Mr. Stephen Bello, the acting vice-chairman of the Commission, who stated this in Abuja yesterday, said it had become necessary to introduce MNP because of the high telecom subscriber base in the country.
According to Bello, a recent study says that Nigeria, the largest mobile market in Africa had a subscriber base of more than 70 million and a market penetration of around 50 per cent in 2009
MNP enables users to retain their mobile numbers when they wish to change from one mobile network to another.
Mr. Earnest Ndukwe, former CEO of NCC, had set May 2009 as the date for the announcement of a timetable for MNP takeoff. On the mode of implementation, he said that the NCC would engage the services of an independent company to oversee the process. He also revealed that the local operators were on board and ready.
Chris Uba, Lagos, Nigeria
