The Senate President, Ahmad Lawan, on Wednesday urged telecoms service providers to improve their services or leave the country.
He spoke while declaring open a joint public hearing on the incidence of drop calls.
The public hearing, tagged: “The increasing rate of drop calls and other unwholesome practices by Telecommunications Network Operators in Nigeria that have robbed Nigerians of their hard earned billions of Naira” was organised by the Senate Committees on Communication and Trade and Investment, chaired by Senator Oluremi Tinubu. She said the gains of the telecoms industry were being eroded by the worsening quality of service (QoS) in the country.
The Senate president said it is wrong for Nigerians to to pay for calls which did not connect.
He said the National Assembly would henceforth be tough on the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) to ensure that they carry out their regulatory functions effectively.
He lamented that a service providers were complicit in the rising cases of drop calls for which they charge Nigerians.
Lawan said: “The NCC will have to sit up because NCC, sometimes, is either inept or it is simply flowing with the service providers.
“So,we want to see a situation that this public hearing will provide a way out to save us as Nigerians; that when we pay for services, we get value for money. That is business.
“Maybe it’s difficult to say if you can’t perform, get out of the country, maybe it’s difficult but it is not impossible.
“Whoever will provide better services, I think Nigerians will be better advised to use that service whatever it is.
“And whoever is not, Nigerians should abandon such a service provider. But at the moment all the service providers are involved in this drop calls.
“We pay for drop calls and drop calls are not services provided. For service providers, I am sorry I have to be brash and I have to be blunt; this is cumulative frustration of services not provided by telcos for years.
