Tag: Bosun Tijani

There are very good vibes coming from the Ministry of Communications, Innovation and Digital Economy. They give a good feel to the ears and even more catchy for the eyes. At a press meet which looked more like a well-worked roadshow to promote a new Bill currently with the National Assembly, titled: National Digital Economy and e-Government Bill, the Minister, Dr Bosun Tijani, said the passing of the Bill could inject $18.3bn into the nation’s economy.

That sounds very good and attractive. Introduced as A Bill for an Act to enable the growth of Digital Economy and Digital Governance in Nigeria by improving the certainty of digital transactions, digital service delivery, and matters related, the 54-page document has objectives, which include: To enhance the use of digital technology to grow Nigeria’s economy; To create an enabling environment for fair competition to promote innovation, growth, and competitiveness for the Nigerian Digital Economy;  To create export-oriented capacities in Nigeria’s digital economy to improve Nigeria’s balance of trade and services; and To mandate, promote and enable the digital transformation of public institutions and Government processes for efficient and effective service delivery.

The Bill seeks to bring clarity and validity to digital transactions, trade and business relationships while setting new standards in government to government communications and government interface with the public.

It is fair to say that the Bill looks at governance with digital eyes from the psychedelic positioning of the young-at-heart who, perhaps, look at yesterday as a life too far gone and very antiquated. The Bill encourages you to do transactions without ever meeting your trade partners, and everything executed to specifications, with the right signatures electronically appended, and with generous assurances of fidelity in the entire process. It will smoothen  processes and evaporate bureaucracies in government offices. It plans to reset Nigeria with a new engine, a digital one for that matter.

This is not a preview at all. But there are a couple of things which raise something more alarming than the proverbial red flag. I am not a learned fellow, dear friends, but fairly literate to the extent of knowing when a language is becoming violent and superfluous. Look at this.

In Part XV, under Miscellaneous, which is annotated as Supremacy of National Digital Economy and E-Governance Act, the Bill which is confusingly called an Act, states as follows: Notwithstanding the provisions of any other law but subject to the provisions of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, in all matters relating to the digital economy and e-government, the provisions of the Act shall override the provisions of any other Law.; and The Regulatory agency shall establish regulations on the use and adoption of new and emerging technologies as it relates to information technology.

The foregoing two examples will suffice. But here is my gut feeling about the Bill. The Bill puts on the costume of dollars to beguile a nation and a National Assembly that may not see beyond the superficiality of monetary attractions, especially in a country with roaring inflation and troubling food prices. The Bill which is like a child trying to appropriate the responsibilities of a father, holds in absolute contempt other existing Acts irrespective of age.

Already in existence are the Cybercrimes (Prohibition, Prevention, etc) Act, 2015; Nigerian Communications Act 2003; The National Broadcasting Commission Act Cap N11 Laws of the Federation of Nigeria 2004; National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) Act 2007, and, in fact, there is already a very controversial Bill at the National Assembly which seeks to amend the existing NITDA Act. And then, this new one entirely.

This particular Bill will set up a regulator for the digital space which may be given the rapacious opportunity to swallow up other Acts before it. That may be the only way to accommodate a new regulator in these days that the current administration is trying to trim the size of government. The dollar sign is only a ruse, a smokescreen that will evaporate at the approach of reality.

But I must also admit the Bill is well written, perhaps too sugar-coated; the lawmakers must strip it of all its excesses and octopi positioning. The Bill should only try to encourage new businesses and opportunities in the digital ecosystem and not cause chaos in already established areas.

Irrespective of promoted advantages and the huge inflow of cash expected to come into the economy, I see a whole lot of contradictions and that troubles me. It seems the minister is on a drive at such a speed that leaves relevant stakeholders behind.

Asked whether the telecommunications industry was ever consulted as critical stakeholders before the Bill was put in place, a highly placed industry source told this writer that there was never such consultation. “Those in authority are not interested in negative or constructive feedback. They are only interested in what they want to hear. Are the critical stakeholders being engaged? The answer is no,” my source said, adding ruefully that “we are not in a very good position as an industry.”

