David Mark, Nigeria's senate president, once said telephones were not for “ordinary people”. He was serving at the time – the early 1990s – in the military government of Ibrahim Babangida.

For a decade it was hard to argue with his logic. After the state monopoly provider, Nitel, had spent billions of dollars digitising landlines, only 0.3 per cent of Nigerians actually had a line. The country from which one in five black Africans hail had one of the most expensive and exclusive telephone networks on earth. Even then, it was a challenge for the lucky few to get a dial tone.

Mr Mark, though, has lived to regret his comments. The explosive growth of the mobile phone industry since 2001, when three GSM licences were awarded, ranks as one of the most radical transformations to have taken place in Nigeria in half a century. Throughout sub-Saharan Africa, the same is true.