NCC to Public: Disregard messages on network, money transfer shutdown
By ECHONEWS
Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has allayed the fear planted in the heart of the general public with a rumoured plan to shut down all networks and online money transfer facilities of money deposit banks, saying the message is just a false information.
There has been a message going viral on social media about a planned shutdown of networks and especially bank transfer from Thursday, February 23, till Monday, February 27, 2023, after tye presidential election.
The rumour emanated following the challenge currently beeing experienced by Nigerians in the use of Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD) and online bank transfer.
In a statement yesterday, the NCC urged the general public, consumers of telecommunications services, and all bank customers to ignore the information or similar messages that insinuate deliberate network shutdown or disruption of services in the Nigerian telecom network.
“These malicious and subversive messages originated and are being circulated by fraudsters and unscrupulous elements in the society with the intent to cause chaos and panic among the populace.
“The Commission has received unequivocal assurances from all the service providers to the effect that all the network services are currently in optimal performance, and will not witness any deliberate shutdown or disruptions, especially at this very crucial period of general elections in the country.
“Therefore, all users of telecommunications and banking services utilizing network facilities are assured of continued optimal service delivery before, during, and after the general elections in Nigeria,” the statement read.
Meanwhile, the MTN Nigeria has debunked the rumour that it is shutting down its network by freezing it for the period of elections, stating that the public misunderstood its message, explaining that freeze does not mean there will be service outage but rather that the company will not carry out any activity to disrupt the network.
The telco stated: “About the network freeze, we don’t implement changes on our network during critical times to minimise the chance of an outage. Keeping the network as it is is a common practice in telecoms referred to as a Network Freeze.”
