Telecoms Operators Can Curb Criminality If… -NCC Nominee

A nominee  for the Chairmanship seat of the  Nigeria Communication Commission, NCC Board, Prof. Adeolu Akande, has lamented that telecommunications and Information Communication Technology (ICT) which are used effectively in other climes to prevent crime and track down criminals are rather used as  tool for criminality in Nigeria.
Prof Akande identified  closer collaboration between telecoms operators and  security agencies as key to  curbing crime through ICT and telecoms.
The nominee who faced the Senate Committee on Communications, yesterday in a screening exercise for his confirmation also said that  Telecoms operators was responsible for the rising trend of kidnapping, banditry and armed robbery, among other crimes in the country due to incorrect  registration processes  of the Subscriber Identity Module, (SIM) cards.
His words “There is no doubt that the use of communication as a tool on criminality has been on the rise. All over the world, emphasis are being placed on the use of telecommunication as a tool of curbing crime,:but unfortunately in Nigeria, we are seeing the opposite where communication has become the major tool of criminality.
“The major problem is that why kidnappers, armed robbers and bandits use communication facility is that we have problem with using communication to track the identity of Nigerians who are residents of Nigeria.
“The key problem is the management of the subscribers identity module known as SIM card. We found out that there is wrong phone registration of subscribers. People register SIM cards not with their true identity and when such SIM cards are used for criminality and they are tracked it leads to wrong people rather than the authentic perpetrators of crimes,” he stressed.

By:   Nneka Amaechi-Nnadi, Abuja