Technology
NCC Resolves 99.2% of Telecom Consumer Complaints in Q1 2021
By Modupe Gbadeyanka
In the first quarter of 2021, 99.2 per cent of service-related complaints (3,019 versus 2,854 Q1 2020) received from telecom consumers across the major network operators were resolved by the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC).
A breakdown of the complaints within the period under review showed that 2,759 (91.4 per cent) came through the NCC Contact Centre; 188 (6.2 per cent) were received via the NCC Consumer Portal; 50 (1.7 per cent) complaints came to the commission through its various social media platforms, while 22 (0.7 per cent) were written complaints.
With respect to breakdown by service providers’ customers, 1,261 (51.8 per cent) of the total complaints were lodged by MTN customers, 973 representing 32.2 per cent relate to Airtel subscribers, 549 (18.2 per cent) were accounted for by Globacom subscribers; 179 (5.9 per cent) by 9mobile customers, while the remaining 52 complaints came from customers of other licensees.
On a month-on-month basis, 971 complaints were received in January, 1,039 in February and 1,009 in March.
The report also indicated that issues related to billings, quality of service/experience for voice, as well as the quality of service/experience for data were the three topmost complaint types from telecom consumers in the period under review.
The NCC, in its Q1 2021 Report on Complaint Management issued by its Consumer Affairs Bureau, disclosed that of the 3,019 consumer complaints, 2,995 consumer complaints were successfully resolved, while only 24, representing 0.8 per cent, which were escalated to service providers, are pending resolution from the respective service providers in line with the revised Consumer Complaint/Service Level Agreement (CC/SLA) of 2019.
In his reaction, the Executive Vice Chairman of NCC, Mr Umar Garba Danbatta, said the agency, as a consumer-centric telecoms regulator, will continue to explore new initiatives to strengthen the existing consumer complaints management process while ensuring prompt and satisfactory resolution of all complaints.
He urged the consumers to continue to take advantage of the various channels made available by the commission, including the 622 toll-free consumer complaints line, its consumer web portal on its website and other social media channels to promptly lodge their complaints in the event of service dissatisfaction.
“NCC’s actions in this regard are in line with its mandate to protect and defend the rights and interests of the consumer, and to give concrete expression to its faith in the consumer as the lifeblood of the telecoms sector,” Mr Danbatta said.
Expressing satisfaction with the report, he emphasised that the agency will remain committed, in collaboration with relevant stakeholders, to continually improve quality of service both for voice and data services, assuring consumers of NCC’s readiness to always defend their rights and interests.
By Aduragbemi Omiyale
One of the players in the Nigerian gaming industry, Secure Electronic Technology (SET) Plc, has appointed Ms Leticia Otomewo as its acting secretary.
This followed the expiration of the company’s service contract with the former occupier of the seat, Ms Irene Attoe, on January 31, 2026.
A statement to the Nigerian Exchange (NGX) Limited on Thursday said Ms Otomewo would remain the organisation’s scribe in an acting capacity, pending the ratification and appointment of a substantive company secretary at the next board meeting.
She was described in the notice signed by the Managing Director of the firm, Mr Oyeyemi Olusoji, as “a results-driven executive with 22 years of experience in driving business growth, leading high-performing teams, and delivering innovative solutions.”
The acting secretary is also said to be “a collaborative leader with a passion for mentoring and developing talent.”
“The company assures the investing public that all Company Secretariat responsibilities and regulatory obligations will continue to be discharged in full compliance with the Companies and Allied Matters Act, applicable regulations, and the Nigerian Exchange Limited Listing Rules,” the disclosure assured.
Meanwhile, the board thanked Ms Attoe “for professionalism and contributions to the Company during the period of her engagement and wishes her well in her future endeavours.”
By Adedapo Adesanya
The Russian government on Thursday confirmed it has blocked the WhatsApp messaging service, as it moves to further control information flow in the country.
It urged Russians to use a new state-backed platform called Max instead of the Meta-owned service.
WhatsApp issued a statement earlier saying Russia had attempted to “fully block” its messaging service in the country to force people toward Max, which it described as a “surveillance app.”
“Today the Russian government attempted to fully block WhatsApp in an effort to drive people to a state-owned surveillance app,” WhatsApp posted on social media platform X.
“Trying to isolate over 100 million users from private and secure communication is a backwards step and can only lead to less safety for people in Russia,” it said, adding: “We continue to do everything we can to keep users connected.”
Russia’s latest move against social media platforms and messaging services like WhatsApp, Signal and Telegram comes amid a wider attempt to drive users toward domestic and more easily controlled and monitored services, such as Max.
Russia’s telecoms watchdog, Roskomnadzor, has accused messaging apps Telegram and WhatsApp of failing to comply with Russian legislation requiring companies to store Russian users’ data inside the country, and of failing to introduce measures to stop their platforms from being used for allegedly criminal or terrorist purposes.
It has used this as a basis for slowing down or blocking their operations, with restrictions coming into force since last year.
For Telegram, it may be next, but so far the Russian government has been admittedly slowing down its operations “due to the fact that the company isn’t complying with the requirements of Russian legislation.”
The chat service, founded by Russian developers but headquartered in Dubai, has been a principal target for Roskomnadzor’s scrutiny and increasing restrictions, with users reporting sluggish performance on the app since January.
By Adedapo Adesanya
Nigerian startup, Decide, has emerged as the fourth most accurate Artificial Intelligence (AI) agent for spreadsheet tasks globally, according to results from SpreadsheetBench, a widely referenced benchmark for evaluating AI performance on real-world spreadsheet problems.
According to the founder, Mr Abiodun Adetona, the ranking places Decide alongside well-funded global AI startups, including Microsoft, OpenAI, and Anthropic.
Mr Adetona, an ex-Flutterwave developer, also revealed that Decide now has over 3,000 users, including some who are paying customers, a signal to the ability of the startup to scale in the near future.
SpreadsheetBench is a comprehensive evaluation framework designed to push Large Language Models (LLMs) to their limits in understanding and manipulating spreadsheet data. While many benchmarks focus on simple table QA, SpreadsheetBench treats a spreadsheet as a complex ecosystem involving spatial layouts, formulas, and multi-step reasoning. So far, only three agents rank higher than Decide, namely Nobie Agent, Shortcut.ai, and Qingqiu Agent.
Mr Adetona said SpreadsheetBench measures how well AI agents can handle practical spreadsheet tasks such as writing formulas, cleaning messy data, working across multiple sheets, and reasoning through complex Excel workflows. Decide recorded an 82.5% accuracy score, solving 330 out of 400 verified tasks.
“The result reflects sustained investment in applied research, product iteration, and learning from real-world spreadsheet workloads across a wide range of use cases,” Mr Adetona told Business Post.
For Mr Adetona, who built Decide out of frustration with how much time professionals spend manually cleaning data, debugging formulas, and moving between sheets, “This milestone highlights how focused engineering and domain-specific AI development can deliver frontier-level performance outside of large research organisations. By concentrating on practical business data problems and building systems grounded in real user environments, we believe smaller teams can contribute meaningfully to advancing applied AI.”
“For Decide, this is a foundation for continued progress in intelligent spreadsheet and analytics automation,” he added.
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