I will attempt a little explanation. People expected that the minister would pay more attention to the digital economy, new tech businesses and tech upstarts where he has earned a name. He seems not to have disappointed their expectations at all.

Somebody had asked me what would happen if the telecommunications sector should unplug some of these young tech companies. There would be a failure of immense proportions, the source volunteered an answer. That is not likely to happen soon. The source was only trying to explain why the minister should be interested in the fortunes of the industry, and there are no strong signs to prove that he is presently.

The telecommunications industry is in dire straits. Out of the big three,  two made significant losses last year and one of them even had to scale down CAPEX by as much as 30 per cent. It is no surprise that the quality of experience, as the NCC chooses to call it now instead of quality of service, is painfully poor. Glo is a private business and does not announce earnings while 9MOBILE remains in the woods.

Unfortunately, the regulator, Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), is also troubled and it’s immediate attention may be tailored towards its own survival. Although it is often said that government is a continuum, this writer gathered that the previous administration caused so much distortion and chaos within the regulatory system that steering the agency to a safe zone has become a daunting task. This comes with pains which the agency is feeling and the industry as well.

A source within the Commission said on Monday that the regulator is aware of the challenges confronting the industry at the moment and was working with key stakeholders to achieve industry sustainability and elevated quality of experience.

“Let quality improve and let Nigerians have something to be happy about,” the source explained.

Confronted with the grind of survival, the minister’s Bill may be a distraction, although the NCC will not have the stomach to say so. This writer is old enough to inform here that Dr Bosun has not earned the trust of the telecommunications industry and there is a small group at the regulatory agency praying for affliction not to return a second time after a painful and destabilising experience under the previous administration. I am of the strong opinion that there is a good way ahead to make amends.

The Minister of Communications, Innovation and Digital Economy, Dr Bosun Tijani, is having a great time under the present administration of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu. That is the way we see it in this part of the world. When a cabinet minister hops from place to place, sometimes flying long distances without even the opportunity to read vital memos in the office, we say the person is enjoying, even with little thought to the risk of flying.

The minister has made some movements within the short span of this government. He was at the G20 New Delhi Summit, India, in September 2023. Also in September, he was at the 78th Session of the United Nations General Assembly which President Tinubu, was attending for the first time as President. Bosun spoke on the sidelines. Last month, he was at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

This administration, like others before it, sees technology as a major lever to pull the economy out of its present sorry state and stamp it with redemptive accoutrement even before the global community. Bosun, who has had a glowing practice in the private sector, is leading the charge and therefore, has to attend these meetings and speak to people with homogeneous thoughts on global economy.

Particularly, he is flaunting the IT capacity of the Nigerian youthful population to change their world and be able to meet some needs in the global ICT shopping list.

On the sidelines of Davos, Bosun said: “Also we have global challenges that we are part of but there are opportunities that technology has to offer to solve those challenges and with those opportunities is the gap that exists which is the workforce for technology.

“And with the workforce in Nigeria, that 60 percent of our population is between 18 and 20 years, it means Nigeria can fill the gap. We are raising talents who can join the technical workforce that will solve some of these global problems.”

The other day, the minister said the country would need about $2bn to build a fibre ring around the nation. He said he would encourage the private sector to make the investment. This is much smaller than the $5bn that was estimated to execute the Nigerian National Broadband Plan 2020 – 2025.

The plan, which targets a coverage of 90 percent of the population and a penetration rate of 70 percent by the end of the plan’s lifetime, which is next year,  may not meet expectations at all. This is no naked pessimism.

Is the minister saying something new? I am asking this question because of another question an industry source asked me: where are the deep thinkers at the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), the source asked. What does this have to do with the minister?

We shall try to answer some of the questions without jumbling things up. The NCC is the regulator of the telecommunications industry and a primary player in the execution of the minister’s policies. The place was well resourced with personnel who thought about tomorrow through their studies, research and data analytics. Unfortunately, the system has been undergoing a lot of delayering of staff with the last batch leaving only recently. It is knowledge exodus that will affect what happens at the regulatory agency in the days ahead.

