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Tag: DSO

  • What does The Big Picture mean to DSO? – By Okoh Aihe

    What does The Big Picture mean to DSO? – By Okoh Aihe

    The news last week that the Federal Government is seemingly finalising plans to put the Digital Switchover (DSO) on an accelerator that can immediately take it to about 10 million people, was very elevating and, for me, it marks a good turn for the Tinubu administration.

    The story which has been in gestation but only broke last week, is the fruit of a relationship between the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC) and NigComSat which have both agreed to deploy their available capacity and resources to resolve the DSO impasse.

    The NBC which is the nation’s broadcast regulator is the arrowhead of DSO implementation in Nigeria (migration from analogue to digital television broadcasting), while NigComSat is charged with providing satellite capacity for the nation and beyond, and has a satellite, NigComSat – 1R in the geostationary orbit. However, the story of DSO in Nigeria has not been very inspiring, resulting in the nation missing the ITU implementation targets twice. Before this development, the process was in hibernation, giving the impression that Nigeria cannot even implement a simple process.  Simple?

    Details of information released May 29, 2025, by both organisations are very uplifting and can stir any soul. Titled, NBC and NigComSat Unveil Nigeria’s Satellite-Driven Digital Switchover: “The Big Picture,” it says, “In a bold move to redefine Nigeria’s digital future, the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC) and Nigerian Communications Satellite Ltd (NigComSat) have launched The Big Picture – a revolutionary upgrade to the country’s Digital Switchover (DSO) strategy.”

    Highlights of The Big Picture include: Satellite Over Terrestrial – no towers, NigComSat 1R to beam Direct-to-Home signals across Nigeria instantly; Immediate Access – Over 10 million Nigerian households with satellite-ready TVs or DVB-S2 set-top boxes can access 100+ Free-to-Air television channels; Hybrid Smart Boxes, which combine satellite channels with streaming apps; and Content for All – 40 percent of all channels slots are reserved for independent and regional producers.

    The proposition fascinates to no end. It means that a nation whose entertainment sector is booming across the world, will have more of her contents on digital TV, it means more job for Nollywood and and an auspicious opportunity to saloon its abundant talents, it means ordinary folks can have access to digital contents, and it also means more channels for Nigerian to ventilate their spleen on the state of the nation sans freedom of speech.

    But every story has a flipside and this is needed for the understanding of the unfolding picture in the broadcast industry. The broadcast channels in the country are run on frequencies allocated to broadcast operators by the NBC. It was so in other parts of the world, although the story has gradually changed as a majority have completed their switchover.

    It is often said that frequencies are a scarce resource which are managed from the global platform of the ITU. Since both TV and Telecommunications can use the same frequencies, and frequencies are a scarce resource, mind you, the thinking of the ITU in 2006, was for broadcast channels to move operations to digital platforms that could accommodate as many channels as imagination can guess. The movement will free up their frequencies for telecom operations; this will impact on broadband service deployment and cost of service acquisition.

    While about nine countries in Africa, including Mauritius, Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda have completed the switchover, the process in Nigeria has been so convoluted and too woollen to pass a transparency test. That was until last week or is it?

    An industry source told this writer that the satellite option is very attractive and should be encouraged. Afterall, Morocco did it by taking about 90 percent of their switchover through satellite while the remaining 10 percent was terrestrial, perhaps because of their terrain. The source suggested that Nigeria can also adopt the hybrid approach of terrestrial deployment in the core cities while using satellite in remote areas, more because of pervasive insecurity than mountainous terrains. The satellite option may escalate the process of harvesting the digital dividends.

    But another source which is more in the hardware area in the switchover ecosystem, pointed out that the protocol of the switchover is based on Digital Terrestrial Television (DTT) and not Direct-to-Home (DTH) which has existed in Nigeria since the coming of M-Net, and then Multichoice before being joined by Startimes. DTT relies on towers/masts unlike DTH which is space inclined.

    The source observed that the proposition which looks beautiful doesn’t seem to accommodate previous history of the process and the stakeholders involved in it.

    Let’s interrupt the above thought. For the DSO to take off in Nigeria, the NBC licensed ITS and Pinnacle as signal carriers for broadcasters, while a number of companies were also licensed to manufacture set-top boxes (STBs) that will convert digital signals for the use of anologue television. The STB prevents analogue TV sets from being junked!

    Investors were encouraged to come into the industry. While Pinnacle, for instance, paid over N600m for a carrier license (don’t ask me how much ITS, which is linked to NTA paid, just like NITEL and GSM license – they always don’t pay), the STB manufacturers shelled out N50m each to become pioneer players in the switchover process.

    Quite some money have gone into the process. The Nigerian government in demonstration of good faith may have put in about N50bn while the other payers – Pinnacle, ITS and the STB manufacturers may have invested another N20bn in equipment or platform installations and manufacturing, according to industry sources. There are hundreds of thousands of STBs in warehouses across the country. The other day, a voice called this writer from up north to complain that his investment in the distribution of STBs has ruined his life! The past cannot just be interred and papered over with the fantasy of beautiful ideas.

    Back to the story, there are complaints from different stakeholders in the ecosystem  that they have hardly had any interaction with thier regulator or even the other party involved in The Big Picture.

    There are always stakeholders in an ecosystem. I will want to observe that the stakeholders in the DSO process are: the government, regulator, industry – broadcasters, signal carriers, STB manufacturers, and the viewers which have been aptly identified in The Big Picture as households, with 10 million projected in the first instance. There is an addition – NigComSat! To be frank, the households are powerless in the process until the big boys have sorted out themselves.

    I will want to suggest here that the regulator should play more with the stakeholders because a regulator without stakeholders is like a general without troops or a king without chiefs or people. The stakeholders must be embedded in the dreams of the regulator.

