Sir: Operators of mobile networks in Nigeria are taking Nigerians for a ride and it’s high time something was done to curtail their excesses. The way and manner Nigerians are being ripped off is quite unimaginable and it’s all due to absence of a government that would protect its citizens from such brazen assaults and exploitation.
Nigerian Communication Commission has usually shown an attitude of indifference towards whatever Nigerians are passing through in the hands of mobile networks and people spend their hard-earned money to buy data so they can access the Internet but the mobile networks ensure that the data runs through so quickly that one is made to feel as if a sharp knife is put into one’s neck or better still as if someone’s blood is under attack by a foreign mosquito!
Ironically, mobile phones have become like a god given to the people to worship. There’s hardly anything anyone can do without them. They havebecome the people’s closest companions without which no minute is complete. Even when there’s no guarantee of where the next meal is coming from, most people borrow credit from mobile networks just to ensure that they have access to their phones, yet the same credit is quickly swallowed by the same networks in very brazen manner.
Should it then be surprising that billions of naira are declared as profits every year by these networks which continue to exploit millions of subscribers? If it were possible for each person to view how much he or she spends on recharge cards and data at the end of every year, most people, no doubt, would probably smash their mobile phones on the ground in anger as they find out that millions of naira that could have been deployed to profitable ventures have gone down the drain.
News from abroad suggest the opposite of what is obtainable here, and all Nigerians need is a government that would make the citizens’ welfare top priority so that mobile networks would have their wings clipped and everyone heave a sigh of relief.
Jide Oyewusi, the coordinator of Ethics Watch International Lagos.
