By Wole Olaoye
When GSM telephony was introduced in Nigeria, we all celebrated our freedom from the stagnation of NITEL. At that time there were only about 400,000 epileptic telephone landlines all over the country. Making an international call was an event of theatrical dimensions. The NITEL headquarters in Lagos used to witness scenes of comic relief.
I once had to wait on the queue for about 90 minutes to take my turn to make a call to the US. Before then I had had to listen to the agonies of abandoned wives and girlfriends pleading with their spouses/partners over faint telephone lines to fast-track the process of relocating them abroad. There were tears and sighs and moans. There was no privacy whatsoever.
I particularly remember the case of one matronly woman who was threatening fire and brimstone if her son refused to come home to consummate the marriage she had arranged by proxy. Then there was the dandy old geezer who interspersed every sentence with the word “dollars”. He was dying of hunger he told whoever was at the other end of the line. “Send the dollars quickly! Are you hearing me clearly? D-o-l-l-a-r!!”
Often the operators listened in on conversations. If you had paid for three minutes and your time was running out, it was not unusual for a third voice to remind you that your time was running out. That was why many juicy jokes about the intervention of unwelcome third parties in the form of NITEL operators made the rounds. My favourite of the lot was this one:
Alhaji Maikudi: Abdulrahman, how are you? The phone in the house is TOSsed (Temporarily Out of Service). How are you?
Abdulrahman: I’m fine. Baba, there is something urgent –
Alhaji Maikudi: Yes, I also wanted to urgently inform you that Amina died.
Abdulrahman: Which Amina?
Alhaji Maikudi: Ibrahim’s mother; your mother’s mate.
Abdulrahman: Sorry, Baba. May Allah grant her Al Jannah Firdaus.
Alhaji Maikudi: Amin.
Abdulrahman: Aha, Baba. About the urgent matter: I’m grateful for the five thousand dollars you sent me. But it is not enough. I urgently need about ten thousand dollars more to enable me...
Alhaji Maikudi: Pardon? Ah, this telephone line is not clear again.
Abdulrahman: Baba!
Alhaji Maikudi: Hello Abdulrahman.
Abdulrahman: I was saying that I urgently need ten thousand dollars...
Alhaji Maikudi: Oh, this telephone line is not clear. If you can hear me, I say that I can’t hear you again.
(Suddenly a third voice interjects)
Telephone Operator: Haba, Alhaji! There’s nothing wrong with the phone line. Your son says he needs ten thousand dollars ...
Alhaji Maikudi: Oh, so you can hear him? Then send him the ten thousand dollars!
(Then he stormed out of the phone booth)
We made jokes about the pitiable state of teledensity at the time because it was the only way we could cope with the frustration. Thank goodness, with the deregulation of the telecommunications sector and the introduction of GSM services, all that now sounds like old grandmother’s tales. Like everything else, mobile telephony started as a middle class phenomenon until the National Communications Commission introduced competition and the price came crashing. It seems like 100 years ago when telephone subscribers had to buy SIM cards for N20,000- but that was the situation at the onset. Now there are about 140,000 GSM subscribers and still counting.
The main problem these days is the poor quality of voice calls and the frequency of dropped calls. Many Nigerians were glad when NCC stepped in last year and issued an ultimatum to all GSM operators to improve their services or face sanctions. But the other side of the coin, apart from the greed of GSM service providers who continue selling SIM cards to compound the congestion on their networks, is the very Nigerian phenomenon of triple taxation. Everyone – especially state and local governments- believes that the telecom firms are ‘cleaning out’. States have come out with fat charges for Right of Way to allow telecom masts in their territory. Local governments are doing the same. Meanwhile those companies pay other statutory taxes and charges. The time has therefore come for a harmonisation of charges nationally. The situation now is that telecom firms have reduced the number of masts in place all over the federation. The relay distance between one mast and the next is now much longer. It is commendable that the NCC has since created fora for interaction between various governments and telecom operators to achieve a reasonable compromise on right of way.
But the issue of greed on the part of the operators is what the commission has decided to tackle frontally. Noting that the challenge is that as they are investing, operators are loading up their networks such that the additional investment infused into technical capacity is lost through over-loading of the networks with additional subscribers and applications, Dr Juwah says “what they should do is to make the capacity of their investments commensurate with the loading up of their networks.” It is difficult to fault that position.
Expectedly the Association of Licensed Telecoms Operators of Nigeria (ALTCOM) has expressed displeasure at NCC’s insistence on good quality of service and the threat of sanctions on erring companies. Claiming that the sector contributes more to Nigeria’s GDP than the banking sector, ALTCOM chairman Gbenga Adebayo wants NCC to soft-pedal. Balderdash! Are the telecom operators doing Nigerians a favour? Have they not been short-changing us with their inefficiencies? Thank God for NCC. Nigerians consumers would have been hopelessly at the mercy of these money-making operators perpetually congesting our networks.
The introduction of GSM services has revolutionised the way we live. Now that we are used to it, it is important that our lives are not turned upside down by the same operators who brought smiles to our faces several years ago. We, the longsuffering consumers, are on the side of NCC on this matter. Any network operator that loads its system beyond installed capacity should be heavily sanctioned.
Bamanga Tukur!
When Alhaji Bamanga Tukur was eased out of his chairmanship of the People’s Democratic Party last week, some short-sighted politicians in the party ululated. They will soon find out that the former port administrator is the least of their problems. Mark that prediction.
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