    A former regulator (there are so many of them because there was churn in that area) suggested that to avoid a disconnect and unnecessary acrimonies in the DSO process, the regulator may need to properly engage the STB manufacturers in cnversation to determine their technology capacity, financial exposure and even the amount of goods they have in their warehouses in order to find an intervention that can assuage all parties.

    “It is important that they are taken into consideration because they have made sizeable investments,” the source counselled.

    Charles Ebuebu, Director-General of the NBC says: “We’re not just digitizing TV. We’re redefining access, storytelling and how Nigerians connect.”

    That sounds like  good music that can titillate any ears. However, here is my final observation. NBC is a regulator and cannot be involved in the day-to-day running of a broadcast platform. NigComSat is a satellite service provider that should be more into transponder leasing, among other services. NigComSat is not a last mile service provider. It’s struggles to do last mile services in the past created a lot of disaffections in an ancillary sectors. Just like a guy carrying an elephant on his head and attempting to sell cricket meat!

    Who will run The Big Picture platform? The razzle-dazzle idea may deserve more intentionality by the promoters and more scrutiny by relevant stakeholders, because it is quite easy for investment in broadcasting, including entertainment, to go kaput. History does not lie.

  • A DSO fight most unnecessary – By Okoh Aihe

    A DSO fight most unnecessary – By Okoh Aihe

    Writing on the new Government’s initiative on the Digital Switchover (DSO) on August 28, 2024, we made the following observations on this column: “This has not said much about the place of the signal distributors and Set Top Box manufacturers who were encouraged to invest heavily in the DSO process and have hardly recouped some of their costs………

    “Obviously on this, the Tinubu administration has scored a good goal; but I dare say, the template they have just released needs more dispassionate interrogation to make implementation feasible. This is the only way the nation can harvest the much delayed digital dividend.”

    The iPad had hardly found a resting place in the iPad case when the Set Top Box Manufacturers of Nigeria  (STBMAN) went to the courts seeking protection for their businesses. This wasn’t unexpected. They had quickly looked at the new configuration and realised, frighteningly,  that they were not diagrammed into it.

    The story looks simple. The DSO presaged an era of new business opportunities which the government, through the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC), could not handle alone; in fact, could not handle at all, since there has been this  cry of government getting out of business for professional business people to handle. The NBC invited broadcast industry and technology experts, and equipment vendors to be part of the template it was putting in place.

    Seeing what happened in the telecommunications sector when reforms were introduced in the year 2000, it was not difficult to have enthusiastic participants who were prepared to be poster personalities of the new dawn in the sector, embrace the business. Pinnacle and Integrated Television Services (ITS) were licensed as signal carriers, meaning that they will provide the facilities to carry all the TV signals in the country. It was tantalising to have only two operators become super signal carriers while mainstream broadcasters will have to concentrate on content creation which was expected to attract a lot of talents to the newfound honeypot. Some other companies were licensed as Set Top Box Manufacturers. The game has started. Most of these new operators went to the banks to access loans for their operations and manufacturing concerns. At least one million set top boxes would be needed immediately, to be provided by the manufacturers who were promised two years of exclusive rights to enable them recoup their investments.

    The only problem however is that Nigeria never really got the DSO process right. Look at this other case and then judge for yourself. As far back as 2007, the US government, through the Department of Commerce,  provided two coupons of $40 each for each household to acquire set top box converters. The function of the box is to convert analogue signals to digital ones. Proper documentation was done in the National Telecommunications and Information Administration Plan which didn’t want any of the estimated 73m TV sets in  America to be excluded. The process was nearly seamless.

    This is 2024. In our dear nation Nigeria, the process went into hibernation for years and was only reactivated in August when the government allocated a princely sum of N10bn to drive it. The excitement that greeted the development has been blanketed quickly by the response of those who felt excluded, mistreated and caused to lose money after being persuaded to invest in the sector.

    A group of applicants under the Incorporated Trustees of the Association of Licensed Set Top Boxes Manufacturers of Nigeria, Gospell Digital Ltd, Digitune Media Technologies, I-Box Engineering, Trefonics Electronics and Tve-RLG Limited had filed an ex-parte motion for the court to make an intervention that could secure their businesses. After hearing the submission of their lawyer, Dr Ruben Atabo, Justice Mustapha Adamu of the Federal High Court, Abuja, barred all parties from interfering with the nation’s transition from analogue to digital transmission.

    Apart from other issues raised, one major sore point is the Set Top Box to be used. The one previously stated in the Government’s White Paper to be deployed with contracts awarded to manufacturers, will be replaced by the new hybrid Android/DTH model with data connectivity features as announced in August. This decision that looks innocuous will have telling effects on businesses.

    The court, they say, is the last hope of the common man. But these are no common people. This is a government agency, a regulator for that matter, and business operators having a dig at each other. And this is what ails me. This legal battle is a long drawn out one that might spin well into the future. NBC will face frustration in the implementation of the DSO process. The DSO process will suffer in Nigeria. And operators and service providers will have to seek ways to service their bank loans or they will face some consequences that may be too hard for them to bear. From whichever angle the story is told, all the stakeholders are losers. Those who may be hidden beneficiaries at the moment will sooner find themselves in the hall of shame.

    If you ask me, I will say this is a fight that is not necessary at all. It’s going to be a messy one and so many things will be washed up. The service providers have their backs to the wall and may be prepared to fight to finish, and this may not be what the nation wants at this time. The new template was too presumptuous and assumptive of too many things as stakeholders engagement seemed to have been negligible.

    It is not too late to backtrack. The authorities should call a dispute resolution meeting of all the stakeholders and deal with the matter once and for all. You can’t deal with businesses without engagement with stakeholders. You can’t engage in a nasty fight without giving reasons to other investors to avoid your domain. The DSO is a process with too many implications, one of which could be the shame of international proportions that could come from our inability to execute a simple process the ITU sanctioned since 2006.

