The Senate today said it will probe the controversy surrounding the deployment of Fifth Generation (5G) network in Nigeria, whether truly it is hazardous to health as claimed in some quarters.
The country’s upper legislative chamber disclosed this during the plenary after a motion was raised by Senator Uche Ekwunife, drawing the attention of the senators to the status of the 5G network in the country.
Ekwunife said her motion was borne out of the need to assure Nigerians of their safety by asking the Federal Government to postpone the launch until a proper investigation was carried out.
Thus, the Senate has ordered the federal government and its Ministries and agencies to put on hold any execution or deployment of 5G, which in the last few weeks generated a lot of controversies.
The Senate has also mandated the Committees on Communication, Public Health and Science and Technology to carry out an investigation with a view to determining the status of the 5G network in the country and revert in four weeks.
Arguing further, the Deputy Majority Leader, Senator Ajayi Boroffice, said the 5G network deployment remained a controversial issue, urging experts to handle it and deliberate on the merits and demerits of its deployment.
Senator Opeyemi Bamidele said it would be irresponsible of any government to subscribe to a technology that won’t be safe for its citizens. He noted that no scientific research has been done by any agency of the Federal Government on the 5G network.
He said countries in Europe were already investigating the implications of the deployment and wondered why Nigeria had yet to do so.
Though 5G has not been commercially deployed in Nigeria, the country woke up to the controversy that the technology, which industry watchers and analysts noted will transform the world, is hazardous to health, attributing it to the cause of Coronavirus ravaging the world.
Both the Ministry of Communications and Digital Economy and the Nigerian Communications Commission have intervened, stating that 5G and Coronavirus have no relationship. But the controversy raged on.