The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has assured Nigerians of its commitment to continue to operate global best regulatory standards that would enhance subscribers’ experience and further grow the telecoms sector.
The Director, Public Affairs at the NCC, Dr. Ikechukwu Adinde, gave the assurance yesterday.
Adinde said the efforts of the NCC to ensure best practices in its regulation of the telecoms industry were attested to by the recent ranking of the commission as number eight out of 222 federal government’s Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) that were surveyed by the Independent Corrupt Practices and other Related Offences Commission’s (ICPC), 2020 Ethics Compliance and Integrity Scorecard (ECIS).
He said the ECIS also ranked the NCC top on the list of all the public sector regulators and agencies under the Ministry of Communications and Digital Economy.
Adinde also used the opportunity to assure Nigerians that the 5G Network has no health risk to humans.
He said: “The issues around the 5G and its purported health risks have been ongoing, with a particular reference that the 5G network rollout may be responsible for the outbreak of COVID-19. As a regulator, the NCC is driving the policy of the federal government, which stipulates that before the deployment of the 5G in Nigeria, there will first be proper research on 5G health implications and the NCC is not in a hurry to deploy the 5G network in Nigeria, without due diligence.
“Last year, we had a successful trial of the 5G network rollout in six locations across the country and we are still experimenting on it. But none of the fears of people who claimed that the 5G network will be injurious to human health has been established globally and internationally. Already, there is a global report that says the electromagnetic emission from telecoms base stations, cannot cause harm to human health. There has been so much misinformation and misrepresentations around the 5G network and electromagnetic emissions from telecoms masts.”
He reiterated the position of NCC on 5G deployment, which is that the federal government has not approved the deployment of the network in Nigeria and that the NCC has not given any telecoms operator the approval to deploy the 5G on their networks.
Adinde, however, said that the NCC had not taken any position on the planned regulation of social media by the federal government.
In his welcome remarks, the Director, ARISE News Channel, Mr. Emmanuel Efeni, commended the NCC for the recent ICPC’ integrity scorecard ranking and encouraged it to do more in protecting telecoms subscribers and in growing the telecoms sector, especially now the federal government is focused on the development of a viral digital economy for the country.
source: Thisday