  • A DSO call that may change the broadcast terrain – By Okoh Aihe

    A DSO call that may change the broadcast terrain – By Okoh Aihe

    Our propensity to build mountains out of very small problems has not allowed us to achieve our aspirational height. Every little problem with a simple answer is complicated, like rocket science or achieving the feat of sending somebody to the moon or the international space station where some other humans – astronauts and cosmonauts – do have some good time as they take some unimaginable views of the earth.

    A simple process is convoluted and the solution recedes into the dark, and the world moves on as they begin to ask what is happening to such a great country? Why is it not flying?

    This is a daily question. Why is the country not flying? Why is it always doing catch up and sometimes finding the catch up too difficult to achieve?

    Questions arise in many areas where unfinished business litres the space. Thursday last week, the Tinubu administration took a definitive step to resolve one of them and redeem it from the graveyard of unfinished businesses. That very day the government announced a plan to tackle the Digital Switchover (DSO) and bring it to a successful conclusion for the nation to enjoy the multifarious advantages arising there from.

    At a joint press conference by the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC) and the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), Mr Charles Ebuebu, Director General of NBC, announced government approval of a grant to jumpstart the DSO programme which had stalled for an indeterminate period of time. The grant is coming from spectrum sales which is executed on behalf of the government by the NCC. The Executive Vice Chairman of the NCC was by his side, acquiescing to every of his submissions.

    “The grant is not just a financial allocation; it is a testament to Mr President’s collective commitment to driving technological advancement, economic growth, and cultural enrichment through the DSO project.

    “The intervention is a testament to the visionary leadership of the President. It is a commitment to achieving a future where every Nigerian, regardless of their location, has access to superior broadband services and is included in the digital economy,” Ebuebu informed.

    In explaining the new relationship between the NBC and NCC, he said that “to accelerate this process, the Commission is in collaboration with the Nigerian Communications Commission. This collaboration signifies a strategic alliance and a unified effort to bring about a seamless transition to digital broadcasting and underscores NCC’s determination to support this monumental project and ensure its success.”

    In this column, we have been waiting for this call to happen. We have written copiously on the need for a traction between the two government agencies so that the DSO programme, which some smaller countries in Africa have since completed, can also happen in Nigeria. The benefits are legion and we have been anxious for the nation to begin to reap some of these benefits.

    Just for a simple recall, the Digital Switchover (DSO) is the process of moving from analogue television to digital terrestrial television. The agreement reached at the Regional Radio Communication Conference in Geneva, Switzerland, in 2006 – the GE06 Regional Agreement, was to the effect that countries in the region – Europe, Africa, Middle East, Central Asia and the Islamic Republic of Iran would migrate from analog transmission to digital terrestrial transmission on the set date of June 17, 2015, for the UHF band (470-862 MHz), and a 5-year extension for the VHF band (174-230 MHz).

    It wasn’t a decision cast in stone but countries were expected to work towards achieving results and be able to earn their share of digital dividend. The broadcast frequencies released in the process would be sold at premium to telcos for mobile operations. Although Nigeria started the process in 2016, a year after it should have ended, the country very much wanted to have a share of the new wealth the switchover would unleash.

    An industry source reminded this writer that pioneer Minister of Communications Technology, Mrs Omobola Johnson, and Minister of Information, Mr Labaran Maku, wrote a joint memo to President Goodluck Jonathan at the time suggesting ways to fund the  DSO to achieve immediate results. Their efforts did not save the process from being plunged into the mire where it was much easier to achieve scandal than needed results. Efforts of the DigiTeam set up by the President were sabotaged while the ministerial team which succeeded it under the Buhari administration was more into politics of implementation than actual work to achieve set objectives.

    Until last week, the DSO was completely in limbo, which is why the present administration should earn some plaudits for taking a more concerted look at the process. EVC Maida agreed that media patterns and consumption are changing daily, making the role of the NCC more prominent and relevant.

    “A majority of the content will be consumed on demand. We will be working closely with NBC. Where we need to work together, we will make ourselves available to ensure that the quality of content and signals are available,” he promised.

    The other area of support, which is more overriding, is funding as was demonstrated on the day. Most of the frequencies that have been sold or will be sold for telecom operations by the NCC, were recovered from broadcasters, which means that the NBC should have a cut from the proceeds,  but previous administrations at the NCC, especially the most recent one, was not very excited about allowing the NBC have a little sniff, not to talk of a sizeable amount to help facilitate the DSO process. It is commendable that this administration has been able to persuade the parastatals to work together without letting money come in between them.

    Something else must be observed here however. While previous efforts ascribed importance to Digital Terrestrial Transmission (DTT) to bring signals to the mass of the people, the presence of signal carriers – Pinnacle and ITS – and Set Top Box manufacturers, the programme released last week is looking for a quick fix by turning to Satellite technology – Direct to Home (DTH).

    “Leasing transporters and establishing a robust satellite backbone to ensure 100% signal coverage across Nigeria. This will expedite the Analog Switch Off (ASO) and enhance accessibility to FreeTV service nationwide,” Ebuebu explained.

    This has not said much about the place of the signal distributors and Set Top Box manufacturers who were encouraged to invest heavily in the DSO process and have hardly recouped some of their costs.

    One of the beauties of the DSO is its capacity to appropriate the built up energies and talents in the creative sector, whose promoters would have to work nonstop to feed the multiplicity of channels that will be enabled by the digital process. Ebuebu sketched at this when he said:

    “Adopting the digital broadcasting standards will align Nigeria with global norms, enhancing our competitiveness and attracting foreign investments. Digital broadcasting will bridge the digital divide, ensuring access to vital information, education, and entertainment for remote and underserved communities.”

