Barely 48 hours after the Buhari-Osinbajo Presidential Campaign Fundraising Committee launched some of its platforms for raising funds, the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has shut down the Short Messaging Service (SMS) platform – 35350 – meant to encourage small donors, especially young people, to do so.
Director of the Committee and Governor of Lagos State, Mr. Babatunde Fashola (SAN), had on Tuesday unveiled five platforms, including partnership with five banks for donors wishing to pay cash towards the fund, the electronic payment platform involving logging in on the APC domain name www.apcgmbpyo.org, the SMS, the Ring tone and the Scratch Card platforms.
However, briefing the press in Lagos yesterday, Governor Fashola announced with regrets that before the end of Tuesday after the launch of the platforms, the NCC had issued a letter to the telecoms operators “not to carry political messages” thereby shutting down the SMS platform.