NCC, NSCDC partner to tackle criminal activities in telecoms sector

*Prof. Umar Garba Danbatta, Executive Vice-Chairman/CEO of the Nigerian Communications Commission, hails the Memorandum of Understanding with the Civil Defence Corps at a workshop organised to explore how the latter will deploy enabling laws and extant guidelines to tackle criminality in the telecoms industry

Isola Moses | ConsumerConnect

The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has collaborated with the Nigerian Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC) to tackle some of the criminal activities bedevilling the telecoms industry in the West African country.

ConsumerConnect reports the telecoms sector regulatory Commission says such criminal activities include telecoms equipment vandalism and fraudulent registration of Subscriber Identity Module (SIM) Cards among others.

Prof. Umar Garba Danbatta, Executive Vice-Chairman and Chief Executive Officer (EVC/CEO) of NCC, disclosed the partnership with the Corps while addressing the Senior Management Staff of NSCDC in the South-West Zone, at an exclusive workshop organised by the Commission.

Critical national telecoms infrastructure

Mr. Reuben Muoka, Director of Public Affairs at NCC, in a statement issued Sunday, September 11, 2022, noted Prof. Danbatta hailed the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) sealed between the agency and the NCC.

The Commission stated the forum was meant to explore how the Corps would deploy enabling laws, subsidiary legislations, and extant guidelines to arrest any form of criminality in the telecoms sector of the Nigerian economy.

Represented at the workshop by Ephraim Nwokonneya, Director of Compliance Monitoring and Enforcement at the Commission, Danbatta said over the years, the telecoms regulator had been working with relevant law enforcement agencies, and in particular the NSCDC, towards protecting the sector from all kinds of criminal behaviour.

Tackling criminal activities in telecoms sector

The NCC Executive Vice-Chairman also stated: “Through despicable activities that are criminal and totally at variance with national security concerns of government, the deviant elements in our midst have been acting to undermine efforts put in place to consolidate the gains of the sector.”

He further noted that “these criminal activities include theft and vandalism of telecommunications infrastructure, the illegal use of fraudulently-registered Subscriber Identification Module (SIM) Cards, operating without licence, illegal call masking, and so on.”

Continuous stakeholder engagement

According to him, while the NSCDC officers have been of tremendous assistance, the objective of the workshop was to constantly engage and update them on new trends and existing regulations, requiring concerted efforts for their implementation towards enhancing sanity in the telecoms sector.

Danbatta also stated the NSCDC and other agencies have done very well with the assistance of their personnel in carrying out raid exercises and mopping up fraudulently-registered SIM Cards found in circulation, besides raising the banner of awareness on the need to protect critical national telecoms infrastructure in Nigeria.

Some of the topical issues discussed at the workshop covered the activities of the Commission as presented by the relevant departments in the context of laws and other regulations, and in relation to the roles of NSCDC, as depicted in the presentation by the NCC’s Head of Enforcement, Salisu Abdu, during the workshop.