Strategic Shift at MultiChoice Nigeria as Kemi Omotosho Assumes CEO Role

Inside MultiChoice Nigeria, the conversation has shifted for the better, framing Kemi Omotosho’s arrival. This all comes after January 13, 2026, when MultiChoice announced Omotosho as its new Chief Executive Officer, authorising her to succeed John Ugbe, who retires after nearly 15 years steering the Nigerian business.

This is a planned succession, not a scramble. The board describes a structured handover, designed to protect operations while the market tightens. With how inflation is biting and consumer spending is thinning, pay television faces a clear inflexion point.

Omotosho steps in with deep internal knowledge. She last served as Regional Director for Southern Africa, managing a seven-country portfolio with full profit and loss responsibility. That role demanded granular control of costs, pricing, and local nuance.

Meanwhile, her earlier work shaped how MultiChoice understands customers. As Executive Head of Customer Value Management in Nigeria, and later across the rest of Africa, she dealt with more than 50 markets. Few executives carry that breadth without abstraction.

According to company insiders, this history mattered more than flair. MultiChoice needs ballast now. Subscriber loyalty is frictive. Currency pressure creates asymmetry between costs and revenue, so the next phase is meant to reward operational discipline over bravado.

This follows a career built across media, telecoms, and digital services. Before joining MultiChoice in 2014, Omotosho worked at Airtel Nigeria in enterprise roles focused on revenue optimisation.

The tough lady’s public remarks lean practical. She speaks of local storytelling and the creative economy, yet pairs that with digital adoption and long-term resilience. The vision is curatorial, not expansive. Content matters, but structure decides scale.

There is also a leadership contrast. Ugbe’s tenure was peripatetic in ambition, expanding reach and presence. Omotosho’s mandate feels contrapuntal: tighten here, invest there, listen harder. Different tempo, same company.

The significance lies beyond gender or symbolism. MultiChoice has chosen a CEO fluent in its internal mechanics at a moment of constraint. When markets narrow, familiarity can outperform novelty. That choice may prove decisive sooner than expected.