Rising from a recent Consumer Town Hall meeting held in Oye, Ekiti, where subscribers voiced their anger in dwindling Quality of Service (QoS), the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has once again warned networks to rise to the challenge of provisioning or be sanctioned accordingly.
Agreeing that it was aware of the frustrations faced by Nigerians in accessing services, NCC said stiffer sanctions are waiting for operators that surreptitiously short-change the system through poor network and arbitrary charges.
Leading discussion at Oye, NCC Director in charge of Consumer Affairs Bureau, Alhaji Abdullahi Maikano said “The event was an initiative of NCC to bring telecom consumers in the urban areas together with network operators and regulator to discuss and proffer solutions to consumer related issues”.
“We have to protect consumers from market exploitation and empower them to make rational and informed decision when making their choices of services.
“We hereby directed that service providers must always communicate with our consumers in plain language and such must be relevant, timely and accurate. They should also ensure that access to information is made possible at all times.”
Attendees at the meeting include all networks and Nigerians from all walks of life.
A chilling report by the Ekiti State Sector Commander of the Federal Road Safety Commission (FRSC), Mr. Ismail Kugu was touching as he recalled that network failure had several times led to the loss of human lives on highways, when they found it difficult to link with the right agency for evacuation of accident victims.
According to him, “It is hindering our operation in so many ways. The operators can give us a special line that can make us call our offices and individuals, because the customised one we are presently operating are often blocked when we used it to call families of accident victims, because they are specially made for special operational calls”.
