Who is Musbahu Muhammad Bashir?

Society Watch

No doubt, Dr Musbahu Muhammad Bashir shies aways from the klieg-light.

His preference is to live a quiet lifestyle and grow his business but with his new business, public interest has been piqued.

The question on the lips of many at the moment is: Where did Mafab Communications and its promoters emerge from?

This is one of the initial feedbacks some deeply stunned Nigerians fervently sought answers to about the ownership of the telecoms firm, after it fought Nigeria’s 5G battle to the end, winning it alongside MTN last Monday at the Transcorp Hilton Hotel in Abuja.

However, the answer wasn’t farfetched, as the new champ in the Nigerian telecoms space is owned by a self-effacing business mogul.

Unknown to many, the Kano State-born silent billionaire, who is the Chairman of Althani Group, has made a wide variety of investments cutting across banking, insurance, oil and gas, real estate, telecoms, maritime and aviation.

He has developed a reputation for quietly running his mega businesses without floundering about seeking validation to herald his considerable achievements and endless resources, as other wealthy Nigerians with unrestrained desire for show-off would do.

But it is awe-inspiring to see the entrepreneur embrace the media spotlight with his Mafab, an indigenous company, surprising investors and watchers with a $275 million swoop on NCC in a three-horse race auction bid, slugging it out with the multinationals —MTN and Airtel.

Initially, his hitherto unknown entity in the telecoms space had taken everyone by surprise, emerging one of the contenders for the initial two licenses for the next generation telecom network among the three preferred bidders.

But on the D-Day, Mafab, the surprising underdog, gave the two telecoms giants a good run for their money with Airtel dropping off at $270 million, while Mafab surprisingly joined MTN to pick the two Nigeria’s 5G licenses at the eye-watering fees of $275 million each at the same stage where GSM record was created 20 years ago.

Expectedly, some immediately raised hell over the success of Mafab at the 5G license auction wondering what experience this newbie will be banking on to execute the license when finally granted.

But while Bashir’s Mafab may be regarded as the underdog of the Nigeria telecoms mafia —it was just licensed July 8, 2020 to provide and operate local interconnect and international carrier services— it has, however, proven to be a massive international data carrier with previous three licenses for Interconnect Exchange, International Data Access and Value Added services.

And to another set of doubters, winning is one stage, paying is yet another phase.

Of course, the Winning Bid price of $275 million (about N120 billion) to be paid by Mafab before February 24, 2022 at the prevailing exchange rate, will go to the government pocket 100 per cent.Bashir will now go sourcing for another huge funds to build and roll out the 5G infrastructure.

But sources close to the business magnate say there is nothing to worry about. With his antecedent as a private equity investor, it’s said that Bashir will be banking on his deep pocket and rich network of powerful contacts to make his dream of playing in the last-mile telecoms services market, albeit using the 5th generation telecom network to revolutionize the industry.