NCC to shut down BLACKBERRY services in Nigeria?

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.