Ogbonna Casmir
The Nigerian Communication Commission (NCC) has declared war against Cybercafés operating in Enugu State without license, as the commission sealed off one the largest Cybercafé in Enugu State LOGONNIGERIA MULTIMEDIA SERVICES LTD, for operating without permit even when had written to the company.
Briefing journalist after sealing off the Company located at number, No. 2 Chime Avenue, New Haven, Enugu, the NCC Head of Enforcement, Salisu Abdu accompanied by South-East Zonal Head, said NCC had written to LOGONNIGERIA MULTIMEDIA SERVICES LTD three time inviting to come and regularize its operation.
According to Abdu, the commission applied its power because the company refused to cooperate with the communication regulation agency.
“We have the power to monitor compliance with our license terms and conditions, and in line with such powers we carried monitoring exercise in Enugu sometimes in 2015 and we found out that some companies are providing internet services without license which among them are LOGONNIGERIA Ltd, which we visited today in accordance with our enforcement processes.
“We have engaged LOGONNIGERIA Ltd officially, we invited the company for a meeting, we also have written to company to come and regularize its operation. Fortunately all the three letters we have written to LOGONNIGERIA Ltd have not been responded positively. So we have no other alternative than to enforce our laws and regulations against the company.
“That is the reason while we visited the company today and we was able to confiscate the offending equipment used to provide internet services and we have also sealed the premises till when they regularize their operations”, he said.
Abdu explained that by regularization of their operations, the company is meant to obtain the requisite license, internet license, ISP license, which wouldn’t cost as much hundred thousand naira, plus processing fee of about twenty-five thousand naira (N25,000.00). He though, they are licensed, “but is a class license, we will look into that vis-à-vis our laws particularly section 31 of NCC Act which provides that no persons should operate internet service without license and we are going to apply the sanctions as provided in the Act against LOGONNIGERIA ltd.
The Head of Enforcement who said they don’t carry on enforcement without obtaining court order, noted that it had both obtained court warrant from Federal High Court and Authorization NCC which “actually permit the commission to visit unlicensed internet providers like this one”.
