Telecom operators condemn illegal closure of 10 base stations in Taraba

The Chairman of ALTON, Mr Gbenga Adebayo made the condemnation in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Tuesday in Lagos.

Adebayo said the government of Taraba was using consulting companies to shut down masts because of internal revenue generation.

He said government had been directed not to use consultants for to enforce government’s policy directives.

“The Taraba issue happened over the Christmas holidays and our hope is that with the engagement that we are having with government, the issue will be put to rest.

“The problems are there, the government has closed some sites, the quality of service is degrading in Taraba and neighbouring states because of the actions of government of Taraba State.

“Part of the problems is even that governments have been directed not to use consultants to instill statutory bill, we don’t know why they are still doing that in Taraba.

“The other thing also is that those locking up the place are not the police, they are not the SSS people, they are workers of local consulting companies who go without any court order to go and close sites.

“The action is illegal because the rule is that you cannot close a site without appropriate court order to do so, you can’t go to close a site without involving the security agencies,’’ Adebayo said.

He said that as at the last count, over 10 major sites had been shut down.

“Taraba is a small state. If in Jalingo alone you close over 10 sites, you are already impacting on the entire state and the problems there is that citizens of the state will not know what is happening.

“As far as they are concerned, there is problem with network quality, not knowing that the government was closing sites,’’ Adebayo said.

He said that the same issue was yet to be resolved in Ogun as over 30 base stations were closed.

The ALTON’s chairman said that it was hoped this would not impact on the national broadband rollout plan, where the country planned to achieve 30 per cent penetration by the end of 2018.

He said that the issue of classifying telecommunications infrastructure as critical national infrastructure could not be overemphasised. (NAN)