that both sides acknowledge raise the stakes of any institutional dispute over jurisdiction.