Dear Service Providers,

I am not writing this to seek any favour or assistance from any of you, neither am I writing this to blackmail or tarnish the image of any of your respective companies. I am writing this to speak for the voiceless and demand our rights from you all. I believe we have five major GSM service providers in Nigeria, thus we should have options to pick from based on the nature of tariffs and quality services rendered. Unfortunately, we can't identify who offers the most subscriber friendly tariff.

One would have expected most of the complains we channel through NCC to you people to be addressed but it seems even the body itself is just interested in what affects its own personal modus operandi. I wouldn't know if it's you people that didn't listen or NCC never gave our message as we passed it to you. I just pray this little piece of my letter will get to you all and you will whole loosen your tight belt in charging exorbitant rate and rendering of poor service delivery.

Since you all commenced operations in Nigeria, we all have rejoiced towards a better living, a smooth communication link that will foster the free flow of information between families, friends, business associates and what have you without leaving the comfort of our homes or offices. We quite appreciate all the network coverage you have provided to the nooks and crannies of Nigeria and we say weldone even though all this services aren't for free. You people have tried one way or the other to sustain a healthy communication channel between families,folks and business enterprises.

When I conceived the thought of writing this open letter, I thought I should summarise all what I wanted to say but something in me tells me to write all my worries so as you all can work on it at a time. It is so disappointing and annoying if you guys wake up one morning and you just increase tariffs or you add a new network plan without considering your subscribers. Is it the disavow caller tunes that most of you forcefully link to our phone numbers against our wish or request, or the deduction of some of our units without even justifying what this was used for? You people can't just remove our money anyhow when we have plans for every unit on our account and you expect us to give you a nod for a job well done.

More so, I have noticed of recent that some relationships in our society today have been crumbling based on the poor services you all provide. If you don't know let me be the first person to break the disconsolate news to you. You can imagine a subscriber on your network trying to reach out to his or her loved ones or acquaintances and you people will unprofessionally connect the call to another person's line entirely. I am not saying this from what I was told but I'm writing from practical experiences. I wanted to pass a message across to my girlfriend some days back and I put a call through to her, the discordant voice I heard coupled with the strange and barbaric voice of "who you won follow talk?" really baffled me. I was offended and angry that every minute. I narrated my ordeal with a friend and what he told me was a shocker about what he has also experienced. His cousin lost the relationship he has been keeping for four years because you people unprofessionally connected the call he was trying to make to his girlfriend to another man's phone in the middle of the night and all what that one could say innocently was "why do you want to speak to my wife at this time of the night?". Deep sigh.

In addition, it is an odious crime and offence towards we subscribers if you people keep increasing your service charge at the expense of poor network delivery. Your tariffs are never customer friendly, yet you provide poor network to us. Not every average Nigerians can afford your exorbitant data plans on android, and the few of us that manage to afford it, you professionally provide poor signals. Abi is it the issue of sending annoying text messages without even knowing when and whom to direct such spam messages too? So many people have annoyingly deleted important text messages sent to them because they believe service providers are the ones sending their traditional meretricious messages.

O service providers, when are we going to enjoy the value of how much we have invested in you? You all smile to the banks everyday but you do little or nothing to appreciate us. O service providers, when will all these humiliating and unreasonable deduction of our airtime against our own will end or when are we going to be given the audience to pick or approve profitable service charge on our individual numbers? O service providers, when are you going to start showing we subscribers the sense of gratitude for the good impact we have added to your companies at least by compensating us with a good network?

Conclusively, let me reiterate again that your poor service delivery have thrown all we subscribers into the pool of miasma loosing hope and doubt about your credibility in providing affordable and quality service delivery to us all. Though, there is still room for improvement if you people really have the feelings and sympathy of we your esteem subscribers at heart.

Good bless Nigeria and Nigerians

Yours sincerely,
Concerned subscriber.

mehn eleyi gidi gan