THE NATIONAL PRESIDENT, ASSOCIATION OF TELEPHONE, CABLE TV AND INTERNET SUBSCRIBERS OF NIGERIA (ATCIS) ON SECURITY MATTERS MEETING CALLED BY DSS AND NIMC ON HOW SAFE ARE SUBSCRIBERS DATA IN LINKING NIN WITH MINISTER APP THAT WE ARE NOT INFORMED NOR INVOLVED.
I say a warm greeting to my fellow Nigerians, esteemed members of this association, Gentlemen of the press, ladies and gentlemen,
I welcome you to this meeting in the spirit of solidarity, fairness, justice and the quest for a greater nation of our dream where impunity is tamped down for justice and fairness to thrive
BIEF PROFILE ABOUT ATCIS
The Association of Telephone, Cable TV and Internet Subscribers of Nigeria (ATCIS) is an advocacy body promoting subscribers’ interests in Nigeria as well as defending their rights. The seed of this association was sown some six years ago. This was prompted by many reasons that today are aptly reflected in our aims and objectives, and are, as well, compressed in our mission and vision statements. ATCIS started its social service on the 2nd of August 2014. However, it was duly incorporated by the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) on the 24th of August 2016 with Registration Number CAC/IT/N090152. It is no doubt the no1 Masses advocate for Telephone, Cable TV and Internet Subscribers. Without being immodest, today, the association has become the number one recognized masses advocate for the mushrooming subscribers.
OUR VISION: Is to be the main voice of protection of interests and rights of telephone, Cable TV and Internet subscribers – Nigerians and non-Nigerians – in the country.
OUR MISSION: Is to promote love, peace among subscribers and other stakeholders while providing a platform to advance the rights of telephone, cable TV and Internet subscribers for better services all over Nigeria.
AIMS AND OBJECTIVE
To foster unity, peace and understanding among subscribers
To protect the interest of members/subscribers
To cooperate with government agencies in the sectors under our concern for the greater good of subscribers
To present the views and needs of subscribers to local, state governments and other relevant authorities
To organize social and interactive functions that will facilitate and encourage interpersonal relations amoung subscribers
To use this platform to encourage dialogue between operators and subscribers
To promote subscribers’ understanding of the telecoms industry, policies and how these affects them
To champion subscribers’ agitation when the need arises
To be a key stakeholder for consultation by regulator, operators and lawmakers on matters affecting subscribers in Nigeria.
To help service providers overcome certain challenges with ripple impact of subscribers
To co-operate with any other association within or outside the country, having similar aims and objectives with this association.
OUR RELATIONSHIP WITH GOVERNMENT AGENCIES
Our Association fall before two government regulatory agency in which they are NCC and NBC .we have notified them about our existence for good cordial relationship. We also send introduction letters to organization bodies that provide service to ATCIS members like ATCON, ALTON, NIRA and NIG. ATCIS has a clearance letter from EFFCC to operate and have access to open a current Naira account No: 2031750620 and Domiciliary USD dollar account No: 2031751483 with First bank of Nigeria.
S/N
NAME OF OUR BOT MEMBERS
ZONE
STATE OF ORIGIN/STATES COVERED
POSITION
1.
H.R.M OLORI AGBEKE B. IDOWU
SOUTH WEST
EKITI,LAGOS,OGUN ,ONDO OSUN, OYO
Co- Founder
2.
PST. MARKUS JACOB ILIYA
NORTH – WEST
JIGAWA,KADUNA,KANO,KASTINA,KEBBI SOKOTO ,ZAMFARA
BOT CHAIRMAN
3.
BARR. ISAAC OBRUTU
SOUTH – SOUTH
AKWA IBOM, BAYELSA,CROSS RIVER ,DELTA, EDO,RIVERS
BOT LEGAL ADVISER
4.
MRS. LOIS NANKUS ANGER
NORTH CENTRAL
BENUE , KOGI, KWARA, NASAWARA,NIGER, PLATEAU ,FCT
BOT SECRETARY
5.
ALH. ABDILLAHI ISMAILA
NORTH – EAST
ADAMANWA, BAUCHI,BORNO, GOMBE,TARABA ,YOBE
BOT MEMBER
6.
CHIEF VINCENT OKEY OKPALE
SOUTH EAST
ABIA, ANAMBRA, EBONYI,ENUGU,IMO
BOT MEMBER
Ladies and gentlemen, as you already know, the Association of Telephone, Cable TV and Internet Subscribers of Nigeria (ATCIS) has been the leading telecom masses advocacy body since it was founded in 2014 with over 75 landmark achievements, as at today it has cost us 365 million Naira and 600 Publication (local, international and online news) to Nigerian subscribers ON SELF SPONSOR without any government agency. The intention of forming this body is to work with stakeholders from private to the public sectors to ensure that subscribers of telephone, cable TV and internet services in Nigeria are treated fairly and respectfully by operators who provide them with these services.
