NCC to review year of the consumer campaign

The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC’s) Is set to review its Year of the Consumer campaign, as the campaign enters its ninth month.

The Executive Vice Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of the commission, Prof Umar Garba Danbatta, said that the regulatory body would take a review of implementation of the consumer initiative project next year with a view to taking the next line of action.

Danbatta also revealed that as a part of the successes recorded by the campaign about 10 million Nigerians have already activated the Do-Not-Disturb facility made available by the agency.

Speaking at the sidelines of 5th Meeting of the National Council of Communications and Information Technology in Katsina, the EVC said only 500,000 telecom subscribers had activated the NCC’s 2442 short code to stop telemarketing and other unsolicited text messages on their phones before the commencement of the campaign.

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“We embarked on the campaign specifically with the regards to two important issues. One is, Do-Not-Disturb facility as we had received a lot of complaints that many consumers received unsolicited text messages and for which they are unfairly being charged. We dedicated a facility that will stop those messages from coming to the handsets of the consumers,” he told dignitaries including the Minister Communications, Bar Adebayo Shittu and the Katsina State Deputy Governor Arch Mannir Yakubu.

Continuing, Danbatta said, “We have been sensitizing consumers on how to take the advantage of this facility by sending STOP to 2442. Prior to the commencement of the campaign less than 500,000 Nigerians activated the code. As I am talking to you now, close to 10 million Nigerians have activated it”

He said, the other component of the campaign was to sensitize Nigerians about the existing of the NCC’s toll-free line (622), which consumers can use to lodge complaints with regards to Quality of Service (QoS) and other related services.

“There’s also another important aspect of the campaign, educating the consumers on the existence of emergency call centres. One is being constructed in each state of the federation in order to provide reprieves to people in distress, those who require ambulance service, fire-fighting services and those in need of attention from the police, using another toll-free line, 112,” he noted.