17th December, 2008 Lagos

EMTS who was awarded a unified access service license in March 2007 has today announced the appointment of Steven E. Evans as its new Chief Executive Officer in Nigeria. EMTS trades under the name of Etisalat, the fastest growing Telco worldwide and largest telecommunications service provider in Africa and the Middle East.

Steven E. Evans comes to Etisalat Nigeria with a twenty year track record in the global mobile telecommunications industry. Mr. Evans was recently CEO of BT Mobile and Director of Wireless Broadband at BT. He spent 10 years with Cable&Wireless holding a number of senior positions in its mobile investments around the world. In 1991, he was appointed General Manager of Optus Mobile and spearheaded its entry into the Australian market. In 1994, he took the role of Deputy Chief Executive Officer of Bouygues Telecom in France, a position he held for the following 4 years during which period he had responsibility for the launch of the business and the development of its operational capabilities. He returned to the UK in 1998 where he took up a position as Deputy Managing Director of One2One, a position he held until the business was acquired by T Mobile late in 1999.

Following his period at Cable&Wireless, Mr. Evans went on to take the position of CEO of Dolphin Telecommunications, the pan European enterprise mobile operator. Later in 2004, he took charge of BT Mobile securing the MVNO agreement with Vodafone and launching a succession of mobile and wireless broadband services into the enterprise and consumer markets.

Mr. Hakeem Belo-Osagie Chairman of EMTS commented that “we are delighted to have secured the services of Mr. Steven Evans. He brings a wealth of experience of starting up large mobile operations in diverse environments and we are looking forward to the leadership that he will bring.”

Essa Al Haddad Chief Marketing Officer for Etisalat highlighted that “we are extremely pleased with the appointment of Mr. Evans and we are committed to continuing to provide active support and management to Etisalat Nigeria in order to ensure the success of the business.

Steven Evans stated “that he was delighted to be in Nigeria and was looking forward to the challenge of building a world class operation which would further accelerate access to a quality mobile service for Nigerian customers”.