Senate summon GSM operators in Nigeria over unsolicited adverts

Senate yesterday resolved to invite the four leading Global System for Mobile Communications,

GSM, operators, MTN, Airtel, Globacom and 9Mobile in order to check intrusive and unsolicited

adverts from them to their numerous customers.

Others to appear before the Senate Committee on Communications are the Nigerian

Communications Commissions, NCC, the Consumer Protection Council, CPC, and the

Association of Advertising Practitioners of Nigeria, AAPN.

The upper legislative chamber particularly urged the NCC to ensure that any person or entity

found to have abused regulatory guidelines be sanctioned, in accordance with the extant rules

and regulations.

These resolutions followed a motion on ‘Need to Check Intrusive and Unsolicited Adverts by

Telecom Companies and Service Providers’ sponsored by Senator Yahaya A. Abdullahi (APC

Kebbi North) during plenary.

Presenting the motion, Senator Abdullahi recalled with sense of nostalgia the euphoria that

attended the commencement of the GSM 17 years ago in Nigeria, and worried about the

continued deterioration of GSM services in the country.

He regretted that the service providers had been reaping huge revenues from their investments

while Nigerians have not enjoyed commensurate quality of services.

The lawmaker 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.

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.

“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, 53.4million, or 39 per cent, Airtel, 38.3 million, or

26 percent, Globacom, 38.2 million, or 26 percent and 9Mobile, 16.8 percent, or 12 percent,

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, Senate Deputy Leader Bala Ibn Na’Allah (APC Kebbi South) urged the

National Assembly to rise to the occasion by halting the trend in the interest of Nigerian

subscribers.

Senate President Bukola Saraki called on the NCC, CPC, AAPN and other stakeholders to seek

ways of addressing the situation without allowing it to affect the nation’s economy.

“Sordidly, the handlers of Mr. President appear to be more concerned about the next election

instead of the consequences of a failing health and the blatant breaches of our constitution.

The PDP therefore counsels President Buhari to be well guided and take charge of his health

challenges,” Ologbondiya said.