By Emmanuel Elebeke

THE National Chairman of the Association of Licensed Telecom operators in Nigeria, ALTON, Mr. Gbenga Adebayo, has insisted that the only way the federal government would maximally harness the full potentials of telecommunications, is to declare telecom facilities as national security and critical economic installation. Adebayo said that this would be geared towards protecting them against vandalisation and wilful damages that have become the order of the day in recent times..

The ALTON Chairman made the appeal during a meeting of members of the Association with Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed on Monday.  He told the Minister that operators had suffered from various interferences, especially multiple taxation and vandalisation of their installations, and urged the federal government to ensure maximum protection of the facilities.

Earlier in his remarks, the Minister stated that government had launched campaigns to tackle insecurity and corruption as well as for national re-orientation and solicited the support of the nation’s telecommunications operators for the various campaigns of the Federal Government because communication    is at the heart of the campaign.

The Minister said since communication, which is at the core of their operations, is also at the very heart of these campaigns, the ministry believes it can work with the operators by leveraging on their umbrella platform to reach more Nigerians.