Nigeria's Buhari puts anticorruption drive into high gear

President Buhari took office six months ago, promising to put an end to impunity in the business and political elite. Last week, he started to deliver.

The penalties handed out by the Nigeria government last week came rapidly, one blow after another.

First there was the suspension of the CEO of a major banking franchise for supposedly misleading statements over two years. That was followed by a $9.4 million fine imposed on First Bank of Nigeria, one of the country’s largest banks.

But the biggest surprise was when the government fined MTN, Africa’s largest cell carrier, $5.2 billion for failing to disconnect customers with unregistered SIM cards.