What is even distressing is the
non-challance of the Nigerian government to the telephone woes and saps
Nigerians suffer. The regulatory body, the NCC is one white elephant with an
established habit of allowing the networks get off lightly with poor quality
service.
I am not a frequent traveler but whenever I happen to go
outside this country, I use my local MTN phone. This is so that I don’t miss my
calls.My last three trips in September, last year; in March and June this year
make me wonder whether it is worth staying with the biggest carrier in the
country, the MTN. Is their explosive growth of traffic difficult to sustain?In
my local usage of their line, I have noted in my frequent travels that there
are many black spots as you travel the Abuja-Kano road. You are in and out of
their network such that you are hardly connected continuously for half an hour.
Whenever the connection comes on, you will notice that you are limited to one,
two or three bars – hardly all five bars – signifying a weak connection. On
this road in the past, the MTN maintained a wall-to-wall coverage. Nigerians
laugh at the MTN when the automatic answering machine tells them that the man
sitting next to them is not in the service area or his phone is shut when that
is absolutely not the case.In my last two trips outside Nigeria, I got calls in
the UK and somehow, managed to receive calls and to call others. On the
other, the blackberry service and the sms worked on one occasion and
failed on the other.In the USA, one had in the past enjoyed a flawless
connection using the MTN through AT&T and T-Mobile. In the last week of
June this year, my blackberry, powered by MTN did not work. SMS to and from
this phone failed. It took a miracle to make a successful call- perhaps two or three
on a lucky day. It was a totally frustrating experience.
Getting the MTN to listen to customer
complaints is even more frustrating. I have called the number 180 to complain
and have presented complaints at service centres. A standard response is that
on such matters, the customer should present him/herself at their customers’
forum. These meetings hold at the six geo-political zonal locations. I do not,
at this time, remember how long ago I read of such meetings advertised in the
press.
In the light of this experience, one
feels safe to say that the telecoms revolution ushered in by the sale of
licenses to carriers that has enabled more than 100 million Nigerians to access
the phone has now frozen on its tracks – if not in fact regressing. The
continuing deterioration in service manifested by the absence of connection or
repeated cuts – and this applies to all the networks – is so pervasive that it
is hard to sustain a single unbroken conversation in daytime or at night. The
absence or failure of network has given Nigerians a line to hold in explaining
their failure to return calls. In the face of deteriorating service, it is
amazing how the MTN has been amassing money going up to
Three Trillion Naira turnover, out of which N857.6billion was accumulated as
profit over a ten year period. (ThisDay 28th August 2011). Analysis of MTN’s
group profit after tax for the year 2010 showed that the West and Central
African operations, made up mainly of Nigeria and Ghana contributed N269billion
or 71% of the group’s profit after tax.Analyst said this is likely to translate
into the likelihood of Nigeria contributing to not less than 70% of this
profit, amounting to about N188billion, making it the most profitable company
in Nigeria. (Businessday March 10th, 2011).What is even distressing is the
non-challance of the Nigerian government to the telephone woes and saps
Nigerians suffer. The regulatory body, the National Communications Commission,
NCC is one white elephant with an established habit of allowing the networks to
get off lightly with poor quality service.Our citizens know for sure that the
telephone companies provide extraordinary perks to government officials,
legislators and regulators so they can sit pretty exploiting the ordinary
citizen. How else do they not get overlooked when they let politicians,
regulators and their families get free airtime, fund wedding and birthday
events? It is perhaps the need to do all these shenanigans that the cost per
minute is sky-high in Nigeria. Their government that should reduce or eliminate
excessive charges in the face of worsening services knows only how to tap crude
oil, tax the GSM companies and swindle the citizen by eating away the money.But,
a simple survey will reveal that it isn’t just the MTN alone, whichis the
biggest of them all, that is scamming Nigerians through the active
collaborations of their government. They are all in it.How did we allow
ourselves to be duped and sucked paying so much for so poor a service?A
patriotic government can end the woes of Nigerians by embarking on a radical
reworking of telecommunications policies and to, in particular imposing higher
standards and holding them to account. Enough of the vice-hold on ordinary
Nigerians.In Western societies, companies and other service providers are held
accountable, however rich or powerful they seem to be. That is possible because
leaders are public-minded. Here, however, our leaders look the other way while
GSM service providers exploit customers frequently without deterrent punitive
measures. A former member of the House of Representatives, Dr. Yarima from Yobe
State, was once suspended for blowing the whistle on how GSM networks operators
bribed lawmakers with free airtime at the expense of customers. The selfish
attitude of our leaders feeds the impunity of our network service providers.
But for how long will the network continue to be bad for Nigerians?