If we look at it, it is indisputable that over the years, telephone and Cable TV services have grown from being exclusive privilege of the ‘haves’ in the society to becoming more widely accessible to more people in Nigeria. This has brought Telephone subscribers in the country today to as high as 208 million telephone subscribers; and Internet subscribers to 153 million as at October 2020. Similarly, based on data available to ATCIS, Nigeria had at least 50 million subscribers of pay-tv services as at 2019.
Analysis of the Telecoms industry we are about 200 million people in Nigeria but NCC says there are 250 million Active SIM cards in this country.
I believe we all know why? Nigerian subscribers have more than one SIM card, due to the inadequate network provided by the service provider.
Do you know that about 3 million Nigerian subscribers recharge their phones every one hour? Over 72 million people recharge daily.
Do you know that we spend 14 Billion Naira every day just recharging our phones?
Do you also know that you and I, spend 446 Billion Naira recharging our phones in a month can you imagine that the inflow investment in our Telecoms industry in a year is 21.4 Trillion Naira. And we say there is no money in the country.
NCC says Nigeria subscribers spend more on TELECOMS than on Health & Food.
The Big Question we subscriber should be asking ourselves is How much of this money comes back to us?
THE BUSINESS OF THE DAY
Today, our primary concern is on the Cable TV and NIMC/Minister App on how safe are ATCIS subscribers data in linking NIN?
We can’t say anything about NIMC/Minister APP in linking subscriber NIN because we are not informed and involved as subscriber’s body in this case they should be careful because ATCIS are yet to guaranty.
You and I have seen that indirectly, the operators of pay-TV in Nigeria are doing everything to take us back to the past, when only a few people could afford to use the service. This may not be their direct action, but by implications, it is just more or less the same.
Today, we say NO to extortion of Nigerian by pay-tv operators in the country who have refused to listen to the laws of the land, pains and cries of the people and all they want is keep milking Nigerian subscribers even at a critical time such as this.
Although, South African origin, Multichoice is the leading operator in the pay-tv venture in Nigeria. It is Nigeria’s pioneer pay TV service provider having launched the first digital satellite broadcasting service in 1993.
Nigeria currently has about 5.2million active subscribers which represent 18.5% of the Africa pay TV market as at March 2019. Other operators in Nigerian market include aside Multichoice, owners of Dstv and GOtv, are Startimes, Daarsat, Consat, Kwese TV and the new entrant Tstv.
Whatever the figure out there, we believe the time these operators have spent in Nigeria is enough for them to learn how to treat Nigerian subscribers with fairness and empathy, given how much they realise yearly from their operations in the country. On the contrary however, they have continued to be insensitive and nonchalant. From where we stand, ATCIS can say that this people lack regards for subscribers satisfaction and sense of social responsibility.
ATCIS uses this medium to appreciate Sen. Oluremi Tinubu , Chairman Senate Committee on Communication and her team, Hon. Unyime Idem, Chairman, House of Representatives Ad Hoc Committee, The Deputy Chairman of the committee, Hon. John Dyegh, and Hon. Adedeji Babjide, a member of the committee, for their efforts and supports to stand with our demand on Pay – As – You Go, based on last week meeting on Monday 12th, October, 2020.
All Subscribers in Nigeria are totally ashamed and disappointed at Mr. John Ugbe, Managing Director of Multichoice DSTV/GOTV based on his response towards Pay-As –You Go. Mr. John Ugbe, Managing Director, Multichoice/DSTV, said it would not be able to implement the policy of PAYGO. According to him, Pay Per View (PPV), is most times confused for PAYGO model deployed by mobile telecommunication companies, the PAYGO model as offered in the telecommunication business is a metered service where consumers are billed only for the service they consume and not for a fixed period.
Rep. Adedeji Babjide, a member of the committee called for sincerity on the part of multi-choice, adding that Nigerian Subscribers were currently going through a lot as a result of COVID-19. “Look at the hardship Nigerians are going through and you have done two increments within few months, this is not the right time for you to increase subscription,” he said. He queried why Multichoice/DSTV was not patronizing NICOMSAT, adding that Multichoice had not also obeyed the Nigeria Broadcasting Code (NBC) holistically.
To clear any doubt, this attribute manifested as the operators insisted on hiking subscription rates in Nigeria, even at the peak of the Coronavirus pandemic which had already wrecked havoc on the means of livelihood of many Nigerians. MultiChoice, for instance insisted on collecting more from Nigerians. It was hell bent that Nigerians must pay more for the same service even when they earn less.
On this matter, we have met with MultiChoice a couple of times to iron things out. All our efforts and messages have been falling on deaf ears. In other countries, operators have had to soft-pedal on price increase in order not to burden their subscribers unnecessarily.
