The Senate has summoned four leading Global System for Mobile Communications, GSM operators: MTN, Airtel, Globacom, and 9Mobile to appear before its Committee on Communications to explain, among others, reasons for frequent unsolicited calls, product and programme promos to their customers.
These, companies, according to Senate, also trick Nigerians to subscribe to riddles, bad jokes, indiscriminate religious contents and caller tunes, adding that the summon was part of moves to check intrusive and unsolicited adverts from them to their numerous customers.
Those to also appear before the Senator Gilbert Nnaji, PDP, Enugu East led Senate Committee on Communications are the Nigerian Communications Commission, NCC; the Consumer Protection Council, CPC; and the Association of Advertising Practitioners of Nigeria, AAPN.
It is believed that their appearance would enable the committee seek ways of addressing what the Upper chamber described as worrisome situation.
The upper legislative chamber particularly urged the NCC to ensure that any person, or entity found to have abused regulatory guidelines, is sanctioned in accordance with the extant rules and regulations.
Resolutions of the Senate Monday were sequel to a motion by Senator Yahaya Abdullahi, APC, Kebbi and entitled, “Need to check Intrusive and Unsolicited Adverts by Telecom Companies and Service Providers.”
Presenting the motion, Senator Abdullahi who recalled with sense of nostalgia, the euphoria that attended the commencement of the GSM, 17 years ago in Nigeria, said that he was really worried about the continued deterioration of GSM services in the country.
He regretted that “though the service providers have been reaping huge revenues from their investments, Nigerians have not enjoyed commensurate quality of services.”
According to him, he was worried about increased incidence of dropped calls, unaccounted “disappearance” of airtime from devices, weak signals across networks and false report of unavailable call destinations.”
Senator Abdullahi further expressed concern about the issue of frequent unsolicited calls, product and programme promos, as well as instances of tricking Nigerians to subscribe to riddles and jokes, indiscriminate religious contents and caller tunes that sometimes offend subscribers’ sensibilities.
He also noted that “even with the setting up of the ‘Do-Not-Disturb’, DND opt-out application, as demanded by the NCC, the GSM operators have not done enough to educate the public on its availability and workings.
“With high tariffs and an estimated 150 million subscribers in the country, the four leading operators within the industry, namely MTN, (53.4 million, or 39%), Airtel, (38.3 million, or 26%), Globacom, (38.2 million, or 26%) and 9Mobile, (16.8%, or 12%), the companies are yet to fully integrate themselves into the larger Nigerian economy, in ways that could provide opportunities for Nigerians to benefit from their operations,” he observed.
In his contribution, Senator Bala Ibn Na’Allah, the Senate Deputy Leader, (APC Kebbi South) however urged the National Assembly to rise to the occasion by halting the trend in the interest of Nigerian subscribers.
Senate President Bukola Saraki, in his response, called on the NCC, CPC, AAPN, and other stakeholders to ensure that they address the situation without allowing it to affect the nation’s economy.
