NCC: Numan Hosts NCC's 30th Consumer Town Hall Meeting

L-R: Trade Union Leader, Pagiel Mark; Representative Road Safety Commission, DRC Omeijelen; Zonal Inspector NYSC, Suleiman Abdulkarim; Chief Fidelis B. Ali, District Head of Demsa; Representative Consumer Advocacy Group (Wheel of Hope), Jide Abdulazeez; Deputy Director Consumer Affairs Bureau- NCC, Ismail Adedigba; CDO Numan LGA, Grace Eleija and Elarm Abitrus, NSCDC Numan Division.

A Historic Trading Town in Adamawa State, a port of the Benue River, once a trading post of the Royal Niger Company, famous collecting point for peanuts trading as well as trade in sorghum, millet, cowpeas, fish and cattles - recently hosted the 30th edition of the Consumer Town Hall Meeting (CTM) organised by the Nigerian Communications Commission.

The CTM is a companion programme of a three-layered telecom consumer engagement processes coordinated by NCC's Consumer Affairs Bureau and designed to take place in rural and semi-urban towns. The other two programmes are the Consumer Outreach Programme (COP) and the flagship, Telecom Consumer Parliament (TCP) usually held in cities and State capitals respectively.

The programme is a platform for telecom consumers, telecom service providers and the regulator (NCC) for the purpose of discussing the challenges of the telecom consumer and proffering solutions  particularly to the complaints of the consumer.

At each forum, the NCC as the regulator invites consumers to meet the representatives telecom service providers to present complaints, get more information and education needed to improve the quality of consumer experience.

Expectedly, the engagements are often marked by lively,  constructive and often heated discourse of experiential knowledge and overview of perceptions about the industry; as well as the value expectations on the quality of telecom services.

The meeting at Numan as elsewhere also served as channels of feedback on the activation of the 2442 Do not Disturb Short Code instituted by NCC to manage  unsolicited SMS riding on the crest of telecommunication platforms to consumers' devices. Consumers were also informed of the need to utilise the 622 Toll free Line dedicated by NCC to enable consumers escalate  unresolved complaints already lodged with service providers.

The Numan CTM also featured discussions about the Electromagnetic Fields (EMF) radiation associated with telecommunication infrastructure and devices. The topic of EMF is one that has attracted so much obfuscation and concerns.

With over 25000 publications and about 6000 summaries of individual scientific studies (www.emf-portal.org - Accessed 25 August 2017), information is still bandied by many linking radiation from telecom infrastructure and devices to cancer. This is falsehood because radiation from these sources is non-ionizing (do not possess enough energy to penetrate cells and therefore not harmful to humans).

This was among many clarifications made by the representatives of NCC to consumers at the well-attended CTM in Numan.

Several stakeholders from telecom companies, consumer rights advocacy groups, traditional and other leaders of the Numan community, the press, law enforcement agencies and persons from State institutions and institutions of the Civil Society, as well as members of the NYSC on primary assignment in Numan, participated and made meaningful contributions to the success of the event.

The event which lasted several hours ended with question and answer (Q & A) sessions and participants were given ample time to ask questions and seek clarifications on issues of concern to them.

NCC