The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) announced on Monday that it has banned all telecom operators from engaging in promotions and other lotteries.

According to the Commission’s Director of Public Affairs, Tony Ojobo, the move is in response to the prevailing poor service being experienced by subscribers across the country.

Recall that the Commission fined the four major telcos a combined sum of N1.17 billion in May 2012 for failure to meet the minimum standard of Quality of Service (QoS), even threatening to shut down their offices over non-payment.

In response, the mobile operators unreservedly apologised to customers for the disappointment and inconvenience caused further citing four major challenges they face as operators (including terrorist attacks on facilities) which has resulted in a lapse or failure to deliver the requisite level of quality of service to its customers.

Yet, the quality of service problems have persisted prompting the Commission to take a new approach. The ban takes immediate effect “until such a time as may be determined by the Commission” and cuts across all proposed and approved promotions, says the telecoms regulator.

This news comes at a time when scammers are potentially conning promo-loving Nigerians into winning tens of thousands of money in exchange for a few thousands of money.

It is expected that this move by the NCC would enable the telecom operators to focus on their core business which is and has always been to satisfy their customers with improved quality of service and excellent customer support, not lottery programmes, disguised as promos.