Lanre Gbajabiamila, Director General of the Nigerian National Lottery Regulatory Commission (NLRC), has called for a review into ‘illegal operations’ costing the country billions.
According to Gbajabiamila, Nigeria’s lottery industry is being heavily impacted by issues between telecoms and gaming operators, with illegal operations in electronic mechanisms.
In response, he has implored the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) and his own organisation to work together in order to block IP addresses of foreign operators that are causing the issues.
As such, Gbajabiamila wants a review of a four-year Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) as the Nigerian lottery industry bids to strengthen its regulatory framework and generate further revenue for the country.
Gbajabiamila also suggested that it is essential to have a sharing ratio on gaming-related telecommunication activities to limit Telcos from taking a huge chunk of the revenue – he suggests some Telcos are able to pay winnings way above 70% of proceeds – to the detriment of the NLRC and operators.
A request has also been lodged by the NLRC that the NCC shares its transaction logs of Value-Added Services (VAS) providers involved in gaming activities for effective regulation and monitoring.
The NLRC has also received complaints from operators who claimed to have been charged higher for the One Time Password (OTP) generation code, despite being fully registered by the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC).
Adeleke Adewolu, NCC Executive Commissioner (Stakeholder Management), has advised the NLRC to outline their issues in official writing to enable them to clearly identify areas of collaboration and support.
Both agencies have agreed to set up a joint committee to effectively communicate solutions to all issues.
