NCC: Dispelling cancer fears

Since the advent of GSM and wireless communications, there have been persistent claims and fear that telecom facilities need to be sited far from residential areas because of harmful radioactive emissions. At a consumer outreach programme held at Dankani Guest Inn, Sokoto, the Director, Consumer Affairs of the NCC, Mrs Maryam Bayi, disputed the claim. […]

Since the advent of GSM and wireless communications, there have been persistent claims and fear that telecom facilities need to be sited far from residential areas because of harmful radioactive emissions.

At a consumer outreach programme held at Dankani Guest Inn, Sokoto, the Director, Consumer Affairs of the NCC, Mrs Maryam Bayi, disputed the claim. The News Agency of Nigeria reports that the forum was the 68th edition of consumer outreach programme with the theme: “Effective Customer Service Delivery: The Rights of the Telecoms Consumer”. She said the programme was part of efforts to educate consumers on their rights and privileges, and the role of the commission in protecting those rights.
According to her, the clarification over telecom facilities became necessary because of apprehension by some consumers and communities that the proximity of masts and towers to residential areas poses the threat of cancer. She maintained that recent research and views from experts indicated that the radiation from the masts and towers has no adverse effect on health. “The proximity of masts to residential areas is not harmful to health and the masts do not cause radiation. In fact, there is no scientific evidence that has proved that anybody has contracted cancer (as a result of the nearness of telecom towers). In fact, we have invited experts on various talk shows and none of them confirmed that telecommunications masts cause cancer,” she said.
To buttress her point, Mrs Bayi pointed out that European countries and the United States use the same masts and towers and wondered why the apprehension in Nigeria. She also emphasised that research by the World Health Organisation (WHO) has not yet shown any health hazards resulting from radiation by telecom equipment.
It would be recalled that the National Environmental Standards Regulatory Agency (NESREA), has often had confrontations with telecoms operators and the NCC over the location of telecoms facilities around residential areas. In many instances, base stations have been shut down or barred from operations by NESREA for being within or close to residential places. The bust-up is often unsavoury and bitter, with both agencies seeming to be at cross purpose rather than working in mutual cooperation.
Once when faced with such a situation, the NCC had declared: “NESREA is an enforcement agency while NCC is the regulator of telecom services in the country. There are no two regulators in the industry. Our telephone companies have not caused any bodily harm to anyone in the course of their business operations. NESREA is simply whipping up sentiments and meddling in the affairs of this commission and we won’t take it.”
And NESREA retorted: “The NESREA Act of 2007 empowers our agency to regulate and enforce, where necessary, all standards of social and economic operations undertaken by every inhabitant of this country’s biosphere insofar as such operation might affect the health and wellbeing of other inhabitants.”
NESREA’s concern about the health and wellbeing of Nigerians is a legitimate brief and in its line of duty. In the same vein, the importance of the telecoms sector to contemporary society can never be overstated. Its relevance is to the extent that even NESREA will not function effectively as an institution if the telecoms sector is to be caged and bottled the way NESREA seems to want it. Therefore, these two public institutions serving the same government and the same citizens cannot afford such a conflict of interest. It would appear probably in the eyes of NESREA that the NCC is out to hurt Nigerians through collaborating with telecom operators to mount radioactive, cancer-dispensing facilities across the landscape. For as long as this is far from being the case, both agencies can establish areas of common understanding for the benefit of the entire country.  
Telecom infrastructure should be allowed in many areas where they are impeded because there isn’t a conclusive scientific evidence to indicate that they pose any serious health risk; at least not more than an overhead high tension cable, personal computer, mobile phone, microwave oven or television screen. Restriction of telecom facilities can only aggravate the situation of poor connectivity, dropped calls and other such inconveniences.
It is the Nigerian public – whom both the NCC and NESREA want to serve, which bears the burden of poor service quality in any event. It is high time both agencies went to town to dispel fears about radiations so that communities who had put up resistance to the erection of towers and masts in their vicinities had a change of heart through better enlightenment.
It is a welcome gesture that the minister for communications technology, Mrs Omobola Johnson, had promised to work with other stakeholders in the industry with a view to resolving all issues regarding conflicting regulatory procedures between the NCC and NESREA. There also has to be a review of the laws which duplicate the regulation of matters concerning the industry. As it stands, NCC is the only body statutorily empowered to regulate the telecoms sector. It should therefore not require a second opinion about the justification or otherwise of any operation relating to telecommunications in Nigeria.
Agbaje is an environmental activist based in Ibadan