The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has announced a partnership with the Nigerian Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC) to tackle some of the criminal activities bedeviling the telecom industry, such as telecom equipment vandalism and fraudulent registration of Subscriber Identity Module (SIM) cards, among others.

The NCC Executive Vice Chairman, Prof. Umar Danbatta, made this known while addressing a gathering of the senior management staff of NSCDC in the South-West Zone at a workshop organised by the commission.

According to a statement issued and made available to The Star on Monday by the NCC Director, Public Affairs, Reuben Muoka, Danbatta hailed the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) sealed between the agency and the commission, for which the gathering was to explore how the Corps will deploy enabling laws, subsidiary legislations, and extant guidelines to arrest any form of criminality in the sector.

Danbatta, who was represented at the workshop by the NCC Director, Compliance Monitoring and Enforcement, Ephraim Nwokonneya, said over the years, the commission has been working with relevant law enforcement agencies, and in particular the NSCDC, towards protecting telecom sector from all kinds of criminal behaviour.

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“Through despicable activities that are criminal and totally at variance with national security concerns of government, the deviant elements in our midst have been acting to undermine efforts put in place to consolidate the gains of the sector.

“These criminal activities include theft and vandalism of telecommunications infrastructure, the illegal use of fraudulently-registered Subscriber Identification Module (SIM) cards, operating without license, illegal call masking, and so on,” he said.

The NCC boss added that while the NSCDC officers have been of tremendous assistance, the objective of the workshop was to constantly engage and update them on new trends and existing regulations, requiring concerted efforts for their implementation towards enhancing sanity in the telecom sector.

Danbatta said the NSCDC and other agencies have performed well with the assistance of its personnel in carrying out raid exercises and mopping up fraudulently-registered SIM cards found in circulation, as well as in raising the banner of awareness on the need to protect critical national telecom infrastructure.

The Star