SERAP urges NCC to halt telecom tariff hike as NLC proposes 5% raise

Group knocks NLC over planned protest

Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP) has urged the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) to take pendency of the suit filed concerning the hike in telecommunications tariff.

In suit number FHC/ABJ/CS/111/2025, SERAP asked the court to determine whether the unilateral decision by the NCC to authorise telcos to hike tariffs by 50 per cent is not arbitrary, unconstitutional, unlawful, unfair, unreasonable and inconsistent with citizens’ freedom of expression and access to information.
   
SERAP also asked the court for a declaration that the unilateral decision by the NCC to authorise telcos to hike telecom tariff by 50 per cent is arbitrary, unfair, unreasonable, inconsistent and incompatible with citizens’ freedom of expression and access to information, and therefore unconstitutional and unlawful.

SPOKESMAN for NLC, Benson Upah, said on Channels TV’s ‘Sunrise Daily’ yesterday: “They keep on emasculating us through stupid taxes. It will come to a point when people can pay but won’t pay.
  
“The protest is to halt this mindless tariff increase. If by any chance there has to be an increase at all, five per cent, given that there have been increases across the board. But to say 50 per cent; it is not going to work. Where will the ordinary Nigerians be at the end of the day when we have energy tariff increases?”
  
Also, NLC wrote to its affiliate unions and state councils to mobilise workers and allies ahead of the February 4 protest of the planned 50 per cent telecommunications tariffs hike.

NCWGG said the move by Labour was not in the interest of the Nigerian workers, the telecommunications industry and the country at large.  In a communiqué issued on Wednesday at the end of the meeting of its National Administrative Council (NAC), the labour leaders had demanded an immediate suspension of the 50 per cent tariff hike.

They called on the Federal Government and NCC to engage in meaningful dialogue with critical stakeholders to review the proposed tariff adjustment within the context of the economic realities facing Nigerians.

NCWGG President, Collins Idowu, in a statement, yesterday, however, observed that the decision by NLC to call for a protest was uncalled for, adding that the labour union did not take into consideration the measures that were weighed before the NCC decided to approve only 50 per cent 
  
He said, “The NLC took a leap before thinking when it decided to call for protests over the recent approval for telecommunication operators to adjust their tariffs by 50 per cent.”  The NCWGG noted that it stood in full support of the telecom tariff hike, given the millions of jobs it was sustaining and potentially could create.