Nigerians is recent times has seen telecoms providers in the country enjoy a bumper harvest via unsolicited text messages (SMS) to subscribers, inviting them to participate in one promotion or the other. Promising all sort of incentives.
This trend had become very popular that the nation’s telecommunications regulatory body National Communications Commission (NCC) had placed a ban GSM operators for engaging in such acts.
Concerned Nigerians described must of these promotional games as fraudulent, making thus, it was a relief when the NCC hammer fell on the culprits. The directive from the NCC to the telecoms companies was to stop lotteries and other related activities while charging premium rates for non-premium services. This was long over due in the eyes of many Nigerians
This is in line with the NCC guidelines spelt out in its Acts and enforcement regulation of 2005.
However it is yet to be seen whether the NCC has taken concrete steps to enforce its own directives on this issue. This wait has prompted some stakeholder to name the NCC a “Toothless bulldog”. Stakeholders wait for the body to change this tag and show more responsibilities to the Nigeria public.
In would be recalled that insistent call from Nigerians made the body to act as telecoms operators had a filed day swindling the public while the ever dormant Consumer Protection Council(CPC) as usual were quite. The NCC had made case against the firms and accused them of gambling and refusing to provide consumers value for their money.
Telecoms companies are advised to be mindful of timing, frequency and content of their text messages (SMS) to consumers in order to curb the annoyance associated with such text messages (SMS).
This made the minister of communications Prof Dora Akunyili to correctly observe that many telecoms operators have become de-facto lottery vendors thus, redefining their business of core communications.
Another argument against telecoms operators was the issue of invading the privacy of subscribers via text messages. These messages made they operators guilty of contravening the Nigerian Lottery Regulation Commission (NLRC).
Though some stakeholders argue in favour of the telecoms operators blaming ignorance and greed on the part of the subscriber, they forget that corporate organizations do not capitalize on the ignorance of the public to make maximize profit. Perhaps those supporting the telecoms firms should have a look at simple calculation as an example, if subscriber are tricked into parting with 100 naira per text message and the subscriber are up to 10 million simple calculation amounts to one billion naira. Even worse when such telecoms provider would not part with 15 million as winning bonuses for identified winners, what a monumental fraud.
As the operators continue to win on the lottery side, core communications business continues to drop. Every now and then Nigerians are still subjected to dropped calls, congested lines and capacity failure among others. Despite huge profit the public is aware that these telecoms companies continue to make.
The twist in the issue is these telecoms operators complain of the high cost of conducting business in the country; the truth is that Nigeria has turned out to be a very profitable land.
Nigerians are not to blame, the increased cases of unemployment and ever expanding poverty base will make even the most disciplined of men attach themselves to the get rich quick syndrome.
However there is need for stricter control by the NCC while the option of mass awareness to the general public might do the trick in educating the Nigerian general public.
odyoba@gmail.com