The paucity of telecommunications services in Nigeria was well documented within the Commission. So, instead of playing only the role of the regulator, the NCC initiated a number of programmes that could assist in bringing services and knowledge to the people.

Thus was born the Digital Bridge Institute (DBI), in different locations of the country with headquarters in Abuja, Wire Nigeria (WIN), Digital Awareness Programme (DAP), Advanced Digital Appreciation Programme for Tertiary Institutions (ADAPTI), and InfraCo. The InfraCo was a different layer of thinking encouraged by the realisation that the country was too vast for one or few operators to ring with fibre. More operators have to be persuaded even with subsidy to deploy fibre optics in different zones of the country, seven zones in all, with Lagos standing as a zone because of vast telecoms demand.

These various programmes established some knowledge centres in our institutions, set up tech facilities and, in some cases, built major facilities in the case of DBI that can serve as tech incubator centres in different parts of the country. The only one that has tanked is the Infraco which has not taken off at all in spite of the laudable plans, arrangements and projections. This failure is acknowledged in the current  Broadband plan.

Is the minister acting in the void or saying something new? Not at all. The NCC saw this a long time ago and decided to project itself as a strategic service rollout stimulator in the value chain.

An industry source told me last week that the minister has to build out his expectations by harvesting the low hanging fruits resident in the various parastatals under his ministry. He wants to affect the youthful population with universally requisite IT skills, encourage local and international investors to play a role and generally create a situation that leapfrogs technology to the front row in the projected national economic develoment.

The source is suggesting that the Minister should align with the NCC to do a technology audit of its various projects to determine what is available in-house and why those that have failed , failed. DBI, according to the source, provides a disturbing  case. The institution has massive physical infrastructure build out all over the country. In Lagos, in Kaduna, in Adamawa, in Kano, and in Enugu among other locations, DBI has state-of-the-art facilities that are just waiting to be activated.

But what killed the DBI dream? Instead of operationalising DBI facilities, the last administration at the NCC with tacit encouragement of an overbearing minister, shifted attention to building of IT parks, and installation of WiFi in major markets and airports.

For instance in March last year, about two months to the end of the Muhammadu Buhari administration, the Federal Government approved the sum of N24.20bn for the provision of broadband internet connection in at least 20 airports, 43 schools and six marketplaces nationwide. A happy Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Dr Isa Pantami, told a shocked populace that the bills would be picked by the NCC. The source of money for the payment is as convoluted as the contract itself. But it doesn’t smell good at all.

A source told me that the amount was much more  than whatever budget that was ever set aside as subsidy to fund the InfraCos which was planned to help extend fibre to different parts of the country. But do we ever learn anything in this nation?

Good literature was done for the current Broadband Plan which observed why the previous one didn’t achieve much results . For instance, the issue of Right of Way (RoW) remains. The Federal Government has not been able to persuade states to agree to a uniform charge of N145/m. Infraco incentives defined but not yet implemented. USPF incentive structure for rural coverage is not attractive because of focus on CAPEX and OPEX. Sustainability of various initiatives by NITDA, USPF, DBI and state governments remains an issue.

Almost all the factors that upstaged the success of the former Broadband plan and even more, are at work against the current plan which expires next year. Another industry source reasoned that the minister cannot achieve much in his tech dreams without looking at the success rate of the current Broadband Plan and what he takes from there into the future.

On the way forward, there is a consensus among industry players that the minister must encourage the NCC to revisit Infraco and ensure that it works this time instead of some booby traps that destroy a vision. They also see DBI as a silver bullet to achieve the minister’s dreams. Instead of allowing a huge physical infrastructure to be lying waste, the minister should stimulate the NCC with policies that can turn DBI locations into Incubation Centres, Tech Development Centres or Science Labs  that can attract or host contiguous higher institutions and even be more useful to host communities.

The options before the minister are multifarious but a hard choice is still better at the end of the day than words which could be too cheap to achieve reason or results.