    Obviously on this, the Tinubu administration has scored a good goal; but I dare say, the template they have just released needs more dispassionate interrogation to make implementation feasible. This is the only way the nation can harvest the much delayed digital dividend.

  • Tinubu approves N10bn grant for DSO

    Tinubu approves N10bn grant for DSO

    President Bola Tinubu has approved a grant N10 billion for the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC) to embark on a transformative journey to achieve the Digital Switch-Over (DSO) dividends for Nigeria.

    The Director-General of NBC, Mr Charles Ebuebu made this kown on Thursday in Abuja,  at a joint  news conference with the Executive Vice Chairman of the Nigeria Communications Commission (NCC), Dr Aminu Maida.

    DSO is a project of transiting from analogue to digital broadcasting. Launched by the Federal Government in 2008, the DSO project aimed to enhance the quality and quantity of television programming, increase access to television services and free up spectrum for other usees.

    Addressing the newsmen, the NBC boss explained that, to achieve the desire results in the DSO journey, the commission would collaborate with NCC and the Nigerian Television Authority (NTA).

    “Under the visionary leadership of Mr President, we are embarking on a transformative journey to achieve the DSO dividends for Nigeria.

    “As you are all aware, the process to the switching over from analogue to digital terrestrial television platform began, fully, in Nigeria, in 2016. However, the process has stalled due to enormous challenges.

    “In view of this, the President has graciously approved a grant of N10 billion from spectrum sales by the Federal Government to the NBC,” Ebuebu said.

    He added: “This grant is not just a financial allocation; it is a testament to Mr President’s collective commitment to driving technological advancement, economic growth, and cultural enrichment through the DSO project.

    “The area of utilising this grant include, developing and managing channels that cater for diverse interests, leasing transponders and establishing a robust satellite backbone to ensure 100 per cent signal coverage across Nigeria.

    “Others are, Audience Measurement, Marketing and Publicity, Content Production Studios, Digital Set-Top Boxes, FreeTV APP, conducting comprehensive training sessions and workshops for stakeholders,” Ebuebu said.

    According to him, adopting the digital broadcasting standards will align Nigeria with global norms, enhance competitiveness and attract foreign investments.

    Ebuebu added that digital broadcasting will bridge the digital divide, ensuring access to vital information, education, and entertainment for remote and unserved communities.

    He Also said that traditional platforms would not fade out, but adopt the new digital system, because the ecosystem is huge with a lot of dividends.

    “With the introduction of DSO, a lot of people are going to be introduced to new set of skills, there is technology, you are going to learn to use software in production and all of that, and we are partnering to ensure it is done right”.

    Also speaking, Maida said convergence is the new way to go in digital operations.

    “Convergence has changed the media landscape. About 90 per cent of the media we consume today is not traditional broadcast.

    “This convergence has given us the option to consume media in so many ways, but primarily, through the internet; and as a regulator for communications.

    “It is very important that the NCC be part of this journey. To do justice to the DSO project, there is need to create content with the notion that mode of production has changed and the fact that majority of these content is going to be consumed on demand,” he said

    Maida added that contents in DSO, required some levels of interactions in real time, which the traditional broadcast did not allow or do  optimally.

  • Making the DSO work in Nigeria – By Okoh Aihe

    Making the DSO work in Nigeria – By Okoh Aihe

    The story of the nation’s implementation of the digital switchover (DSO) process  appears convoluted and headed towards an uncomplimentary denouement except urgent steps are taken to refocus the exercise.

    Yes, urgency should form the soul of the implementation process. DSO is not just only about the benefits of the exercise in terms of quality of broadcasting and digital yields (digital dividends – DD) but more of prestige, of the biggest Black Country in the world being able to complete a simple process, show example in tech leadership and answer the name of a big brother which, unfortunately, is eluding us in several circumstances.

    Sanctioned in 2006 by the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), at the 2006 ITU Regional Radiocommunication Conference (RRC-06), DSO, which is the transitioning from analogue to digital broadcasting, was projected to end in June 2015 but extended to 2020, two deadlines which some of the ITU Region 1 countries, including Sub-Saharan Africa could hardly meet.

    The countries assented to what is generally known as the Geneva 2006 (GEO6) Agreement, but that was the simplest part of the exercise. Members of the International Radio and Television Union from about 50 countries which met in Yaounde, Cameroon, in September, observed that the exercise has failed in a majority of the countries in the Sub-Region largely because of human, material and financial factors, among others.

    The GSMA has done more in-depth work. In a document titled: Digital Switchover in Sub-Saharan Africa – Bringing Low-Band Connectivity within Reach, the association periscopes the implementation stages of the DSO in selected African countries and concludes that more needs to be done for the various countries to free up needed frequencies for mobile operations for the benefit of their people.

    GSMA is the umbrella body for mobile operators, equipment manufacturers and vendors, tech developers and a host of other organisations involved in the value chain of mobile services provisioning. One is careful to observe that the primary focus was on how the switchover would benefit the telecommunications industry and by extension the people. Industry preservation is not a crime at all. But that would also mean more money for the government and better services for broadcast and telecoms consumers.

    Poster countries for the switchover exercise in Sub-Saharan Africa are: Mauritius, Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda which were among the first to switch. These countries surmounted numerous problems but established clear rules of engagement, funding options and implementation timelines which earned them valuable results.

    For good measures, Kenya, after the analogue switch off (ASO) in 2015, had in 2016 and 2017 respectively, successfully reassigned DD1 and DD2 which include frequencies in the 800 MHz and 700MHz bands to mobile operators. The country recouped some generous money, which was a further justification of DSO.

