…As Glo, Airtel, three others bid to take over 9mobile***

No fewer than eight persons, including a nursing mother and her baby, have been crushed to death in Nasarawa by a truck conveying 600 bags of rice.

The rice consignment, it was learnt, belonged to the National Emergency Management Agency in Idadu community, Doma Local Government Area of Nasarawa State.

Northern City News learnt that the accident happened on Monday morning.

According to eyewitnesses, the driver of the truck, who was suspected to be drunk, lost control of the vehicle, crashing it into two houses along the road.

Apart from the nursing mother and her baby, others who died in the accident included a woman identified as Omo Talatu, an unidentified Tiv woman and the conductor of the truck.

One of the affected houses belonged to a man identified as Mr. Danjuma Omaku, whose aged mother, Otunsha, just passed away.

Omaku said most of the victims of the accident were people who paid him a condolence visit.

Omaku said, “Majority of those that died in my abode were sympathisers who came to condole with me over the demise of my mother.  They were at my compound when the truck lost control and crashed into the house.”

A survivor, Mr. Abdullahi Wanzan, in an interview with Northern City News on Thursday, attributed his escape to luck.

An eyewitness, Danjuma Ibrahim, said he heard noises and saw the truck crashing into two houses nearby.

“I heard people shouting and I had to run for my life, but before I knew what was going on, some people were hit by the fast-moving truck which lost control and in the process crashed into two houses nearby,” he said.

Omaku called on the government and the truck owner to assist his family as they had lost their shelter.

“I lost over five rooms, including shops, and I have nowhere else to go to,” he lamented.

Some of those who were wounded in the accident were said to have been taken to Doma General Hospital and others to the Primary Health Care Clinic in Igbabu.

In the meantime, five firms are bidding to acquire troubled telecom firm 9Mobile (formerly Etisalat), The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) said yesterday.

It was learnt that the five were picked as qualified among the 16 that Expressed Interest to Barclays bank, the financial advisers on the bid.

NCC Executive Vice Chairman Prof. Umar Danbatta said yesterday the five successful bidders had been “allowed access to the data room of 9mobile in order for them to assess the financial situation of the company and subsequently make bids for the takeover under a regulated manner.”

He added: “The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and the NCC are supervising what is going on through the Interim Board that was jointly appointed by both of them. We are going to look into the financial standings of the potential bidders as well as their technical capacity.

“In the final analysis we would like to see 9mobile taken over by a bidder who has the financial as well as technical capacity to fulfill all the requirements of the telecos to provide quality services to the country.”

Although Danbata did not give the names of the five firms, sources listed them as Airtel, Globacom, Smile, Helvis and Telelogy Holdings are the companies.

Danbatta, who spoke after declaring open the 82nd Edition of Telecom Consumer Parliament (TCP) at the Shehu Yar’Adua Centre, Abuja, also announced that Value Added Service sector of the telecommunication industry is worth over N30 billion.

The EVC thumbed up the exponential growth of Value Added Service sector, saying while it had provided job opportunities for Nigerians within the past few years, the sector had also helped to improve the wellbeing of Nigerians through its products and services.

“This VAS service providers normally leverage the networks to services on issues that are for the wel being of Nigerians, such as information on employment, information on which market to patronise in order to get the best deals when you went to buy goods.

The NCC boss also said the patronage of the various platforms opened by the NCC to check unsolicited messages/calls from service providers and protect the interests of consumers had grown beyond expectations as over 10 million Nigerians have activated the platforms.

Punch with additional report from Nation