Etisalat Replies Comedian Julius Agwu

Telecommunication giant, Etisalat Nigeria, has reacted to Julius Agwu's 7day ultimatum to the company that it should compensate him with the sum of N100 million or risk legal action over "alleged unlawful and unjustified blocking and/or swapping" of his Etisalat GSM phone number 08189555555.

Julius Agwu had, through his lawyer, Festus Keyamo, demanded N100m after his business line was blocked by Etisalat.

Julius said in a bid to solve his problem, he had visited Etisalat's Abuja office at Hilton to report the matter.

He was attended to by one Miss Joan, who informed him that somebody had swapped his line.

Julius successfully answered the security questions put to him, his line was restored with no airtime balance.

But he was shocked when the line was blocked later on again. And even after his several meetings with Etisalat, they still failed to unblock his line the second time, causing him to lose some business opportunities.

Etisalat's Public Relations Manager, Chineze Amanfo, while reacting to the allegation through an email sent to PMNews, stated that contrary to the reportage of the issue on the blogs and news sites, a SIM swap was performed on the said line after the requester provided the company's customer care executives with necessary SIM replacement information, in accordance with laid down NCC regulations and process for SIM swap.

She added that the SIM replacement information includes security and personal requirements to the owner, which the requester provided before the swap was effected.

Subsequently, upon a report made at our office by Mr. Agwu that he is the owner of the line and did not authorize anyone to swap it, our customer care executives promptly restored the line as well as the airtime lost during the swap process. 

Etisalat Nigeria is currently carrying out an internal investigation into the SIM swap incident and will refer the matter to the appropriate agencies for further investigation as may be necessary. 

We wish to assure the general public that Etisalat Nigeria is committed to the protection of the rights of its subscribers and to continue to provide value adding services to its customers. 

We will spare no effort to unravel the circumstances surrounding the alleged unauthorized SIM swap while encouraging our customers and the general public to protect their personal information at all times," she stated.