A civil society group, Advocacy for Societal Rights Advancement and Development Initiative, (ASRADI) has lauded the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) for sanctioning mobile telephone giant, MTN Nigeria Communications.
The commission had, last week, slammed a fine of N1.4 trillion on MTN for its failure to register 5.1 million SIM cards owners as directed by the commission.
It gave MTN a deadline of November 16 to pay the fine or face its wrath.
Reacting to the development, ASRADI, in a statement issued on Sunday and signed by its Executive Director, Adeolu Oyinlola, lauded “NCC’s bold step,” describing it as a welcome development.
The group further claimed that contrary to the Consumer Code of Practice’s stipulation that service providers should release 12 months of Call Detail Record to subscribers upon request, MTN stubbornly only released call logs spanning three months.
It said, “We note with dismay and disappointment, however, that unpatriotic rent-a-commentator elements have invaded the public space with sponsored denunciations of what, ordinarily, is an administrative procedure that is well grounded on the Nigerian Communications Act, 2003.
“One would have been concerned, were this sanction visited on MTN arbitrarily, whimsically or based on a retroactive piece of legislation or rule. Have those defending MTN asked themselves why it is the only service provider slammed with such a hefty fine?
”Since MTN willfully and deliberately injured 170m Nigerians by keeping 5.1m unregistered/improperly registered SIMS that could potentially be deployed to devastating use by kidnappers, armed robbers, insurgents and terrorists on its network, it (MTN) must be made to face the music,” the statement added.
“The November 16 deadline set for payment of MTN’s penalty must, therefore, remain sacrosanct if the Nigerian Communications Commission wants to be taken seriously henceforth”, it added.
It accused some officials of NCC of aiding service providers to flout existing regulations and promised to assist the commission’s new leadership with information.
“We, as a CSO, would be willing to volunteer information at our disposal in this regard, at very short notice,” the group said.
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