For his motion on the increasing rate of dropped calls and other unwholesome practices by Telecommunication Network Operators in Nigeria that have robbed Nigerians their hard earned billions of naira, Sen. AbdulFatai Buhari has continued to received commendations.
Buhari, who is representing Oyo North senatorial district for the second term, was the chief mover of the motion.
Dropped calls are interruptions that happen during a phone conversation. It occurs when a call ends abruptly, by neither of the callers, due to technical errors.
OYO INSIGHT learnt that Senators Oluremi Tinubu, Teslim Folarin, Sam Egwu, Alliyu Wammako, Solomon Olamilekan Adeola, Yusuf Abubakar, Orisa Clifford and 22 others co-sponsored the motion.
Leading the debate, Buhari complained that Nigerians do not have the power to control bundle usage, nor the choice to restrict browsing.
He said all the GSM operators in Nigeria have recently been experiencing terrible congestions on their networks, thus, denying subscribers the ability to make or receive calls successfully.
“Operators also have an unfair advantage with dropped calls from per-minute users as callers end up paying for an entire minute if a call drops in between, especially within the first few seconds.
“Despite the warning issued by the NCC to telecom operators using the dropped call mechanism to defraud Nigerians by deducting money from phone users illegally, no serious penalty has been issued against any operator to date,” he said.
He explained that four major operators, namely MTN, Airtel, Etisalat and Globacom, could not provide the rate of dropped calls on their networks.
The Senate President, Ahmad Lawan, who described poor network as a menace, assured that the issue will be tackled.
“This time will be different. We pay through our noses and we are unjustifiably treated by these network providers. Everybody comes here and treat us differently. The DSTV and others do almost the same thing. At the appropriate time, we will have a public hearing.
“The NCC and other relevant agencies will be put to test. We feel they are inefficient and they are not doing enough. We are going to bark and bite this time around and if it requires blacklisting the operators, we will do that,” he said.
Lawan, who was Buhari’s colleagues in the House of Representatives between 2003 and 2007, revealed that “I remember in 2004 when we were in House of Representatives, Distinguished Senator Buhari Abdulfatai, then Honorable Buhari Abdulfatai, brought cry from Nigerians in relation to this issue of exploitation by the GSM operators in Nigeria. Also, this similar issue was raised both in 7th and 8th Senate. Honestly, it is time to let these GSM operators realize that it is not going to be business as usual and this 9th Senate has the will and the commitment to rise to this occasion. Nigeria is not a country that they will come and be preying on our people commercially and taking us as fools.The people who sent us here to represent them deserve to be truly represented, so they must enjoy the service they are paying for.I thank the mover of this motion Senator Buhari and all my colleagues for their various meaningful contributions.”
