The news just went viral last week that the
Nigerian Communications Commission, NCC,
was planning to shut down Blackberry
services. Although the NCC almost
immediately denied the rumour, Blackberry
users in the country are still nursing fears that
their cherished service may go under the
knife of the regulator. Most of them still insist
that there is no smoke without fire.
Majority of them who expressed their
opinions through pinging messages said that
although the ban happened in Saudi Arabia
and United Arab Emirates, there is no ground
for its success in Nigeria.
Miss Morayo Adebayo – a student: Why would
anybody ever thought of it! Banning
Blackberry? Its not reasonable in anyway. But
I know the way things go in Nigeria, there is
no smoke without fire but the truth is that the
device has done a lot of good than harm.
The advantages include cheaper way of
people to get in touch with friends and family
without actually calling them. It has easy
access to the internet reducing the risk of
going to the cyber cafe or carrying laptops
about. Bank transactions and so many things
can be done on the Black Berry. Abeg, they
should leave our BB alone!
Banning of Black Berry for security reasons is
like closing banks because of fraudsters or
arm robbers. Rather than this retrogressive
step, NCC should put more resources on
security and cyber police to tackle the
problems of crime and offences related to
Black Berry.
Mr. Innocent Onoja: If NCC feels banning of
Black Berry is the only way to handle the
security challenges facing the country, I have
nothing against them. But they should also
consider the impact of information in every
civilized country like Nigeria through the
social networks. Today Facebook and Black
Berry Messenger are the most crucial services
that enable people to effectively communicate
with one another and even find old friends
Dr. Lucy Omizebga : The plan to ban Black
Berry is oppressive, communist and not fair to
we the citizens who are Black Berry users. I
hope it is all rumours because we are not
there yet. So to shut the little that is giving us
hope would be counter productive
Mr. Oye Obaitan: I just heard of the rumour
and I still believe it is rumour. I think that the
best way Nigeria be thinking of security
measures, is to first arrest the Boko haram
insurgence and not to remove the small joy
we are now deriving. When we are thinking
of banning BB, what about Facebook,
WatsApp, twitter and others”
However, NCC, through its Director Public
Affairs, Mr Tony Ojobo, had declared that
there was no substance in the rumour. “the
attention of the Nigerian Communications
Commission (NCC) has been drawn to an
information making rounds that the NCC had
at a meeting this morning agreed with CEOs of
telecommunications networks to shutdown
Blackberry Services in order to deny
Nigerians the use of that very important social
network.The Management hereby states
categorically that there was never such a
meeting held, nor was there ever a resolution
to shut down Blackberry services. The Public
is please advised to disregard such
information” he added.

http://www.vanguardngr.com/2013/05/dont-toy-with-our-bb-users-tell-ncc/