The David Mark telephone controversy belongs to an age of Nigerian communications that younger generations may find difficult to imagine. Today, a mobile telephone can be purchased within minutes, SIM cards are widely available and millions of Nigerians depend on mobile networks for business, banking, education and family communication. In the late 1980s, however, possessing a working telephone line was a privilege available to only a very small proportion of the population.

It was in this environment that Colonel David Alechenu Bonaventure Mark served as Nigeria’s Minister of Communications and became associated with one of the most memorable expressions in the history of the country’s telecommunications sector: “Telephone is not for the poor.”

The expression became deeply embedded in Nigerian political memory. Its endurance reflected the conditions of the period, when NITEL controlled a severely limited national telephone network and access to private lines was beyond the everyday experience of most Nigerians.

David Mark and Nigeria’s Communications Ministry

David Mark was a Nigerian Army officer when he served as Minister of Communications during the military administration of General Ibrahim Babangida.

The Nigerian Communications Commission records Colonel D.A.B. Mark’s tenure as Minister of Communications from January 1988 to June 1990.

A contemporary International Telecommunication Union document from the organisation’s 1989 Plenipotentiary Conference in Nice, France, also identifies D.A. Mark as Nigeria’s Minister of Communications and head of the Nigerian delegation.

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The document lists senior Nigerian telecommunications officials, including Olawale A. Ige, then Director General of the Federal Ministry of Communications, and Augustine U. Otiji, Managing Director of Nigerian Telecommunications Limited.

Mark therefore occupied one of the most important positions in Nigeria’s communications sector at a time when the country faced severe shortages of telephone infrastructure.

The NITEL Era

To understand the David Mark telephone controversy, it is necessary to understand the institution at the centre of Nigeria’s telecommunications system.

Nigeria Telecommunications Limited, better known as NITEL, emerged from a major restructuring of government telecommunications services. It was incorporated in December 1984 following the merger of the telecommunications arm of the old Posts and Telecommunications Department with Nigerian External Communications Limited.

NITEL formally began operations on 1 January 1985.

The company became the dominant provider of fixed telephone services in Nigeria. For millions of Nigerians, however, its existence did not mean that a telephone was readily available.

Obtaining a landline could be a difficult and prolonged process. Infrastructure was inadequate, faults could take time to repair and the number of available lines was extremely small compared with the size of Nigeria’s population.

A telephone was consequently more than a means of communication. In many communities, it was also a visible sign of institutional importance, professional status or personal wealth.

Fewer Than 300,000 Connected Lines

The scale of Nigeria’s telephone shortage was extraordinary.

Records from the period show that the country had an installed telephone capacity of 385,788 lines in 1989. Only 281,419 lines were connected.

This meant that even the limited infrastructure available had not been fully converted into operating telephone connections.

Nigeria already had a population of tens of millions, yet its fixed telephone network consisted of only a few hundred thousand connections.

For the overwhelming majority of Nigerians, having a private telephone at home was simply not part of ordinary life.

The scarcity affected business, government administration and personal communication. People frequently depended on offices, businesses, public facilities or relatives who had access to a working telephone.

In many neighbourhoods, a household with a telephone could become an informal communication centre for friends, neighbours and family members.

NITEL’s Financial and Operational Problems

Scarcity was only one of the problems confronting NITEL.

The company also struggled with billing difficulties, inadequate maintenance, weak revenue collection, high operating expenses and service failures. These problems affected customers and complicated government efforts to operate telecommunications as a financially sustainable public service.

Telephone bills became an important source of dispute.

A customer fortunate enough to obtain a line was expected to pay installation charges, rentals and call charges. At the same time, NITEL needed subscribers to settle their accounts if the network was to generate enough revenue to maintain and expand its services.

The financial pressures contributed to attempts to increase tariffs.

In 1989, NITEL proposed major increases in its charges. These included a 100 per cent increase in installation charges, a 300 per cent increase in rentals and a 200 per cent increase in call charges.

The new rates subsequently came into effect in 1990.

The domestic telephone pulse charge rose sharply from 10 kobo to 90 kobo.

These changes came at a difficult period in Nigeria’s economic history, when many citizens were already dealing with rising living costs and the consequences of economic restructuring.

The David Mark Telephone Controversy

Against this background of scarcity, unpaid bills and pressure on NITEL’s finances, David Mark became associated with the statement that would follow him for decades.

The expression remembered by generations of Nigerians is:

“Telephone is not for the poor.”

The controversy became connected with the government’s insistence that subscribers who used telephone services should pay their bills.

The phrase became extraordinarily powerful because it appeared to describe the social reality surrounding telephone ownership in late 1980s Nigeria.

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There was no legal rule barring poor Nigerians from owning telephones. In practice, however, the limited number of available lines, infrastructure shortages, installation difficulties and associated costs meant that private telephone ownership was concentrated among government institutions, businesses, professionals and relatively prosperous households.

The telephone therefore carried social meaning beyond its practical purpose.

It could represent influence, professional standing, commercial importance or wealth.

That reality helped transform the David Mark telephone controversy into one of the most enduring political stories of the period.

David Mark’s Later Explanation

More than two decades later, David Mark addressed the controversy publicly.

By 2012, Mark had left military service and become one of Nigeria’s most prominent civilian politicians. He was serving as President of the Senate, a position he held from 2007 to 2015.

Mark said the position he had expressed during the telecommunications controversy concerned payment for telephone services.

His explanation was straightforward: anyone who used a telephone service was expected to pay for it.

That argument reflected one of NITEL’s central difficulties during the period. The company required revenue from subscribers at the same time that its network suffered from serious structural, financial and operational weaknesses.

Over the years, however, the shorter and far more memorable phrase, “Telephone is not for the poor,” became permanently connected with Mark’s public image.

