Afam Edozie, Mr. MTN quits

Remmy Nweke
The uncertainty surrounding the state of the pioneer Chief Marketing and Strategy Officer of the Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM), MTN Nigeria, Mr. Afam Edozie, has been rested as he confirmed to ITrealms of his resignation which takes effect end of August.

Read more: http://www.itrealms.blogspot.com/

This followed the alleged resignation or sack of the man, otherwise known as Mr. MTN Nigeria at the weekend.

MTN Nigeria is a subsidiary of the MTN Group which has recorded unprecedented market growth in the last four years to the tune of over six million subscribers.

Although the External Communications Manager at MTN Nigeria, Mr. Andrew Okeleke when contacted was silent on the ‘rumour’ but preferred to differ his response to the inquiry till tomorrow, Monday, when he must have gotten enough information on the issue and official directive to react.

However, the report has it that Mr. Edozie filed a three-month notice of resignation to his employer, MTN, and was not on any form of duress to do so.

But in reaction to inquiry by ITrealms, Mr. Edozie said he actually submitted his letter of notice of resignation since last June, which means that he would be leaving precisely by the end of this month, August to devote full time to his brain-child known as FiCres Capital, a venture capital firm.

He also plans to launch FiCres by the beginning of next year.

In his words, “Y’ello. I handed in my notice in June and will be leaving end of August. I have been working on my own firm, a venture capital firm called FiCres Capital and plan to launch our first company in the new year,” he told ITrealms.

He did not however, attribute his resignation to any form of allegations of MTN running an ‘Apartheid’ policies against its Nigeria staff.

Mr. Edozie is reportedly one of the remaining faces of top Nigerians in the management of MTN Nigeria and with this development, MTN is keenly in search of a replacement for him.

The outgoing chief marketing and strategy officer, has experiences spanning over 15 years in marketing and strategic management cutting across Virgin, Procter & Gamble and Motorola in Europe.

Educated at the King's College Lagos, and has a Bachelor of Science degree in Chemical Engineering from the University of Lagos (UNILAG), both in Lagos-Nigeria.

ITrealms recalls that on Monday, April 25, 2005, MTN Nigeria announced the sack of its two top management staff, namely the Chief Network Group, Mr. Dan Elesho and the Capital Programmes Group, Mr. Christopher Sergeant.

Although the two were said to be always in conflict with each other in performing of their duties, which did not go down well with the management, hence the relief of their duties.

The company has in recent times witnessed protests by some Nigerians over what was termed indiscriminate sack of Nigerians in the MTN country office and replacing same with South Africans.

An act activist said would not be allowed in another country including South Africa.