The news just went viral last week that the Nigerian Communications
Commission, NCC, was planning to shut down Blackberry services. Although
the NCC almost immediately denied the rumour, Blackberry users in the
country are still nursing fears that their cherished service may go
under the knife of the regulator. Most of them still insist that there
is no smoke without fire.
Majority of them who expressed their opinions through pinging
messages said that although the ban happened in Saudi Arabia and United
Arab Emirates, there is no ground for its success in Nigeria.
Miss Morayo Adebayo – a student: Why would anybody ever thought of
it! Banning Blackberry? Its not reasonable in anyway. But I know the way
things go in Nigeria, there is no smoke without fire but the truth is
that the device has done a lot of good than harm.
The advantages include cheaper way of people to get in touch with
friends and family without actually calling them. It has easy access to
the internet reducing the risk of going to the cyber cafe or carrying
laptops about. Bank transactions and so many things can be done on the
Black Berry. Abeg, they should leave our BB alone!
Banning of Black Berry for security reasons is like closing banks
because of fraudsters or arm robbers. Rather than this retrogressive
step, NCC should put more resources on security and cyber police to
tackle the problems of crime and offences related to Black Berry.
Mr. Innocent Onoja: If NCC feels banning of Black Berry is the only
way to handle the security challenges facing the country, I have nothing
against them. But they should also consider the impact of information
in every civilized country like Nigeria through the social networks.
Today Facebook and Black Berry Messenger are the most crucial services
that enable people to effectively communicate with one another and even
find old friends
Dr. Lucy Omizebga : The plan to ban Black Berry is oppressive,
communist and not fair to we the citizens who are Black Berry users. I
hope it is all rumours because we are not there yet. So to shut the
little that is giving us hope would be counter productive
Mr. Oye Obaitan: I just heard of the rumour and I still believe it
is rumour. I think that the best way Nigeria be thinking of security
measures, is to first arrest the Boko haram insurgence and not to remove
the small joy we are now deriving. When we are thinking of banning BB,
what about Facebook, WatsApp, twitter and others”
However, NCC, through its Director Public Affairs, Mr Tony Ojobo, had
declared that there was no substance in the rumour. “the attention of
the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has been drawn to an
information making rounds that the NCC had at a meeting this morning
agreed with CEOs of telecommunications networks to shutdown Blackberry
Services in order to deny Nigerians the use of that very important
social network.The Management hereby states categorically that there was
never such a meeting held, nor was there ever a resolution to shut down
Blackberry services. The Public is please advised to disregard such
information” he added.