    Nigeria is not listed among the countries doing well in the DSO implementation. And we are not. That also means the country is yet to reap the benefits of a successful migration process. And we need the money!

    There was a Presidential Committee called the Digiteam set up by President Goodluck Jonathan. The team was to work with the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC) and the Ministry of Information and Culture for early and easy implementation of the DSO. Under the Buhari administration, the minister instituted a Ministerial Committee which became the arrowhead of the project under the ministry. A source at the NBC confessed to this writer that the ministry took over DSO and the NBC.

    The DSO launch in April 2016 in Jos, Plateau State, came with a lot of promise, pomp and pageantry that ironically did not sound beyond the city of Jos. Since then the exercise has hobbled from one problem to another; unstable leadership at the NBC, lack of funds, near absence of stakeholder engagement and public information on the exercise, absence of proper implementation plan,  strife between the NBC and the parent ministry, and just anything that won’t make such a huge project work. And it has not worked.

    Like many other nations in the Sub-Region, Nigeria had the regulator, a white paper, set up committees, licensed new companies – Pinnacle and ITS owned by NTA/Star Times – as super signal carriers for the broadcast industry, also licensed set top box (STB) manufacturers or distributors, and applied sundry funding options – public and private – for the implementation, just like the rest of the world. But the process became unwieldy, boxed in confusion and controversy and grounded to a halt.

    There was a switch in a couple of states, including Plateau, Kano, Kwara, Lagos, FCT and a few others, perhaps. But not a step further. Presently, the DSO is looking for new impetus, new funding and new vision for resuscitation.

    Mr Charles Ebuebu, the Director General of the NBC may have had a good dose of the DSO challenges already and has promised to do things differently by providing the right leadership. Speaking at Africast in Lagos, Ebuebu declared that the Commission under his watch is committed to the Digital Switchover (DSO) project and will ensure that clear timelines, processes and objectives are set up in order to realise the tremendous opportunities for the economy.

    Words, they say, are cheap. It is our responsibility however to encourage Ebuebu to move beyond words and the frustrations in a big office that castrated those before him. But first the gains.

    The DSO will enable a more fascinating broadcast experience with clearer TV signals and picture quality, and multichannel TV viewing as about 8MHz of space occupied by one analogue TV channel can accommodate as many as 20 digital TV channels. DSO will further expand the TV space by unleashing infinite opportunities for content creators who will have to work extra hard but gainfully to fill up the multi TV channels that will open up.

    But the other big win is that the freed up broadcast spectra, relishingly called digital dividends (DD), will be available for International Mobile Telecommunications (IMT). And the operators love this for obvious reasons. One, the spectrum has the capacity of expansive reach and at good rollout cost and therefore very convenient for service deployment in the rural areas where subscribers will have to pay less. Two, the spectrum assignment means more money for the government who at the same time will have the people provided with needed telecoms services.

    It is a win-win situation. Government benefits. The regulators and industries are happy. And the people savour the joy and plurality of quality services in respective sectors.

    This is the more reason, Ebuebu should act fast and smartly too. An industry source told this writer that the fact that smaller countries in the Sub-Region could complete their switchover within stipulated times, means that Nigeria can also do it. It is no rocket science after all. He was therefore advised to disband legacy committees which have outlived their call and replace them with a very smart committee that is able to deliver results within a year.

    The three primary phases of DSO implementation are as follows: Digital switch – the beginning of digital broadcasting services; Simulcast or Dual Illumination – the coexistence of analogue and digital signals in the broadcast ecosystem; and Analogue Switch-off (ASO) – the final face when analogue signals are switched off.

    The foregoing recognises that all the planning and the hardware deployment would have been done. However, DSO has assumed the status of a myth in Nigeria, an apparition designed to scare away the ordinary minds with a table prepared for illicit beneficiaries of a failed project.

    Unfortunately, too many people have suffered in the value chain. I will want to appeal to the NBC to have a mind for the set top box manufacturers or suppliers. A couple of them have raised a cry that they are in debt for trying to do a service in their country.

    I want to suggest that it is not a shame to engage in peer review mechanisms with some regulators in the Sub-Region that have successfully executed the programme. The only shame is when in a couple of years down the line, we will still be talking about our inability to implement DSO or unable to harvest the digital dividends or enjoy even the rich and multiplicity of quality TV programming arising therefrom.

  • So, what happens to regulation now? – By Okoh Aihe

    So, what happens to regulation now? – By Okoh Aihe

    For the first time since I started writing my column, Simply Tech, in 2020, my pen failed me. My fingers were too numb to command the computer keys and the brain simply just refused to function coherently, having been so shocked out of rhythm by the apotheosis of one of the greatest souls that ever walked this earth, High Chief Raymond Aleogho Dokpesi, on May 29, 2023.

    This is not a tribute to this meteoric personality yet. That will come shortly but his being apotheosised on such a significant day only deferred, albeit temporarily, the opportunity to point a torch on the cesspit left in the broadcasting and telecommunications industries by a government that left in a puff after allowing individual brigandage in the two ministries to hurt a nation so badly. 

    My question before the swearing in of Senator Bola Ahmed Tinubu last week as the new President of Nigeria is, what happens now? Is this a crystallisation of the fears of the workers of two major parastatals, the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC) and the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) who fear that the future holds no much hope for them  in spite of their expertise in industry regulation?

    In just eight years, the APC government under President Mohammadu Buhari, dug the nation into a hole especially in the two ministries when two powerful ministers were allowed to seize the levers of the agencies and managed them from the fickleness of their whims. Looking at what happened in the Aviation ministry, where another super minister launched a national carrier in his head, it seems there were reasons some ministers particularly got emboldened to do certain things. 

