The residents of Pennitobo, a community of over 1,000 people in the Nadowli Kaleo District, have issued an urgent appeal to MTN Ghana to address a persistent network blackout that they say is costing lives and destroying livelihoods.
Despite being a dominant market for the telecommunications giant with an estimated 90% of the population being MTN subscribers the community remains virtually cut off from the digital world.
The lack of a stable signal has moved beyond a mere inconvenience, becoming a dire humanitarian concern.
Healthcare workers at the Pennitobo health facility report that the “dead zone” is proving fatal. In critical emergencies, nurses are often unable to place calls for ambulances, leading to tragic and preventable deaths among pregnant women and other patients in need of urgent referrals.
Tinso Noah, a native of Penitobo and student at the University of Business and Integrated Development Studies (SDD UBIDS), shared his personal struggle with the connectivity gap.
“Whenever I visit home, I miss lectures and find it impossible to conduct research,” Noah stated. “Our tutors often schedule emergency classes during breaks, and because I have no network, I am left completely in the dark.”
The Assemblyman for the Gyili/Penitobo Electoral Area, Mr. Daluo Peter, highlighted how the network crisis is sabotaging the future of the youth. He recounted a near-miss involving a prospective nursing student who almost lost his chance at an education.
The student had been sent an SMS invitation for an admission interview at a nursing training college in the Upper West Region. Because of the lack of network signal in Penitobo, he only discovered the message a day before the interview and only because he happened to travel to a neighbouring community.
“If he hadn’t moved to another area that day, he would have missed the interview and the opportunity to further his education,” Mr. Peter lamented.
The situation is particularly frustrating for residents because Pennitobo is located only about a 5-minute ride from Takpo, a community that hosts a functional MTN network tower. Despite this proximity, the signal fails to reach Pennitobo, leaving the town in a “communication shadow.”
In an effort to find a resolution, Pulung TV reached out to the MTN Ghana regional office in the Upper West Region. While authorities have been notified of the community’s plight, they are yet to provide a concrete timeline for when the technical challenges will be resolved.
For now, the people of Penitobo continue to wait, hoping that their passionate plea will move MTN Ghana to extend its services and restore safety and progress to their community.
The community members however threaten that if MTN Ghana fails to restore the network they may switch to other telecommunications networks that may want to listen to their cry.
