CALL FOR INCREASE IN DATA PRICES, A SHAME THAT NIGERIANS MUST RESIST!

By Augustine Kanu and Hart Ekeledo

Out of the blues, without any adequate consultation and proper consideration, Out of the blues, without any adequate consultation and proper consideration, the Nigerian Communication Commission (NCC), unilaterally directed all Mobile Telecommunication Owners in the country to increase their data charges for Nigerians starting from December 1, with a flimsy reasons that we Nigerians are paying lesser when compared to other countries, and the need to keep the new telecommunications afloat. This is coming on the heel of Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN)'s boss, Godwin Emefiele's call for the taxation calls ranging from three minutes and above. Just imagine!😞

With all these happening, one wonders if NCC and CBN are for or against the  Nigerian masses. A commission and an institution that ought to be seeking ways to alleviate the current hardship in the country occasioned by the recession are busy doing otherwise.

Shame on NCC for being

anti-masses. After rendering these mobile telecommunication outfits almost broke by your incessant yet unnecessary fines on them, you now deem it fit to compensate them through this way?

Shame on NCC for bringing up this devilish idea at a time like this when majority of Nigerians are barely surviving. The burden caused by  the sudden increase in  the prices of  Petrol, Kerosene,  Food items, Electric Bills, Building materials, etc, are yet to be lifted,  yet another burden surfaces.  

Shame on NCC for giving such wicked directive to be carried out in this period of  Yuletide, a season of love, joy and happiness. The implication now is that many Nigerians who are data users  will no longer express their love, joy and happiness as they would love to. No thanks to NCC and CBN.

Shame on these so-called mobile telecommunication giants for their selfishness. After refusing to stop feeding us with unsolicited messages and calls despite the directives by this same NCC, they now gladly accept and are showing their readiness to implement this latter directive. This time around, MTN has forgotten how to sue NCC and FG to court. There is no truth in the World!

Since NCC has vowed to make things difficult for  us Nigerians, difficulties will never elude them until they have a rethink.

This vent of emotions are not borne out of  bias, rather for the dire need for truth to be told as stark as possible. Honestly those at the helm of Nigeria's affairs bewilder us all the time. It is obvious that the welfare of the Nigerian nation and Her ever suffering masses are in no way their concern. However, they make one and all imagine if they pass through the four walls of a kindergarten at all talk more of being tutored, educated and learned. Tufiakwa! I spit in remonstrance! What a shameless shame faced shameful action.

The telecommunication industries, MTN, Airtel, Globacom, Etisalat and all the rest have gone haywire with joy, sending messages with reference to the above. What a shortsighted set of business organizations. They have forgotten so soon the low patronage recorded during the days when Data prices were on the high side. They have also failed to remember the rate at which hackers were bringing out cheats like (simple server) for individuals to browse at little or no cost. Well, be ready for the worst worse.😒

It is in the absence of knowing the right things to do, how to do them and when to do them that someone will wake up in the morning and embark on the quest of this nature, which will cripple business activities and make life undesirably unbearable for another human.

Since these leading Hitledictators in the Nigerian corridors of power do not know what is right to do now and how to do same, let them be well reminded that:

- Nigeria is still leaning disturbingly comfortably on one economic source (mono-economy) and to avert more throes and woes of hunger and starvation, they the Hitlerian leaders of Nigerian should and must propose and implement policies that will foster diversification. The increase in price of data is however never one of it.

- The crude oil mined in Nigerian's own fatherland is sold to them at neck cutting prices, why don't the Hitledictators find ways to refurbish, build and set running ultramodern refineries in every nook and cranny of this nation to ensure that petroleum products are gotten at affordable prices to alleviate suffering and foster productivity of small and medium enterprises. Prices of data have nothing to do with this you will concur.

- A visit to Aba (the Japan of Africa), a city in South Eastern Nigeria where small and medium scale industries strive to thrive, revealed that all the wonderful industries there that could become Nigeria's next export hub are all functional because they rely only on generator sets every twenty-four hour of each day of the seven days of every four weeks in a twelve calendar year, yet Nigeria's Hitlerian leaders turn a blind eye to this and only opened their eyes to cripple and grind to a halt the only means by which Nigerians learn new trends and  communicate with the world.

- The average Nigerian graduates are close to twenty years behind their counterparts in other nations and the serious ones can only get innovative and contemporary information by surfing the internet. How then can they achieve this, when Nigeria's Hitledictators are on the prowl to make data prices as expensive as incorruptibility in Nigeria.

- Youths are everywhere on the streets, unemployed and unskilled. Those of them who can't take it anymore bow to the calls of crime and violence against the good name of the Nation. In the light of this, is hike in data prices the solution?

- The employed live in perpetual fear as they are basking in the continued knowledge of job insecurity. Yet they call for hike in price of data bundles.

- What about sincerely fighting corruption, unemployment, poverty, gender inequality, child marriage, militancy, terrorism, illiteracy, religious crises, inter-ethnic squabbles, fanaticism etc etc etc. 

The list can go on and on from the coastal lines of the West to the extinct Pyramids of the North down to the creeks of the South and then to the green swards the East, that however is not the reason for this article, so will be constrained to this few.

Brazenly, the actions and in-actions of Nigeria’s leaders go a long way to show that they have sinister plans which are inimical to the good and welfare of citizens in the Nigerian State. They are only committed to the enrichment of their pockets and that being achieved; they give no damn what happens to the vast majority of Nigerian. There is this likability that they abhor the happiness of Nigerians if not, why this? Take a look at their core flimsy clumsy reason; “Nigerians are paying lesser when compared to other countries” Chei!

No wonder they can’t walk the Nigerian streets freely without body guards. Yet it must the said without fear or favour: “Oppressor Man, no matter how long you run behind the shadows of power, you can’t hide, your kingdom will fall soon”

It's sincerely high time all Nigerians especially her leaders start thinking towards the betterment of this nation and not get themselves doused with greed, insincerity and lack of vision to the detriment of this great nation.
Nigerians vehemently will resist any and every form of extortion by way of increment in prices of data. They  unanimously and sincerely call that the prices of data be not tampered with.

Let the Great in mind heed to this!