…Says cybercrime, theft, vandalism peak
From: Linus Oota, Lafia
The Nigerian Communication Commission (NCC) has opened a partnership arrangement with the law enforcement agencies in the country to edge up regulatory activities of the industry to outright protection of telecom installations, facilities and infrastructures.
Executive Vice Chairman of the commission, Prof. Umar Garba Danbatta, stated this on Tuesday, in Keffi, Nasarawa State, during a workshop on sensitisation of law enforcement agencies for the north central zone on telecommunication issues organised by the commission on some key challenging issues in the sector in Nigeria.
He said that the coming of mobile telecom in Nigeria with its phenomenal growth and contribution to Gross Domestic Product (GDP) has come with proliferation of cybercrimes, theft and vandalism of telecom equipments.
According to the NCC boss “The growth witnessed in the telecommunications sector in the last 15 years has been phenomenal by all standards, from less than half a million lines on the eve of our democratic revival, today, active connected telephones lines are about 150 million, this has come with a concomitant increase in teledensity” he said
Prof Danbatta who was represented by the head compliance monitoring and enforcement unit of the commission Mr Efosa Idehen said the task before the commission is to form a coalition of forces in a renewed strategic partnership with all players in the security sector to contain every form of criminal assault on telecommunications operations in Nigeria.
“We have witnessed a very painful rise in tempo of outright theft of telecommunication equipment as well as vandalism of telecommunication installations, facilities and infrastructure, we have also seen proliferation in the sale and usage of pre-registered subscribers identification module (SIM) cards, all of which constitute nasty infractions of the NCC Act 2003, and other extant regulations governing the telecommunication sector” he said
He said the commission has commenced the process for the signing of memorandum of understanding (MoU) between it and Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC), adding that same process shall apply to other security agencies as the need may arise.
He said the commission has carried out raids on criminal clusters to mop up pre-registered SIM cards in addition to extensive awareness creation on their activities, noting that efforts are being made to design more effective strategies to beat every instance of violation of the laws, and also ensure that anyone who is arrested in this regard is prosecuted.
Also speaking, former Inspector General of Police Solomon Arase called for the training and retraining of security officers especially on ICT in order to curtail all forms of criminality in the sector, adding that deploying large number of security officers to a particular area cannot prevent crime except ICT is involved.