BY PAUL IKUFORIJI,   CYNTHIA OKERE & FAVOUR ANTHONY

In this day and age, an individual’s right to privacy is more emphasized than ever before. You determine who you give your phone number, what password to use for your email, and whether or not to accept friend requests on Facebook.

However, that same right is today, subject to more abuse than ever before, sometimes even by the telecommunications network providers who are custodians of that right.

Mr. Lekan Olaitan is a business man who is constantly disturbed by unsolicited calls and messages by his service providers. He told Glamtech that his phone lines are ‘‘very helpful because talk is cheap especially with his relatives. However, they keep sending unnecessary messages they are usually unhelpful to me.’’

‘‘They keep killing my battery with these messages,’’ said Mr. Ezekiel Olusegun, ‘‘I get at least five messages a day from my network. My battery is not good and the messages just make it worse.’  The issue of constant disturbance through unsolicited calls is also an issue for many subscribers. Another subscriber, Princess Are, told Glamtech: ‘‘The ring tone of one of my phones is very loud and I usually forget to put it off because very few people have that number. But my service provider’s automated lines call me almost every day to advertise one product or the other especially when I am at work. It is so annoying; even after I called their customer care, they won’t relent.’

It is bad enough that people have to deal with constant disturbance, dwindling battery life, and unwanted messages, but some networks make matters worse and charge customers for these unsolicited messages. One of such told our reporters: “I usually receive some text messages which I just read and delete, but some there are some others which you would be asked to reply and win prices. I replied to one of such, and since the day I first replied, I was charged for weeks until I had to myself to the network’s office and deal with the situation.’’ Mr. Emmanuel Obi also had a similar experience; she was charged N200 to reply a question sent to her via text message by her service provider.   Another lady, who referred to herself as Blessing Udom is still being charged N5 a day for daily health tips that she has tried, unsuccessfully for months to unsubscribe from.

The customer, they say, is King. If this saying is true, then for telecoms subscribers around the country, the crown on their heads is fast becoming a noose around their necks; as they are now suffocated by the unwarranted attention that the networks had hoped would honour them.