On Monday January 26, Mr. Eugene Juwah, the Executive Vice Chairman of the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), said the All Progressives Congress (APC) was banned from using telecommunications service providers’ networks to raise monetary contributions to the campaign of its presidential candidate because APC flouted the commission’s laid down rules and regulations.
Addressing journalists at the African Telecommunications Union (ATU) 3rd African Preparatory Meeting in Abuja on why NCC shut down APC’s SMS platform to raise money for its campaign, he said: “You know we are NCC; we are a public service agency; we do not, and NCC is not political.
“You are allowed to raise money, but you must conform to the rules of NCC. We didn’t make these rules looking at elections. We made these rules for the interest of development of telecommunications in Nigeria and we would keep those rules whether there are elections or not.” he said.
According to Thisday, he said that the meeting of the ATU in Nigeria has become important so as to protect the interest of the region and also to speak with one voice on a global platform.
Juwah said: “This is a key meeting for the whole world so Africa has to prepare to protect its interest and the preparatory meeting that we are having today is for Africa region to decide on going to World Radio Communications (WRC-15) 2015 with a unique united voice towards the end of the year.
“Avenues like this should be used to further the interest and development of our region. This we should do by thoroughly and objectively looking at all the issues that would be discussed at this meeting.”
He said all the outstanding issues concerning the use of spectrum would be discussed and that Africa will try to put them on the agenda for the global meeting that is coming at the end of the year.
“There are many issues, there are issues of harmonisation of spectrum, spectrum slot so that cross border interference will be limited and thing and other technical issues,” he said.
Speaking earlier, Mrs. Omobola Johnson,the Minister of Communications Technology, said the distribution of more broadband spectrum across Africa would enhance the clarity of voice, faster internet and data sent through the mobile telecommunications devices.
It would be recalled that the National Publicity Secretary of the APC, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, told journalists last week in Lagos that NCC issued a shutdown directive asking telecoms companies not to run political adverts in order to give the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) an edge over his party.
