…POS, Cybercafe operators, others thrown out of business
In the light of decision of the federal government asking the Nigerian Communication Commission,NCC to shut down telecom services in Zamfara and neighbouring states to curb insecurity,stakeholder in the Telecom sector have started counting their loses during the period.
Some of those who spoke on condition of anonymity said that service providers in the industry (Telecom companies) may lose as much as N50m per company, per week, depending on the number of subscribers in Zamfara and it’s neighbouring states following the Federal Government’s directive.
It will be recalled that the directive which was handed down to them through NCC, to shutdown their over 240 base stations in the terrorists infested states.
This amount alone, another expert said, is minus what others like those in the every day business of POS, business centres etc will suffer for the two weeks the order will last in the first instance.
Even students registering online for their forthcoming General Certificate of Education (GCE), are not left out as they will be forced to do the registration through the crude manual process.
The estimated N50m multiply by four, which is the number of telecom networks in Nigeria times two weeks is equal to N400m .
He also hinted that the networks might likely put some staff on a no work, no pay policy as no establishment not even government itself likes to pay a staff who is not working, when such staff is not on leave. This he said, is likely to happen considering what the networks lose as a result of the recent ban on sales of new SIM cards as a result of the endless NIN enrollment/alligment that has forced most network to push the price of their SIM card to a thousand naira plus or more, all in a bid to cover lost ground.
For the period of two weeks he further said, POS operators who are on a daily income basis will close shops as nobody will transfer, receive money or pay bills of any kind in the affected states.
“In fact, with this action, the government of Buhari has taken us back to the stone age just to fight terrorists. And what happens if the bad boys shift their base to other state(s)? The whole of Nigeria will be shut down. Remember the networks and Twitter users are still smarting from Twitter’s ‘suspenion’ ‘abi na ban’.”
He also talked of the inconveniences Nigerians will be thrown into for the next two weeks as they will not be able to call anybody in that state.
But when asked what the government would have done to checkmate the terrorists, ‘I do not give my suggestion for free’ but went ahead to say “when America killed Osman Bin Laden did Pakistan close the country so that it’s soldiers’ movement will not be leaked to him. I thought the whole process of SIM alligment with NIN was to enable security agents trap criminals among us? Or Boko Haram members and terrorists were not enrolled into the NIN scheme, he asked.”
Continuing he said “this
country is just a joke my brother” and hung off.
