How To Opt Out Of U-Report Messages

U-report is a kind of social platform sponsored by United Nations Children's Emergency Fund (UNICEF) with the help of network providers in Nigeria. The service is available to MTN, Etisalat, Globacom and Airtel subscribers. It provides a free SMS tool for community participation, targeted at addressing issues that the population cares about. Examples of such issues include HIV/AIDS awareness, the need for pregnant women to deliver in a health facility for the improved health of the mother and the newborn baby, the need for exclusive breastfeeding, social problems that the Federal Government needs to address and other current activities that are taking place in our various communities.

The platform is free to join. To join, you simply send "JOIN" to 24453 by text message. Make sure to give a reply to each of the follow up messages until you receive a congratulation message thanking you for joining u-report and getting ready to participate and bring positive change to your community. After this stage, you will be referred to as a u-reporter. 

Meanwhile, this tutorial is not concerned about registering to become a u-reporter, rather it is on how to cancel your membership from the community participation programme. This will automatically bring to an end those text messages sent by the u-report platform.

The forum is dominated by the teaming population of youths in the country, with the greater percentage of participants coming from both past and present Corps members serving in various states of the federation. However, some youths are of the opinions that memberships to the platform were imposed in one way or the other instead of joining the group based on the decision to be part of it. The specific task of the u-report forum to get one million members within a certain period was suggested to be the cause of the imposition of membership on individual. Strategies were invented and used to capture people's attention to join the group.

The case of being a part of the u-report platform was slightly more ambiguous for Corps members serving in Enugu North LGA of Enugu State. There were uncertainties whether to take part in the awareness campaign and getting people to register or not. It was certain when NYSC staff took it personal to ensure that Corps members get at least ten people to register in a week. 

Forms were printed and issued to the Corps members to write name, sex, community and phone number of any person that joined the u-report through them. A good number of Corps members copied numbers from their phone contact into the form without getting those numbers registered. This leads to a repetition of the exercise for a period of ten weeks. 

Queries were given to Corps members who did not submit ten registered and valid contacts each week. There was a threat of service extension to any Corps member that fail to carryout the exercise. But all the u-report t-shirts and face cap meant for Corps members were taken by the NYSC staff. Probably, they forced Corps members to do the task so that in return the NYSC staff will get more u-report shirts and caps. 

Follow the instructions below to opt out of U-report:

1. Make sure that it is the number you registered.
2. Open your phone message and write a new message with this words "youreportexit" as seen in the image below. 
   
3. Send the message to the number "24453". This will automatically delete your contact from u-report database, hence, no more poll messages. 

Have you successfully opted out from u-report? Comment below. 

Tutorials March 16, 2016

Joseph Etim

Joseph Etim (B. Tech) is a blogger, mobile web developer and a tutor with a zeal for positive effects.

Website: Pepetimsblog