The Senate on Wednesday, October 11, 2026, ordered an investigation into alleged arbitrary airtime deductions by telecommunications operators for “failed, dropped and prematurely terminated calls”.
It gave the Committee on Communications four weeks to establish the financial losses suffered by subscribers.
The resolution followed a motion on consumer protection in the telecommunications sector, which highlighted complaints by Nigerians over deductions for calls that fail to connect, terminate abruptly or are disrupted by poor network services.
The motion was sponsored by the Chief Whip of the Senate, Sen. Tahir Monguno, and presented by the Deputy Senate Leader.
The motion was seconded by Sen. Ned Nwoko, representing Delta-North, who described the problem as one affecting virtually every telecommunications subscriber in the country.
Speaking on the motion, Nwoko said the proposed investigation was necessary to protect consumers from avoidable financial losses arising from poor service delivery by network operators.
“This is a well-thought-out motion. It is very straightforward. It is all about consumer protection. We need to make this particular motion at this critical time because a lot of the time, everybody is involved in the use of calls, making calls across the country, and we all experience the same technical issues,” he said.
However, during consideration of the prayers, the Deputy Minority Leader proposed that the Senate adopt only Prayer Six, arguing that it sufficiently captures the issues raised in the preceding five prayers.
The amendment, which was seconded by Sen. Benios Yaro, representing Adamawa-South, was subsequently put to a voice vote by the Senate President, Godswill Akpabio and adopted.
Reading the resolution, Akpabio said the Committee on Communications had been directed to invite the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) and relevant telecommunications operators to investigate complaints concerning failed calls, dropped calls, unterminated calls and inflated charges.
The committee is also expected to establish the financial losses incurred by subscribers and submit its findings, alongside recommendations for further legislative and regulatory action, within four weeks.
The consolidated resolution brings under one investigation several proposals seeking an inquiry into the billing practices of MTN Nigeria, Globacom, Airtel and T2 Mobile; the establishment of an accessible complaints and redress mechanism; automatic refunds for verifiably failed calls; independent technical audits of billing systems; and stricter enforcement of quality-of-service standards.
Speaking after the adoption, Akpabio urged the Committee on Communications, to commence work immediately, describing the four-week deadline as lengthy, but necessary.
He warned that the Senate could take over the investigation as a Committee of the Whole if the committee failed to submit a satisfactory report within the stipulated period.
Akpabio also asled the Minister overseeing the NCC and also the Executive Vice-Chairman of NCC, to ask the pertinent questions.
He noted that the growing complaints from telecommunications subscribers could no longer be ignored, particularly as consumers continued to lose money over services that were either poorly delivered or not provided at all.
Akpabio also expressed concern that inadequate supervision might be contributing to the persistent problems in the sector, stressing the need to engage the NCC, the supervising minister and telecommunications operators to ensure accountability and lasting improvements.
Telecomms subscribers have complained about losing airtime when calls fail to connect, disconnect shortly after connection or are interrupted by network problems.
The NCC had set up procedures for refund of customers whose calls were unwittingly terminated or muffled due to the fault of the telecommunications operators.
In the past one month alone, over N5 million had been refunded to various subscribers across the networks due to NCC’s regulatory interventions.
