By Nnamdi Ojiego
Millions of telecoms subscribers across the country who have been contending with the problem of unsubscribed text messages invading their privacies from their providers can now hieve a sign of relieve as the National Lottery Regulatory Commission, NLRC said it would clamp down on any operator that breaches the rules and regulations guiding their operations.

The Director-General, NLC, Mr. Peter Igho made this promise while hosting Zain and Visafone service providers in his office recently. He told the service providers, “The National Lottery Regulatory Commission has noted with dismay the spate of perennial and unregistered SMS lottery embarked upon by telecom operators. This lottery is in the form of SMS whereby customers are asked to text to win millions of naira.”

According to him, these texts were not only sent to the users but also come at very odd times with mouth watering promises. Mr Igho noted that the operations of telecom companies were causing serious concerns to the public because it amounted to invasion of privacy of Nigerians with reckless abandon.

Speaking further, the DG stated that the concept of lottery and its operations were not new to Nigeria, but regretted that it has been subjected to all forms of abuses, which he said was giving lottery a bad name. He however, promised that the commission will clamp down on any telecom operator without proper registration and regulation.