16 May 2019
The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has joined forces with the Office of the National Security Adviser (ONSA) and other government agencies to address a surge in cybercrime, by tackling fake, counterfeit and shoddy mobile devices.
A Project Steering Committee made up of the Infrastructure Concession Regulatory Commission (ICRC), the Federal Ministry of Communications and the NCC; as well as the Project Delivery Team (PDT) (representing the Federal Ministry of Communications, the ICRC, the Federal Ministry of Finance and the NCC) wants to implement a mobile device management system (DMS) to address the problem.
The minister of communications, Adebayo Shittu, urged encouragement of local production of mobile devices as a means of tackling the growing problem.
Shittu said Nigeria’s most popular mobile phone market, the Computer Village in Lagos, has a daily turnover of about NGN2bn. He said if 10 per cent of the devices being sold were fake, the country’s formal mobile phone market was losing about NGN200m daily.
“Substandard and fake mobile phones are a bad omen, and an economic sabotage for Nigeria,” he said. “We need urgent attention to address this issue.”
The Association of Telecommunications Companies of Nigeria (ATCON) added that more than 20 mobile phone brands that are being sold in Nigeria have not been approved by the NCC. ATCON also described the fake phones as significant contributors to poor quality of service challenge that operators in Nigeria struggle with.
“The principal objective of the DMS project is to establish a secure and comprehensive single-window solution that will enable the Commission to implement a proven solution in the Nigerian environment… that is sustainable and demonstrate value for money in addition helping to address the various concerns that have been raised with the NCC from the Office of the National Security Adviser (ONSA), in our regular interactions on security matters as it concerns the telecommunications industry,” said NCC executive vice chairman Umar Garba Danbatta.
