By OKUANWAN OFFIONG

The Association of Telecommunications Companies of Nigeria (ATCON) has dismissed as untrue claim suggesting that the Fifth Generation Network (5G) was the cause of Coronavirus.

The President of the association, Mr. Olusola Teniola, said in Lagos on Sunday that such information purportedly claiming that 5G was responsible for COVID-19 was baseless and should be discountenanced by Nigerians as false news.

He said such claims had not been substantiated by any conclusive empirical evidence by either the World Health Organization (WHO) or other health research institutions.

“There has been no issuance of 5G License to any of our members to build and deploy 5G network in Nigeria by the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC).

“However, what has happened recently was just a trial of the 5G network by one of our members which was well supervised by the telecoms regulator.

“Currently, Nigeria’s networks are currently made up of 2G, 3G and 4G and in 2014, the World Health Organisation had stated clearly there is no yet any conclusive scientific evidence to the effect that there are adverse health effects caused by telecommunications infrastructures to human with respect to exposure to the non-ionizing radiation emitting by telecoms base stations,”  he said.

The President said the association was not part of the deployment of such technology that was risky to its citizens.

“ATCON, as the umbrella Association of all telecommunications companies in Nigeria, would like to state unequivocally that it would not be part of the deployment of any technology in country that would put the health of any Nigerian at risk.

“We believe the health of end-users of any technological advancement comes as a priority in the deployment consideration of such technology by our members to provide services to Nigerians,” Teniola said. (NAN)