Contrary to speculations that Mrs Amina Oyagbola, former Human Resource Executive and Corporate machine of MTN Nigeria was eased out of office by the company ahead of fears of probe of her complications in the surprise cut of the NCC fine from N1.04tn to N330bn by the US using Chief of Staff to the Presidency, Ferdi Moolman, chief executive officer, MTN Nigeria has said that Mrs Amina Oyagbola was not sacked but that she resigned voluntarily from MTN to pursue other interests.
He said in a statement that “MTN commended the immense dedication and passion for excellence which Mrs. Amina Oyagbola brought to her roles, first as Corporate Services Executive, later as Human Resource Executive and most recently as Executive in charge of the Human Resource and Corporate Services roles, respectively. After a 12-year stint with the leading telecom organization, Oyagbola recently resigned to pursue other interests.”
The MTN Nigeria’s Chief Executive Officer, “Amina has been exceptional, not only for her consummate professionalism and commitment to the core brand values of MTN but also for her passion for mentoring people, especially women”.
Her leaving, said Moolman, “is a big loss to us at MTN and while we will certainly miss her commitment and passion, we remain proud of the record of stellar and unblemished service she leaves behind.”
Buis ness Hilights recalls that upon joining MTN in 2004, Oyagbola is credited with among others, helping to create a new stakeholder management framework that saw MTN integrate more intrinsically with key stakeholders. For instance, its corporate social investment vehicle, the MTN Foundation, which she spearheaded, remains the only CSI vehicle in Nigeria that is funded by a fixed percentage of annual profit accruing to an organization. In turn, the MTN Foundation has made considerable impact on the lives of thousands of people in dozens of communities across Nigeria. From providing mammography and dialysis machines to public hospitals to availing indigent but intelligent university students of hundreds of scholarships; from providing physical support including prosthesis to the physically-challenged to providing work tools, funds and training to the economically disempowered, MTN Foundation has since emerged as a poster child for corporate social investment in Nigeria.
Oyagbola’s passion for people development easily came to the fore during her tenure as Human Resource Executive, a position to which she was deployed in 2008. Learning and Development were focal areas for her and she saw to a radical overhaul of the Human Resource policies in the organization and in consequence, the emergence of a new breed of happier and more committed employees.
