NCC Chairman, Stakeholders Lament Destruction of Telecoms Infrastructure

Kemi Olaitan

The Chairman, Nigerian Communication Commission (NCC), Prof. Adeolu Akande, has expressed worries over incessant theft and vandalisation of telecommunication infrastructures across the country.

This is just as he said the persistent challenges consumers were experiencing while making calls were mostly caused by the destruction and/or vandalisation of telecommunication infrastructure.

Akande while speaking in Ibadan during a Village Square Dialogue, a telecoms consumer outreach programme organised by the commission to sensitise the grassroots, emphasised the need to protect telecommunication infrastructure, stating that without proper and functioning telecom infrastructure, “to communicate with families in long distances as well banking, finance, education and entertainment would be hard.”

He added that the reason for engaging the grassroots in the fight against vandalisation of telecom infrastructure was because security agencies could not be at all the sites of the telecommunication infrastructure, hence the need for stakeholders and consumers to protect it.

The NCC Director of Consumers Affairs Bureau, Efosa Idehen, in his own remarks, said one of the mandates of the Bureau was to protect, inform and educate the consumers on the need to guide and protect communication infrastructures, stressing that the protection of public infrastructure was a collective effort and not only meant for NCC.

The Chairman, Nigerian Lottery Regulatory Commission, Alhaji Fatai Ibikunle, in his goodwill message, commended the commission for effective regulation, just as he thanked the NCC Chairman for bringing the sensitization programme to Ibadan.