ATCIS remains resolute to ensure that pay-TV subscribers in Nigeria are treated with fairness by the operators. We stand against price hikes that smack of extortion and exploitation. The fact that Nigerians are getting used to the pay-tv services does not mean we should be incurring more cost than necessary, especially as majority of the people spend only few hours to access the content. There should be fairness in pricing.
Pay-per-view as the way to go
We have said this over and over again. The only thing that we want to say is that, pay-tv subscribers from the jaws of the operators are to start running Pay-per-view model. Years have passed and we are still on this matter. We are not asking the operators to give us the service pro bono, all we are saying is: let us pay only for what we watch and nothing more.
We are aware that ATCIS the initiators who pushed pay as you go to Senate/House of Representative Committee on Communications recently summoned one of the operators to talk about the possibility of running pay-per-view subscription model in Nigeria. Of course, the response of the operators will always be predictable. They will keep telling us that technically, pay-per-view is not possible.
We are not surprised to hear this however. Something similar had happened before when we were made to believe that per seconds billing of GSM voice service was an illusion. But later, the impossibility suddenly became a possibility when another operator introduced per second billing system.
So, we refuse to buy the idea that pay-per-view is not possible in Nigeria because this same model is being used in some other countries. We insist that there must be a new subscription regime for pay-tv operation in Nigeria. Even if the current subscription model would be retained, we need pay-per-view model to be another option. This will give people a choice.
To the authorities:
ATCIS is worried to see that after the Nigerian authorities gave directives to the operators especially MultiChoice the owner DSTV/GOTV to reduce subscription rates and introduce pay-per-view model, nothing has changed despite the clamour of the people. Yet, nobody was sanctioned or called to face the music. We sometimes wonder if our authorities are truly for us; or if at all they even possess the nerve to face those that are violating the laws of the land. Extortion of the people via pricing is not just a subtle offence; it is a serious issue that must be addressed.
At this point, We demand that Nigerian authorities, such as the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC), Ministry of Information and Culture, Ministry of Telecommunication and Digital Economy, Nigerian Communication Commission and the National Assembly work together to carry out a cost-based research of the pay-tv market to be able to set floor and cap for subscription rates in the country.
Secondly, in respect of pay-per-view, we urge the authorities again to stop depending on only what they are told by operators as regards the technical possibility of the pay-per-view model. This is nothing but laziness on the part of the Nigerian authorities. We still remember vividly how such indolence in telecoms sector cost Nigerians billions of naira two decades ago because the authorities simply believed what they were told that per-second billing system was not possible.
Let the authorities do their thorough research regarding pay-per-view model and how it is being used in other countries and why Nigeria cannot be an exception. If they can do this, they would not need to be ladled by the operators whose primary intention, if not only interest, in Nigeria is to make money even at the expense of subscribers’ welfare.
To President Muhammadu Buhari
We believe now is the right time for President Muhammed Buhari’ administration to fire any Director of those agencies that are not ready to work with him to promote the rights of subscribers through the agencies. So much is expected from National Broadcasting Commission, Nigerian Communication Commission, Orientation Agency, Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission, and others. The failure of the agencies will be blamed on the Buhari’s administration. The President must rise up and do something.
We can see that, the Nigerians have awakened to defend their rights and interests because they have waited for too long for the authorities to do the right thing but with no hope in sight.
Late Chief Awolowo said that, Nigerians will rise to fight for themselves because nobody will fight for them. Oppressor are Network Providers, Pay Tv investors like DSTV, GOTV, STARTIMES, the bad one’s among Govt agency, Lawmakers, Policymakers, who do not give freedom willingly for example ATCIS have demanded since March 10, 2020 from NCC to MNOs that (1) Free data & call’s on every Nigeria independent day October 1st, just one day to all my members with over 190million Subscribers yet to be implemented. NCC should take note, (2) Oppressor are those who are against PPV or PAYG (Pay Per View or Pay As You Go). Until we Telecom Subscribers, Concerns Lawmakers, Policymakers, Govt. agency in Nigeria stand up together and demand for our rights as a King not a slave.
LAST NOTE QUESTION.
Why is it NBC,NCC,Government agency sees ATCIS as enemy, they did not call us for any meeting despite all we have done? Because what they fail to see ATCIS saw it and solved it for them.
On 5G NCC failed to give Nigerians information until Atcis got foreign information that spread across the nation until they work up during the covid – 19
Minister for communication failed severally on issues
Restriction to 3 lines
10% Taxation on call
Data slash
2 weeks NIN SIM link
20 naira individual and 40naira MNO ussd fees imposed on NIN
Apple he developed and launched on a public holiday 1st of January, 2021 with several question.
He failed to involve the real subscriber body.
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