Lagos State Governor Babatunde Fashola (SAN) has urged President Goodluck Jonathan to order the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) to restore the 35350 SMS platform for raising fund for the All Progressives Congress (APC) presidential candidate, Gen. Muhammadu Buhari’s campaign, which was shut down by the commission on Wednesday. Fashola, who is the director of the fund-raising committee, told reporters yesterday at the State House, Marina that the NCC was showing double standard, considering that a similar approval was granted in 2010 to Jonathan/Sambo Campaign Organisation. The governor, who presented letters written by NCC to reporters, said President Jonathan and his supporters “are intolerant of the opposition”. The letter by the NCC Director, Consumer Affairs, Mrs. Maryam Bayi and its Head, Legal and Regulatory Services, Mrs. Yetunde Adeshina, on behalf of the commission’s executive vice chairman/chief executive officer, was dated January 19, 2015. It was addressed to the managing director, Emerging Markets Communication and titled: “Political and Partisan Advertisements.” The letter reads: “The commission wishes to advise all service providers to avoid running political advertisements/promotions that will portray them as being partisan. The commission will not hesitate to sanction any service provider that will flout this directive.” Another letter by the NCC Director, Technical Standards and Network Integrity Dr. B.M. Sani on behalf of the executive vice chairman /CEO and dated October 21, 2010, approved the application of Wagilri Communication Limited for short codes to be used for fund-raising for Goodluck/ Sambo presidential campaign. But, Fashola, who frowned at the development, said: “The point to make first is that as a political party and campaign group, we have not received official communication from NCC directed at us. “As I said, they were using the platform of business houses and commercial concerns. So, these letters were directed to them to interfere with their commercial transactions. “But the subsequent and ripple effect is that our campaign suffers by their interference in a service they are contracted to render. “The reality also is that apart from the letter from NCC, the Minister for Communication, Mrs. Omobola Johnson, has personally been pressurising and calling the operators of telecodes, putting pressures on them not to run our messages. And I think this is very low. “As far as court action is concern, certainly all legal means pertaining to protect our rights to communicate and carry our campaign messages will be within the ambits of what we will explore. “But as you also might be aware, the entire nation’s judiciary has been shut down and so for a government and party that is preaching peace and there is no resort to the judiciary, this has never happened in the history of this country.” He explained that with the 35350 platform, Nigerians willing to donate to Buhari’s campaign simply need to send APC to the 35350 to contribute N100 to the campaign by either using the MTN, Glo, Etisalat, Airtel and Visaphone. The NCC, according to Fashola, closed the platform last Wednesday afternoon after the body wrote to the telecom operators not to carry such messages. “The NCC shut down the 35350 platform for sending N100 message to the Buhari’s fund-raising campaign yesterday afternoon. Before it was shutdown, 5400 people have contributed N100 to the Buhari campaign fund using the platform,” he said. Fashola added that since yesterday, he had been receiving messages from people wanting to contribute that they could not get through to the line because NCC had shut it down. The governor restated that it entered into a business relationship with the telecoms operators and it was never a political issue to make them partisan. Fashola lamented that in recent time, Jonathan had become so desperate and intolerant that he oppressed the opposition in a bid to hold on to power at all cost. He said he never expected to witness such blazing lawlessness and repression of the people’s freedom to express themselves all in the cause to hold on to power at all cost. “Why should a commercial transaction be frustrated because of one man’s desire to serve and why should they be shutting down generational platform?” he asked. Fashola said the Federal Government earlier shut the APC’s website, which made the party to launch another platform, which he added, was still being hunted by the Presidency. The post ‘Tell NCC to restore Buhari’s fund-raising platform’ appeared first on The Nation. posted on January 23, 2015 at 03:43AM jtnng.blogspot/
Posted on: Fri, 23 Jan 2015 02:47:42 +0000
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