September 19th GSM Boycott In Nigeria - Two Years After. Any Changes?
by David Ajao2005-09-19 00:00:00 | Viewed 2398 times
In September 2003, subscribers of the GSM networks in Nigeria complained bitterly about poor quality of services amongst other things. The network operators were defensive or adamant; and so, the battle line was drawn.
Two organizations namely Consumer Rights Project (an NGO) and the National Association of Telecommunication Subscribers (NATSCOM) urged protests over poor quality of GSM services in Nigeria, then. While their modalities were slightly different, the message was the same. Consumer Rights Project wanted Nigerians to desist from further purchase of recharge cards and other products of the three GSM networks then, namely; MTN, Econet and Mtel. NATSCOM on the other hand, wanted a one-day total boycott of the services.
The conditions put forward by the CRG to the three cellular networks were:
- Reduce their tariffs drastically to 20 Naira
- Abrogate the per-minute billing charges
- Abrogate the unsolicited voicemail charges
- Improve on their networks to ease voice clarity and enhance more efficiency in their services generally
- For Econet subscribers to revert to their validity periods, which have been fraudulently erased from Econet, network.
Common woes
A list of complaints common to the networks included:
- Arbitrary deduction of credits
- Uncompleted calls
- Poor signals
- Service breakage
- Constant changes in contract terms
- High tariffs
- Misleading advertisement on news services
- Over-subscribed network, making access very difficult.
Complaints by the GSM cellular operators
The GSM network operators then were eager to tell anyone who cared to listen that their high charges and poor services were as a result of the poor infrastructure in, especially erratic power supply in Nigeria. Added to this is the high license fee of $285 million MTN and Econet had to pay.
Calls for the boycott were spread by a viral SMS, that read, “Lets force GSM tariffs down. Join a mass protest; Switch off your GSM phone on Friday 19 th 2003. They will lose millions. It worked in the US and Argentina. Spread this text.”
The protest went ahead on the said day 19 th September 2003. After weeks of mobilization, an estimated 75% of the users of mobile phones in Nigeria switched them off in protest against what they saw a massive exploitation by the cellular network operators.
Despite the boycott, which cut across Nigeria, MTN tried minimizing the effect on their revenue.
“Well over 80% of our revenue comes from people making business calls and the business community does not seem to be involved in the boycott,” spokesman Afam Edozie was reported as saying. “I don't think the boycott's going to be effective.
Rather than listen to the motive behind the mass action of the people, the GSM operators chose to be defensive.
The second part of this article takes a close look at the issues raised by the boycott and compares the state of things in Nigeria today, on each of the cellular networks, to see if there has been any significant change, that could be traced to the effect of the boycott two years ago.
Watch out for part two on the 1st of October 2005 (Nigeria's 45th Independence Anniversary day)
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