MRA condemns NCC’s directive to telcos to shut down services in Zamfara

The Media Rights Agenda (MRA) has condemned a directive by the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) to telecommunications companies to immediately shut down all telecommunications services in Zamfara State.

The directive was ostensibly as a result of the pervading security situation in the state, but the MRA described the measure as unwarranted and unjustifiable interference with the rights to freedom of expression and access to information.

In a statement issued in Lagos, MRA’s Communications Officer, Mr. Idowu Adewale noted that the NCC, which is supposed to be a regulatory agency, has increasingly become a tool in the hands of the Federal Government for the indiscriminate violation of the rights of Nigerians.

“Such purported exercise of power without safeguards to deny communications services not only to the residents of Zamfara State, but also to other people everywhere who have family members, friends, loved ones as well as other social or business relations in the state of the right to communicate with them, without judicial or any other form of independent oversight cannot be justified under any circumstance,” he argued.

He said there is no evidence anywhere in the world that shutting down communication services, including access to the internet and telephone communication, helps improve security, or prevent terrorist attacks.

Adewale cited a similar move in 2013, when government also shut down telecommunications services in Adamawa, Borno and Yobe states, also ostensibly to disrupt Boko Haram’s communication capacity and its ability to use telecommunications to plan, coordinate and launch terrorist attacks.

“The experience from that period was that not only did terrorist attacks by Boko Haram insurgents continue throughout the period when telecommunication services were cut off, but in many instances the attacks actually appeared to have intensified,” he recalled.

According to him, expert opinions indicate that shutting down telecommunications and Internet services is likely to cause more harm than good because such sentiments have been known to drive ordinary citizens to become terrorist sympathisers as the propaganda of militant and insurgents begin to resonate with them in the face of such realities.

He, therefore, called on the NCC to immediately rescind its directive to the telecommunications companies and urged security agencies to find more innovative and effective ways to address the security situation that are consistent with the government’s human rights obligations, “as the indiscriminate and widespread violation of the rights of people as a condition for protecting them is not only abhorrent but itself a violation of human rights norms and principles.”