MR. ADEBAYO Shittu, minister of Communications, has lamented the way and manner Nigerians, especially women, are treated by the telecommunications companies, in their desperate bid to comply with the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) directive for the registration of all SIMs in use.

Shittu through Mr. Victor Oluwadamilare, his special assistant (Media), ‎expressed his displeasure, “following the barrage of complaints by subscribers across the country.

“The Minister’s office had been inundated with several complaints from Nigerians, particularly women in veil, the way they were being treated, sometimes humiliated by workers of the telecommunications’ companies nationwide, the statement added‎.

The Minister listed the complaints to include “women in purdah dresses were requested to remove their veils in the public, despite the request by such women that a place should be provided out in a public glare for only female officials to attend to them, adding that all entreaties failed but rather they were alledely accused of being Boko Haram agents and they were refused registration after several altercation that ensued in some of the registration centres”.

Shittu who frowned at the development, urged the telecommunications companies involved to accord maximum respects their feminine nature and religious dispositions; moreso, since the Nigerian Constitution had guaranteed the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion of all citizens and that such rights could never be violated by executive or administrative lawlessness, highhandedness and insentivity.