The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has inked a deal with the Nigerian Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC) to tackle the increasing menace of telecom infrastructure vandalism across the country.
In a statement issued and signed by the Director of Public Affairs at NCC, Mr. Reuben Mouka, apart from tackling the menace of vandalism, the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) will also look into the persistent issues of fraudulent registration of Subscriber Identity Module (SIM) cards among others.
The statement quoted the Executive Vice Chairman of NCC, Prof. Umar Danbatta as saying that the MoU sealed between the agency and the Commission, will explore how the Corps will deploy enabling laws, subsidiary legislations, and extant guidelines to arrest any form of criminality in the telecom sector.
He said over the years, the NCC has been working with relevant law enforcement agencies, and in particular the NSCDC, towards protecting the telecom sector from all kinds of criminal behaviour.
“Through despicable activities that are criminal and totally at variance with national security concerns of government, the deviant elements in our midst have been acting to undermine efforts put in place to consolidate the gains of the sector,” the EVC said.
Danbatta explained that the criminal activities include theft and vandalism of telecommunications infrastructure, the illegal use of fraudulently-registered Subscriber Identification Module (SIM) cards, operating without a license, illegal call masking, and so on.