Article published in The Nation Newspaper
09/11/2009
CountdownNigeria@50 -323. For a better 50th birthday we need better IT and power. After being driven from Multilinks by painfully slow internet service but very prompt dissconnections/cutouts and automatic daily deductions for ‘services often not rendered’ I made the move/mistake of joining Zain. On Zain internet, whenever you check ‘the bottom line’ you find the figures reading ‘Zero’ or ‘0.00kbph’ or quickly settling for zero. It’s nearly ‘Zero with Zain’ but your money runs out whether you get access or not and it takes forever to load five cards every month for N5,000 access. These services, or serviceless companies should offer bonus hours for painful hours lost on the net sending one e-mail and ‘forget about browsing’ beyond one step because ‘the webpage is unavailable’. Do federal government regulators have a MONITORING LABORATORY for regular scientific analysis or Monitoring and Evaluation, M&E, of these companies ‘promising internet heaven’ but ‘charging heaven on the earth’? With over 80 universities and 100 polytechnics needing government research grants it should be easy to get a Federal Government funded NIGERIAN MULTI-UNIVERSITY ‘NATIONAL CELL PHONE/ INTERNET MONITORING AND EVALUATION PROJECT to produce monthly evaluations. We have a ‘Right To Know’ the best and worst performers! Just N5000/month for 1m internet users is N5,000,000,000/month or N60billion/ annum – real money for one company. Out of licence fees of $1b+ the Nigerian Communication Commission should have equipment for monitoring the networks 24/7 x 365, providing jobs for undergraduates and a relevance to their research and offer a peep into the latest monitoring technology.
Government could, with the evidence gathered from the NIGERIAN MULTI-UNIVERSITY ‘NATIONAL CELL PHONE/ INTERNET MONITORING AND EVALUATION, M&E, PROJECT and analysed monthly, do us the favour of publishing a regular monthly ‘Easy Internet Assess Chart’ to guide us in our quest for choosing the better and larger internet access providers.
Just as importantly M&E would put the fear of God into any IT corporate clowns providing Fellow Nigerians a ‘disservice’ called cell phone and internet and thus bring the work of even good companies into disrepute. Self monitoring is not the option. Most of the companies take and take and we have no redress and no ‘repayment’ for rip-offs. We, Fellow Nigerians, have suffered 100s of millions of wasted hours and 10s of billions in economic losses on the ‘nothingnet’ masquerading as ‘internet access’. We should be repaid for our losses by being given a ‘reimbursement’ negotiated by the NCC if necessary through a FINE FOR BREACH OF CELL PHONE & INTERNET CONTRACT WITH THE CUSTOMER. Every Fellow Nigerian with a cellphone or internet should be REIMBURSED TO THE TUNE OF N10,000-N100,000, for losses caused by the collective misrepresentation, deception and perhaps incompetence and corruption of the corporate cellphone and internet operators! Corporate IT should spend less on nauseatingly multicoloured and vulgar ‘overbranding’ everything in green, yellow, blue, magenta and less on adverts. That money could improve services. They should learn the lessons from the ‘Re-Re-Rebranding Nigeria’ projects. No amount of rebranding will bring 100,000Mw, 24 hour electric power, free Ogere of traffic, put books in schools, reduce maternal and infant mortality or eliminate ignorance. You can have dancing in the street, marathon carnivals, blind us with corporate ‘flags of many colours’ and megabillboards and t-shirts and ‘Big Mother’ and ‘survivor’ and ‘entrepreneur’ and ‘who wants to be a billionaire’ contests. It is all with ‘OUR MONEY HONEY’, money taken for services ‘NOT RENDERED SATISFACTORILY’. Is that not an Economic crime? EFCC and ICPC should investigate this economic and financial crime against Fellow Nigerians. The EFCC has shut down over 300 Yahoo-Yahoo sites, TRUE REBRANDING. It should extent its ‘net’ to the ‘internet PROVIDER’ which ‘yahoo-yahoo and 419’ us every second. The EFCC must ask ‘Are Nigerians being cheated, shortchanged, by Cell Phone/Internet companies, by how much and how much should they repay or issue as CELL PHONE /INTERNET CREDIT/ BONUS HOURS in restitution?’
Government agencies are often also guilty of shortchanging Fellow Nigerians and the PHCN is chief suspect with a finger of extortion in every home. Now we pay more for meter rent monthly, N1,040, and then we pay for power itself so PHCN is getting money for nothing and will make N1.5billion+ monthly from rents alone. Someone should google the internet for the real price of this metre we are paying N12,480/ year to rent. How soon does the government agency recover the money it invested in the meter itself? Is the meter cost N12,000? So why are we being charged for eternity? What is the lifetime of a PHCN meter- 20 years? In that time the government agency, PHCN would have made N249,600+. Is this not a rip-off and an EFCC crime perpetrated by PHCN against Fellow Nigerians? Text the minister/ president a complaint.
Is the Consumer Protection Agency investigation this ‘rent a meter’ apparent government robbery? Is this ‘Rule of Law’? Let CPA investigate as PHCN may be making money for nothing. How many meters were imported. How much did the meter contract cost NEPA? What is a unit cost of a meter landed in Nigeria and install? Over how many years does PHCN need to charge to get a refund of its money? Did some people pay fully for the meter for NEPA to install only to be charged by PHCN?
CountdownNigeria@50 -323 days. Improve the competence, monitoring and evaluation of IT companies and PHCN by 1-10-2010.