Nigerian television host and filmmakerFrank Edoho has addressed longstanding claims that he was sacked from Who Wants To Be A Millionaire, saying the show's end had nothing to do with his performance and everything to do with a sponsor pulling out under regulatory pressure.

Speaking on The KK Show, Edoho said the show's sponsor of about a decade, MTN Nigeria, withdrew support after the Federal Government imposed a significant financial penalty on the company over an unrelated corporate matter, forcing the show off air in 2017.

When Who Wants To Be A Millionaire eventually returned under a new sponsor, Edoho was absent from the relaunch, prompting a newspaper report at the time claiming he had been dropped. He said the report was false and that talks over his return had simply broken down. According to Edoho, he had sought a bigger role during negotiations for the reboot, pushing to come on as executive producer with an equity stake in the franchise given his 13 years building the brand. The deal didn't materialise.

"I felt I was thrown under the bus after all the years I put in," he said.

Edoho hosted the show from its Nigerian debut on October 8, 2004, until his resignation on September 2, 2017. Before television, he spent four years at Radio Nigeria, the Federal Radio Corporation of Nigeria, where he said the exposure paled in comparison to what television offered almost immediately. "Once you can work on radio for four years but not get as much popularity or fame as you would if you worked on TV for one month," he said.

The show resumed in 2022 after a five-year hiatus, with a revamped prize structure and new sponsors, and Edoho returned to host it, ending years of speculation that his exit had been permanent.