    Also before Senator Tinubu, as he was called then, could declare his intention to run for the top position in the nation, there were some people close to him who threatened to deal with anybody at the NBC who stood on the path of their opaque businesses within the system. They were rebuffed with some level of foreboding. Another small paradox. As the owner of TV Continental (TVC), what will now be the relationship between the station and the regulator? Will the NBC have the gravitas to regulate the station and what will the President do? Will he swim in that dangerous water of conflict of interest?

    Permit me to quickly observe here that some people  who worked hard to frustrate Tinubu’s emergence as President may not have done so out of mere bile or hatred but out of fear, whether he will have the capacity to climb the moral high ground when it comes to taking hard decisions.

    Before swimming myself silly in the pond of pity, let me state the cases as they are. In the last administration, the Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, was a super minister who could do no wrong before the President, no matter how he irritated the nation. Enjoying that level of influence in a nation of over 213m people, Mohammed simply went on a roll. NBC, one of the parastatals under him, became a major victim of power-grab. All the DGs that worked under him were harassed to no end, to do things that could kill one’s joy of returning to the office the following day, while two are still facing litigation, as he maintains a sanctimonious distance. 

    He wove his way into the system which he controlled through some surrogates, while also taking control of the licensing process and produced so many licenses, some of which were merely ratified by the NBC. The NBC Act 2004 frowns at such blatant power-grab but the Commission was helpless under the last administration and nobody spoke up for them. Ironically, the Act also empowers the minister to do anything, trample on regulatory decisions if he likes. Unfortunately the ordinary  people are the ones feeling the ambivalence of such a law. 

    Mohammed declared the Digital Switchover (DSO) a cardinal programme of the Buhari government. Again, he took hold of it and completely ruined the process. He domiciled the management in the ministry and left the curators of the project in the lurch. What the President Jonathan administration did became past tense and its replacement was a pronounced spoiler. The DSO became a drainpipe from which so many hidden mouths were drinking to stupor without evidence of work done. 

    If strange things happened at the NBC, it was worse at the NCC where the Minister simply took control of all the parastatals under him with the telecoms regulator as the home ground. The Communications Act 2003 is one of the best laws of this nation, carefully crafted to shield the regulator from politicians like Dr Isa Pantami who, as Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, the digital aspect being a complete baloney to hoodwink the uninitiated, sat on the law and forced the NCC, which used to be one of the most powerful and effective regulators in the world, into a position of impotence. 

    I am not using words for their cheapness. This writer was privileged to visit different parts of the world or attend regional or global programmes with teams of the Commission. The minister was never embedded in those teams. If any was in the team, like at ITU, Mobile World Congress or any other programme in Geneva  or in other parts of the world,  he was there to represent the government in the area of policy. 

    Pantami was the real deal. He regulated the NCC from within. He took charge of the commission’s activities by filling the NCC board with surrogates and lackeys and also positioned his men in sensitive positions at the Commission, his own employees, who from all the grumblings within the system, were not working in the national interest. 

    Bad things happened at the Ministry of Communications and Digital Economy, and worse happened at the NCC. The final act was the NITDA amendment Bill which was intended to enable the little development agency swallow up the NCC. I hear some shameless senators passed that bill but was there time enough for a concurrence from the House?

    Under the instigation of a power drunk minister the senate decided to wipe the footprints of the NCC, an agency that should earn praises for single-handedly stimulating the growth of the nation’s economy from year 2001. Where were some of these senators then? 

    Herein lies the assignment for the new President. Does he have the capacity of a rebirth, to dig some of these parastatals out of the tunnel his party has plunged them? To look at some of the activities of his own party and tell Buhari, you did us wrong here? Some workers in the parastatals I mentioned prayed that the Buhari administration should come to an end, which it has. Can the President give these workers something to hope for, a tomorrow that has meaning where they can simply carry out their regulation? The answers may either give them succour or create another sorry but sustained impasse.

  • Even with technology, time outsmarts the politician – By Okoh Aihe

    Even with technology, time outsmarts the politician – By Okoh Aihe

    The ephemerality of time is one thing that gnaws the innards of the politician. If a wish list was possible in the New Year, he would ask God for time to stay still, you know, like Joshua making that great declaration for the sun to remain still right in the middle of the sky, over Gibeon, until he put the battle to rest. 

    But time is fleeting, like a wink of the eye, a constant moving machine which runs so fast, until life is by the red sand to answer the final call. Venerated poet, J.P. Clark, captured the transiency of time in the conversation between that little Child and the Bird in Streamside Exchange. “Will mother come back today? ……. Tide and market come and go/And so shall your mother.”

    Just like that. Life’s episode is gone and the child would not understand but waits expectantly. The politician would not wait, instead he would think of other means, of  time apropos the time machine and the possibility to zoom into the past and return to the present before heading into the future. Unfortunately, such a possibility belongs only in the movies. 

    In real life, time runs its normal speed, unhindered. So, when the politician makes promises and prays for the day of reckoning to be deferred, time supervenes and aborts the prayers. Which is why 2023 is here. The year could not be put on hold or on a time machine; all the promises made by the politician will now be put on a scale for proper stocktaking. 

    Talking of promises, my mind goes back to a particular one in 2016, in the early days of APC, when every little positive move was attributed to the body movement of the new government, the MInister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, went to launch the Digital Switchover (DSO) in Jos and released a bouquet of promises to a populace that was hungry to sponge up every good news. Digital Switchover is the migration from analogue television transmission to digital transmission. 

    Having sang the Buhari administration to power, the minister looked for a quick fix, something to immediately grab the people’s attention as proof that the government was working miracles. What usually is defined as low hanging fruits. The DSO was chosen. The orchestration looked perfect. Something with a little bit of razzmatazz, something that can be etched in memory and pressure the people to salivate for more. TV and its associates would do the magic.

