By Emmanuel Onwubiko
The constant xenophobic violence unleashed on Nigerians
living in South Africa has a constant reminder for the millions of Nigerians
who subscribed to the paid television services of the wholly South African
operated Multichoice television otherwise known as DSTV.
This reminder that the series of xenophic attacks on
Nigerians in South African signals to Nigerians at home is the need to once and
for all take our destiny in our hands and check how we continue to funnel our
hard earned resources to a company from a very hostile environment such as
South Africa.
These constant deadly attacks on Nigerians in south
Africa although very negative, but it has one positive take away which is the
definitive need for Nigerians and the Nigerian government to do the needful to
support only businesses and services provided by companies owned fully or
substantially by Nigerians just as the paid television sub-sector of the
economy of Nigeria is one such area that millions of Nigerians must exercise
their people’s power and transfer their patronage to such companies like
Startimes/NTA; from MTN to Glo; from DSTV to Startimes; from Shoprite to
Sahara/Next cash and carry and from Stanbic IBTC to a bank like Zenith; UBA;
Fidelity; Union Bank; Access and a few other Nigerian fully operated finance
houses/institutions.
Specifically, this current xenophobic violence against
Nigerians in South Africa should be the deciding factor to once and for all
resolve the issue of exploitative charges against Nigerians by DSTV.
The case of exploitation of Nigerian customers by the
Multichoice company which is the operator of DSTV in Nigeria is over ten years
now and each time the case gets to court, because the south African firm is
wealthy enough to engage in full scale litigation and because the local
jurisprudence is such tough terrain, millions of long suffering Nigerian
subscribers of DSTV have continued to suffer in silence and like people under a
spell, most of these Nigerians have also not bothered to explore other
identical services such as those of the Nigerian versus China owned Startimes
television which charges affordable rates and have proven to be equipped with
the best technology available globally.
By the way, China is the world leader in the area of
telecommunication going by the dominance of a Chinese firm Huawei which has
developed the 5G spectrum which even Great Britain; Germany; Australia and most
other advanced democracies have embraced. So why the delay by Nigerians to
massively migrate over to Startimes from DSTV?
The most seamless way of responding to these attacks of
xenophobic dimension in Nigeria is to stop paying South African operated
companies and to look inwards and as stated earlier, the south African company
such as DSTV/Multichoice has a notoriety for being a national tormentor of
millions of Nigerians through unfair tariff regime. No need to nationalize
these South African companies because of the negative global impacts it may
have in our economy because foreign direct investors may be discouraged from
investing their money in an environment whereby government could apply fiat
suddenly and take away their hard earned businesses. Best bet is for millions
of Nigerians to revolt positively and migrate from patronising South African
companies because paying these companies is like empowering the xenophobic
attackers in South Africa against our people who live there. By the way there
is no single fully Nigerian operated conglomerate similar to DSTV in South
Africa now.
DSTV and the Nigerian people have had constant
confrontations along this line leading to numerous raids initiated by Nigeria’s
consumer protection council in the last few years.
In 2015, the Consumer Protection Council, CPC, said that
its aim of investigating activities and services of Digital Satellite
Television, DSTV, was not to upturn the judgment of the court which ruled in
favour of Multichoice Nigeria on the recent price increase saga, but to give
attention to barrage of reports reaching its offices alleging unsatisfactory
service offerings by the PayTv operator. Dupe Atoki Head of the CPC Lagos
Office, Mr. Tam Tamunokobia, in a telephone conversation with Hi-Tech then said
that although the court had ruled that price hike was a contractual
agreement between the operator and its subscribers which also gives the
subscribers liberty to withdraw from using the services when the prices are not
comfortable for them, the commission would however not dismiss the barrage of
complaints pouring into its offices on daily basis alleging unsatisfactory
service offerings by the operator.
“You may be aware that the court ruled in their favour
on the price increase case but we will not throw the concerns and complaints of
million Nigerians away. So we have decided to extend the investigation beyond
the price increase. For instance there are allegations of poor decoder swap
deals, constant loss of signals and undue disconnection before due date of
subscription, among others. We will look into all these and what our
investigations reveal, will determine the line of action we will take”
Tamunokobia said.