When a Telephone Was a Status Symbol

It is difficult to appreciate the importance of the controversy without remembering what a telephone represented in Nigeria at the time.

Before mobile telecommunications, a working fixed line could carry enormous social importance.

Homes with telephones sometimes became communication points for neighbours and extended family members. A person who needed to receive an urgent message could give the number of a relative, employer or nearby business.

Communication required more planning than it does today.

There were no inexpensive mobile devices in people’s pockets, no WhatsApp calls and no instant text messages.

A faulty landline could leave a household or business without direct telephone communication until NITEL restored the service.

For many Nigerians, the greater problem was even more basic: they could not obtain a line in the first place.

This restricted communications environment explains why telephone ownership became closely associated with privilege.

The GSM Revolution Changes Nigeria

Nigeria’s communications landscape changed dramatically at the beginning of the twenty first century.

In 2001, the country entered a new era of commercial digital mobile telecommunications after licences were issued to private mobile operators.

Companies including Econet Wireless Nigeria and MTN began commercial GSM services in August 2001.

The consequences were profound.

Mobile technology removed one of the greatest limitations of the old fixed network. Customers no longer needed a physical telephone line installed directly into every home or business before they could communicate.

Network operators could expand coverage much faster than had been possible under the traditional fixed line system.

Prepaid services also allowed customers to control their spending without depending on monthly telephone bills.

Competition, infrastructure investment and expanding coverage gradually brought telecommunications within reach of millions of Nigerians.

The mobile phone moved from being an expensive luxury towards becoming an everyday tool.

Over the following twenty five years, telecommunications became fundamental to commerce, banking, transport, journalism, education, entertainment and social relationships.

Nearly 192 Million Active Voice Subscriptions

By June 2026, Nigerian Communications Commission statistics recorded 191,985,952 active voice subscriptions across MTN, Airtel, Globacom and T2.

These subscriptions do not represent the same number of individual Nigerians because many people maintain more than one SIM card or telephone line.

Even so, the scale of change since the NITEL era is remarkable.

Nigeria moved from 281,419 connected NITEL telephone lines in 1989 to a mobile communications market containing nearly 192 million active voice subscriptions by June 2026.

The comparison illustrates one of the most dramatic technological transformations in modern Nigerian history.

Communication that had once been restricted to a relatively small segment of society became available across cities, towns and rural communities.

From Scarcity to Mass Communication

The history surrounding the David Mark remark is therefore about much more than one politician or one memorable expression.

It captures the economic and technological limitations of an entire era.

NITEL operated a national system in which demand greatly exceeded available telephone infrastructure. The company struggled with maintenance, billing and revenue collection while customers faced shortages, delays and unreliable services.

In that environment, telephone ownership naturally became associated with privilege.

GSM fundamentally changed that relationship.

A Nigerian no longer needed to wait for a fixed NITEL connection before joining the national telecommunications network.

Mobile operators expanded coverage across the country, millions of SIM cards entered circulation and telephone communication became part of everyday life.

The transformation also created entire industries that could scarcely have existed under the old fixed line system, from mobile banking and digital commerce to app based transport, social media businesses and instant online communication.

Conclusion

The David Mark telephone controversy remains one of the most memorable episodes associated with Nigeria’s pre GSM telecommunications era because the phrase “Telephone is not for the poor” became inseparable from an age when access to telephone service was extraordinarily restricted.

David Mark served as Minister of Communications from January 1988 to June 1990, overseeing a sector dominated by NITEL and constrained by an exceptionally small fixed line network.

In 1989, NITEL recorded 385,788 installed lines and only 281,419 connected lines.

The controversy that developed during this period became permanently associated with Mark, while his later explanation emphasised the obligation of telephone users to pay for the services they consumed.

The enduring historical importance of the episode lies in the world that surrounded it.

Telephone access was scarce. NITEL faced major financial and operational difficulties. Most Nigerians had no private telephone connection.

The transformation that followed demonstrates how dramatically technology can alter social expectations.

What once represented privilege eventually became an ordinary instrument carried in millions of pockets.

Author’s Note

The story of David Mark, NITEL and Nigeria’s old telephone system captures one of the country’s most striking technological transitions. In the late 1980s, telephone access was restricted to a tiny fraction of Nigerians and ownership could signify wealth, influence or institutional importance. The arrival of GSM services in 2001 transformed that social reality, allowing telecommunications to spread rapidly across economic classes and geographical boundaries. The larger historical lesson is how infrastructure, competition and technological innovation can transform something once regarded as a privilege into an essential part of everyday life.

References

International Telecommunication Union. Plenipotentiary Conference, Nice 1989: List of Participants. Official conference record identifying D.A. Mark as Nigeria’s Minister of Communications.

Nigerian Communications Commission. Historical List of Ministers of Communications. Record of Colonel D.A.B. Mark’s tenure from January 1988 to June 1990.

Bureau of Public Enterprises. Nigeria Telecommunications Limited, NITEL. Corporate history covering the formation and commencement of operations of NITEL.

Jerome, Afeikhena. African Economic Research Consortium. Public Enterprise Reform in Nigeria: Evidence from the Telecommunications Industry, Research Paper 129. Historical data on NITEL’s installed capacity, connected lines, tariffs, billing and operational performance.

International Telecommunication Union and World Bank. Historical fixed telephone subscription statistics for Nigeria.

Office of the President of the Senate, Nigeria. Public statement by David Mark in August 2012 concerning the historical telephone controversy and payment for telecommunications services.

News24. Contemporary reporting from August 2001 on the commercial launch of GSM services by Econet and MTN in Nigeria.

Nigerian Communications Commission. Industry Statistics, June 2026. Active voice subscription figures for MTN, Airtel, Globacom and T2.