    Jos was chosen because of the city’s long romance with television. Remember TV School and the Nigerian Film Corporation, located in the same city because of the breathtaking cinematographic environment and locations, which the constant assault of marauders has not been able to attenuate. Jos was a beckoning attraction and the government seized it with both hands.

    The optimism was high and the minister pressed the right keys to make his words sink in. 

    ”Nigeria currently has 20 million TV households, and DSO will make the country the biggest free-to-air market in Africa and indeed the world, and a host of value added services such as news, information and video on demand. Also, bandwidth will be freed up for other uses.

    “5,000 direct jobs will be created for young engineers and technicians and another 10,000 jobs from small scale entrepreneurs and technicians who will start up distribution and retail outlets throughout the 774 local government areas.

    “More creative hands will be required to create the 24/7 content needed to operate the digital television channels, thus leading to the creation and spring-up of new TV content producers and artists. The DSO will also allow Nollywood producers to monetise their movies directly to 20 Million TV households in Nigeria at the same time, and this will solve the problem of distribution and piracy,” the minister told his excited gathering in Jos. 

    For the ITU Region-1,  which includes Europe, Africa, the Middle East, Central Asia and the Islamic Republic of Iran, the DSO process began on July 17, 2006, according to an agreement at the  Regional Radio Communications Conference in Geneva. It was scheduled to end on June 17, 2015, for the UHF Band, with a five year extension for the VHF Band (174 -230MHz) July 17, 2020, in some countries.

    The country had reasons to hope. The DSO would free up frequencies that would be monetised by the telecoms regulator, the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), who would make more money for the nation. 

    But wishes can go up in smokes. The country’s DSO plan fell flat on the face. A ministerial committee was set up to override the presidential committee that had been put in place by former president, Dr Goodluck Jonathan. The implementing agency, the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC), was overwhelmed by superior powers, and then started to limp from one controversy to another. Money became an issue, a very big issue. Some approvals that were made suddenly got vaporised. It might be easier to track a dissolving piece of sugar in the mouth than tracking how all that money went.

    The final report is that in nearly eight years of this administration, DSO has only been flagged off in about eight states, and signal coverage in each state is not more than a quarter. Remember, the world has since moved on. But here is the question, what will the minister write in his handover notes concerning the DSO? Will he include all the hidden hands that collected the budgetary approval by the government for the project?

    Here is another low hanging fruit, something that binds with a spell. After nearly all  the legacy projects in the telecommunications industry had been decimated by a minister who saw himself more as the regulator than a minister who should give policy direction, there was a sudden burst of inspiration for the regulator, the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), to auction two Lots of 100MHz in the 3.5GHz spectrum band, which is used for 5G technology.

    Again the song was waxed: the nation will make money; there will be pervasive broadband all over the nation; businesses will thrive and e-everything will flourish in the country. Everybody loves a good song, especially if it brings hope. 

    Three Lots of 100MHz have been successfully auctioned since December 2021, one Lot each to MTN and Mafab, valued at $547, 000, 000 for the two, while another was successfully sold last December at the Reserve Price of $273, 600, 000 to Airtel, which had buckled at a point during the auction in 2021. 

    The other day, the President bragged a little when he said that the government had raised $547, 000, 000 from fifth generation (5G) spectrum auction. The coordinates weren’t totally right because if you add the $273, 600, 000 of last December, the amount would be much higher. Was that a mathematical oversight or simply because the last auction hasn’t been fully paid up yet? 

    Whatever it is, money has gotten to the government, even President Buhari has acknowledged receipt. What does that mean to the ordinary folk on the street? Not much really. Under this administration the telecoms industry has taken a dive, services remain poor, service gaps are popping up more regularly, availability of ubiquitous broadband is better illustrated by the frustration on the faces of those who try to conduct electronic transactions, or do a transfer in the bank and had to sit out until acknowledgment from the other end. Life has become a drag and sustained frustration. 

    But this is 2023, farway from 2015. Political promises are coming home to roost in so short a time. Politicians are pleading for a deferment of a shocking reality check in order to protect their balloon of lies. Tide and market come and go, and so is the era of this government that is bound to record an inglorious documentation at the exit gate. 

  • A government and a regulator in difficult placement – By Okoh Aihe

    A government and a regulator in difficult placement – By Okoh Aihe

    A government should be concerned about demonstrable proof of performance, what the political savvy would call the dividends of democracy, for it to earn sustainability into the future. But where there are evidential reasons making performance impossible, the government should, at least, maintain structures inherited.

    This government does not enjoy this credit at the moment. What is most visible to the eyes is that everything is down to where they call rock-bottom. Life has become a nightmare and there is hardly anything reflective of a global standard. The government has created a demeaning standard for the nation and, if anything, they would wish for a homogenised lobotomy of the citizenry so that their failures and misdeeds would be clearly forgotten. Except there is supervening health challenges, the human brain hardly forgets, not when the body suffered the impairment of a failed system. The record books will be opened at some point and performance metrics released for all to see.

    Today, I will take a little strand of this administration by way of demonstrating how the the government undermines things that used to hold value for the people, including institutions. The National Broadcasting Commission (NBC) came into existence on August 4, 1992. Decree 38 which gave birth to the regulator under the Gen. Ibrahim Babangida (rtd) administration, also charged it with the responsibility of introducing private broadcasting into the broadcast ecosystem, thereby permanently removing broadcast operations from the stranglehold of the various governments – Federal and States.  Such audacious decision by a military government has witnessed the birth of  a plurality of stations of different genres – radio, TV and DSTV – to the nation. Beyond expectations the stations, some of them very successful, have provided robust alternatives in terms of content and technology, that have proven difficult for government stations to rival.

