By Adekunle Adekoya

WHEN, a few months ago, the Lagos State Government created an agency which it named the Urban Furniture Regulatory Unit (URFU), not a few eyebrows were raised.

In the first instance, not a few of the raised eyebrows were concerned that in the face of exploding demand for government resources in the area of services provision, yet another organization was being created which will further take its own share of the limited resources.

In an era when the clamour is for less government, we are indeed expanding the sprawl of governance and increasing the cost.

But that can come later. What is of greater concern is the mandate of the new URFU, headed by Mr Joe Igbokwe. I had written about this issue recently under the headline: As another regulator comes alive in Lagos.

Igbokwe went to town a fortnight ago, and warned that telecommunications masts which did not meet ‘installation standard’ would be pulled down.

These standards, largely unknown, will be applied to telecom masts and I can begin to guess the first targets. However, it would appear that URFU didn’t just come out of the blue; an indication to this effect could be discerned a few years ago.

At a public forum in Lagos during the last year of his tenure as EVC of NCC, Engr Ernest Ndukwe had informed his audience of concerns in some government quarters in Lagos about telecom masts, and he had told them that of the figure given by those who raised the concerns, only about one quarter could be domiciled in the telecoms sector.

Immediate past president of ATCON, Engr. Titi Omo-Ettu, reacting to URFU’s declaration of intent said that though 6,196 masts were available in Lagos state only 1,599 or 25% of them are properties of telecommunication firms, and Omo-Ettu should know.

A number of issues come up here: the 75% or 4,597 masts, which do not belong to telecoms firms are probably the ones URFU is targeting. I assert thus because ina situation where we are all clamouring for improved telecoms services, telecoms masts should not be pulled down arbitrarily, lest innocent subscribers be cut off from their service providers.

That already is happening in various parts of the country, where states and local governments are shutting down base stations to effect payment of one levy or the other.

In fact, it is disheartening to see communities which petitioned GSM firms in 2002, 2003 for establishment of base stations turning around to “gbeghe” such base stations. That is not counting the recent face-off between NESREA and NCC on the same issue of “standards”, or uncountable demand notices fo payment of one levy or the other.

But that is what and who we are as a people and as a nation. The superstructure of any progressive society is law and order; in its absence, there is anarchy. If we have a constitution which stipulates that posts and telecommunications matters shall be on the exclusive legislative list, the least we can do is to respect that constitution, and abide by its spirit and letters.

Right now, the only regulator for the telecoms sector is NCC, and no state or local government should under any guise try to perform its functions. It is constitutional abuse to do so.

In any case, why don’t we all face PHCN and ensure that machinery of state-sponsored extortion stops tormenting us? Aren’t we all paying more for electricity that is not supplied? Let the telecoms sector be with its regulator and let us get another crucial sector off the ground.