We will review NCC’s Year of the Consumer campaign —Danbatta

As the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC’s) Year of the Consumer campaign enters its 9th month, the Executive Vice Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of the commission, Professor Umar Garba Danbatta, has 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 sideline of the 5th Meeting of the National Council of Communications and Information Technology in Katsina, Danbatta 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.

“We embarked on the campaign specifically with 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 0f Communications, Barrister Adebayo Shittu and the Katsina State deputy governor, Mr Mannir Yakubu.

Continuing, Danbatta said, “We have been sensitising 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 sensitise 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.