Alhaji Ibrahim Nakande, minister of State for Information and Communications, has called on the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) to apply wisdom in its efforts at ensuring the protection of subscribers’ rights.
He said, had the two GSM providers, MTN Nigeria and Celtel Nigeria, being compelled by the commission to heed its directive to pay their subscribers N175 each at once, telecommunications services in the country would have collapsed by now.
"What we are saying is that if Celtel and MTN had in one go released those credits to offended subscribers and everybody jumpstarts a call, the carrying capacity of the system would have be inadequate.
"If we had gone the way the regulator wanted, I tell you, there would have been collapse in the system by now", Nakande told journalists while receiving officials of Zain and Celtel in his office.
Making case for Celtel, the minister said the company only suggested a schedule that would stagger the payment, thereby preventing a situation where most Nigerians would jump the network by taking advantage of the opportunity of making free calls for fear that the operators could decide to take back their money if not quickly utilized.
"This is the simple suggestion raised by Celtel and we can understand what it is trying to prevent but unfortunately NCC does not seeing it from this perspective", Nakande said.