October 23, 2019

Telcom Operators; ACTON Seek NCC’s Autonomy On USSD Prices

October 23, 2019 2:34 am

Telecommunications operators under ACTON have called on the Federal Government to allow the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) independence to enforce the legal determination of the USSD pricing that was approved to be effective from September 1.

The operators, under the aegis of the Association of Telecommunications Companies of Nigeria (ATCON), said the banks should only be allowed to apply a cost recovery charge to the consumers using the USSD platform or any other telecom related platform used to gain access to the consumers’ mobile device or the Subscribers Identification Modules (SIM).

Speaking with The Guardian, the President of the ATCON,

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Outrage Over Alleged Plot To Arrest Undercover Journalist

October 23, 2019 2:24 am

• Prisons service condemns report as tissue of lies
• Identify security operatives trailing you, police tell Soyombo
• NUJ, editor’s guild, others caution govt, urge probity

Nigerians yesterday condemned an alleged plot by security operatives to seize investigative journalist, Fisayo Soyombo.

The reporter, whose undercover stories exposed corruption in Nigerian police cells and prisons, has since gone into hiding. The “threat is real,” he told The Guardian, noting, however, that he is “safe and calm.”

The first installment of the three-part investigation by Soyombo, a former editor of The Cable and a contributor to Al Jazeera, detailed how …

Customs Nabs 15 Smugglers, Seizes 1,645 Bags Of Grains

October 23, 2019 2:16 am

Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) has arrested 15 suspected smugglers and seized 1,345 bags of foreign rice and 300 bags of assorted grains along Mubi/Yola road, Adamawa State, during a routine patrol.

The Customs Comptroller for Adamawa and Taraba states, Mr. Kamardeem Olumoh, warned that “there is no escape route again for smugglers” in the two states under his control.

He said this while conducting journalists round a warehouse where foreign rice is re-bagged in local bags to beat security operatives.

Olumoh said that NCS had taken over the warehouse and

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Terror As Trailers Fall Into Bad Spot On Agege Motor Road

October 23, 2019 2:09 am

It was a scene of the absurd yesterday when a bad spot on the ever-busy Agege Motor Road claimed three trucks, which all fell into the vast crater on the road one after the other. Tragedy was averted when a trailer carrying a container first fell into a big ditch just before Idi-Oro bus stop and landed on a tricycle, which thankfully not carried any passengers.

Another trailer brought to offload contents of the previously fallen container also fell into the crater while a third trailer, which was brought to lift the other two off the road also fell at …

North Korea’s Kim Orders Demolition Of South-Built Resort

October 23, 2019 2:00 am

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has condemned a flagship tourist development with the South as an eyesore and ordered its demolition, state media reported Wednesday, in a stark illustration of dire relations between Pyongyang and Seoul.

The Mount Kumgang tourist complex was built by Southern company Hyundai Asan in the North on one of the peninsula’s most scenic mountains, drawing hundreds of thousands of Southern visitors.

But tours came to an abrupt end in 2008 after a North Korean soldier shot dead a Southern tourist who strayed off the approved path and Seoul suspended travel.

Pyongyang had long wanted …