The reality for most, however, is that, not all of us can hear those three words from our parents and it is not for lack of the feeling. It is just what it is in this part of the world. This is why we were not surprised when we saw the reactions of Nigerians on Twitter when MTN eventually stopped giving its free monthly 300 SMS to subscribers. 

You see, when MTN launched the 300 Free SMS as a palliative during the lockdown and people ranted, cursed and made several cases for free data as against SMS, you would think that Nigeria’s population was predominantly digitally-savvy. 

For a while, one would have thought maybe the statistic got it wrong and just maybe, majority of Nigeria’s population were digitally savvy people who existed on Twitter. According to the statistics from the NCC, in a country of over 200 million people, broadband penetration has only reached 40.1% (as of May 2020). What about nearly 60% of the population who rely on voice, text or have no access to any devices?

However, 3 months down the line, we can definitely say that the stats were not wrong, especially when we see tweets like the ones below;

Some have even gone ahead to identify persons born in July as being responsible for the end of the offer. The offer has been on for 93 days, one week beyond the agreed time. 

This just takes us back to those times when parents found out that we were right all along, but could not bring themselves to admit it - per the African parent style. However, a few have decided to own up and break the cycle.

To the African parenting styles, refusing to admit anything, the love that has been built by free SMS and to surviving the pandemic! 

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