Recall that Multichoice Nigeria had introduced a 20 per
cent hike in the fees charged subscribers for using the DSTV service to take
effect from April 1, 2015. However, two Lagos-based lawyers, Oluyinka Oyeniji
and Osasuyi Adebayo, quickly initiated a class action on behalf of millions of
Nigerians who criticised the new subscription rates as exploitative and
insensitive. The two lawyers had sought the order of the court to stop
MultiChoice or its agents from implementing the price increase and also asked
the court to compel the National Broadcasting Commission to take steps to
monitor and regulate MultiChoice operations in Nigerian to ensure that it does
not hike their fees arbitrarily.
The two applicants said they were expecting the NBC to
ensure that they compel DSTV to deal with Nigerians the same way DSTV deals
with other subscribers in other parts of the continent where MultiChoice
operates, by ensuring that the pay-per-view scheme was introduced in the
country. It was an arrangement they argued, would ensure that Nigerian
subscribers to DSTV would only pay for programmes actually watched, as is the
case in South Africa. Objecting to the application, counsel to MultiChoice,
Moyosore Onigbanjo (SAN), urged the court to deny the plaintiffs their demands
and discountenance their pleas, reminding the court that it did not have the
legal authority to regulate what the company decides to charge its customers
for its services. But despite getting judgment in her favour it appears
Multichoice may still battle the dissatisfaction of many DSTV subscribers for a
long time. Many subscribers who are miffed over the increase still believe that
the PayTV operator could still be in business if it reviews its prices a bit
downwards. Some of them described the increase as lack of respect and regard
for its Nigerian subscribers since according to them; it does not arbitrarily
increase prices in South Africa.
Tamunokobia revealed that the CPC has served Multichoice
with a written notice of investigation and was waiting for the company’s reply.
Hi-Tech gathered that part of the notice, signed by the council’s Director General,
Mrs. Dupe Atoki, spelt out that many subscribers had complained of “poor
quality of service such as incessant disruption of service without compensation
while subscription is current; wrongful abrupt disconnection of service during
subsisting subscriptions; monthly subscriptions lasting less than 30 days; and
poor redress mechanism and customer services.” Others, it said, include
“advertisements on customer care lines at the expense of consumers; poor
implementation of decoder swap policy; and effecting price increase for
subscriptions despite payment before due date of increase.”
On October 2015, officials of the Consumer Protection
Council (CPC) raided the head office the premier pay-tv service provider,
MultiChoice Nigeria, in Lagos.
The CPC officials, who went with a warrant, were
accompanied by policemen and journalists when they arrived at the company’s
office at about 1pm. The raid saw CPC officials leaving with laptop, computers
and important documents about the company’s operations. The reason for the raid
is yet unclear.
However, there are speculations that the raid may
connected with the hitch that has developed in the CPC’s ongoing investigation
into MultiChoice’s consumer satisfaction initiatives.
Sources at the CPC had disclosed that a hitch developed
during a scheduled meeting between the company and CPC officials at the
commission’s head office in Abuja on Tuesday. The breakdown was said to have
been occasioned by CPC’s demand that MultiChoice should hand over personal information
of its subscribers as well as its exclusive contract in Nigeria.
The MultiChoice team, led by Managing Director, Mr. John
Ugbe, was said to have drawn the attention of the CPC to the fact that the
company owes its subscribers a duty to protect their personal information.
The company, added sources, took time to explain that
releasing sensitive information about subscribers, as requested, would amount
to a breach of the trust subscribers reposed in the it when they signed up to
its services.
Multichoice representatives were quoted to have
expressed readiness to cooperate with the CPC in its effort to ensure that
subscribers obtain improved customer satisfaction, but rejected the demand that
violates subscribers’ confidentiality.
The company had explained that the one of the ways in
which it provides customer service to its subscribers is by keeping the
information they have entrusted in its care.
Multichoice was also said to have explained that its
exclusive contract contains non-disclosure clauses and wondered what relevance
it has to an investigation into customer satisfaction.
These cock and bull stories by DSTV must now come to an
end naturally by massively encouraging Nigerians to switch over to
STARTIMES/NTA services which most average warming Nigerians can afford.
*Emmanuel Onwubiko heads Human Rights Writers
Association of Nigeria (HURIWA) and blogs @www.emmanuelonwubiko.com; www
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