    The NBC was an elite regulatory institution which initially had far better prospects than its other peer, the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) until Engr Ernest Ndukwe turned things around for the latter from the year 2000. Under the various administrations, including some tough military rulers, the NBC did not only survive but it has also done very well, leaving quite an attractive legacy.

    Painfully the regulator has faced serious challenges in recent times. It is mired in unnecessary controversies and litigations while its authority over the broadcast industry has come under serious scrutiny. The legacy is threatened and people are  saying a prayer for its survival.

    Oh, the situation is not so bad? Let’s stimulate our memory. About a week before the NBC would hit the nation with surprise withdrawal of 53 licences because of inability to pay license fees, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, the Minister of Information and culture, while speaking at an MOU signing ceremony between Integrated Television Service Ltd (ITS) and NTA-Star Times had said that other broadcast stations in the country would soon be directed to migrate to the platform of ITS for signal distribution. For a start, GOTV would be asked to migrate immediately.

    That sounded right and quite something to celebrate except that such directive would be too perfunctory to be reasonable. Just a little history in addition to the one we already started would do. ITS and Pinnacle Nigeria Limited were licensed by the NBC as super signal carriers to play lead role in the Digital Switch Over (DSO) exercise in Nigeria. It means that ITS and Pinnacle would provide the digital platforms to carry broadcast signals for other operators anywhere in the country. The operators would direct their efforts and resources to content generation. Good intentions but the climb to the top of an iroko tree is not a very simple one, so goes the saying among my people.

    The readers of this column would attest to the fact that I am an apostle of the DSO exercise in Nigeria and would wish that the process succeeded from the day the first launch took place in Jos in April 2016. That has not happened as Nigeria lives outside the window of implementation, having missed the target twice, 2015 and 2020.

    The DSO was a cardinal programme for this administration which the Minister said was prioritised because of its multi-pronged capacity to generate jobs and reflate an economy that seriously needed help. Few months to the end of a government that has run the nation aground, Mohammed wants to embark on knee-jerk decision to fast track the process: direct GOTV and other stations to go on the platform of ITS. One other thing however, GOTV has a Digital Terrestrial Television (DTT) license which will run out in a couple of years.

    Let this be stated. The Minister cannot force any station to take a business decision especially with the availability of choices. The broadcasters may be more interested in taking a ride with Pinnacle. Unfortunately, not even ITS and Pinnacle have the capacity to embark on reasonable signals carriage at the moment.

    Following the position of the Minister, Nigeria may at last be trying to fit the engine of a Formula 1 race car into a very small Volkswagen Golf car. Reason being that while ITS and Pinnacle have points of presence only in about seven states of the federation, GOTV has facilities in about seventeen states of the federation. The other broadcasters – AIT, TVC and Channels, among others, even have more. There is an observation here we have refused to make which is nothing but a positive.

    A significant development last week was the decision of the Federal High Court in Lagos which stopped President Mohammadu Buhari and the NBC from revoking the licenses of 53 operators for their failure to pay their renewal fees. It was an interim injunction granted to the Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP) and Nigerian Guild of Editors (NGE); in the case before Honourable Justice Akintayo Aluko.

    It was the third case against the NBC just within months. In May, a Federal High Court in Lagos thrashed the 6th Edition of the Nigeria Broadcast Code for being ultra vires, incompetent null and void, and perpetually restrained the Commission from implementing it. In July, an Appeal Court sitting in Port Harcourt asked the NBC to make a determination in the programming sublicensing complaint between Multichoice and Metro Digital Licensing within 21 days. I will want to state here that I am yet unaware of a resolution of this particular case. There are many more ongoing litigations.

    The irony in the foregoing however, is that each case is self-inflicted. The nullification of the Code was consequent upon the discontent some people felt about the manipulation of the amendment. There can be ample evidence that some very powerful forces involved in the process had some conflict of interest they tried to service. The Metro case also emanated from some flaws in the Code, where one operator would try to build a business on the sweat of another organisation because the amended Code gives him the latitude to make a demand.

    I have been asked the question, whether the broadcasters were not supposed to pay their license renewal fees. My tacit answer is: yes they must pay. However the handling was like a fellow taking home firewood infested with ants: messy. There were so many ways to handle that regulatory process without attracting litigation. After all, I have seen a copy of the letter of appreciation the NBC sent to some operators after a presumed settlement, it didn’t seem the quarrel was to the death. So, what happened?

    Here are my observations, including the positive earlier speculated. The DSO is not making meaningful progress. Time has come for the Ministry and regulator to drop all latent personal interests, call a stakeholders crisis resolution meeting, and tap into the capacity available in the industry.

    The NBC must look for a way to enjoy some independence as a regulator because the walls have ears, as they say. People are aware of some of the drama that played out before the list of debtors was released. Most of the workers there are technically competent. They should be allowed to do their job without encumbrances. And finally, the NBC Act must be amended if the broadcast industry is to have a future.

  • NIN/SIM registration and DSO: Two significant projects on a cliff – By Okoh Aihe

    NIN/SIM registration and DSO: Two significant projects on a cliff – By Okoh Aihe

    Two significant projects of the Nigerian government hang on a cliff at the moment. The NIN/SIM registration which was supposed to be a 15-day quick walk in December 2020 has spiralled into the second year and current measures being taken to bring the process to conclusion are only indicative of desperation on the part of the government.

    Also the Digital Switchover (DSO) process which was intended to migrate Analogue television transmission to Digital platform as a major decision of the International Telecommunications Union (ITU),to free up some broadcast frequencies for telecommunications services, seems jinxed, and current actions in the broadcast industry may not be fully redeeming for the process.

    But it was some happenings in the broadcast sector that set my mind on a whirl over the weekend. As I write this material, some stations have received letters from the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC), requesting them to vacate their frequencies and migrate to the digital platforms of the signal carriers, ITS and Pinnacle. Some 119 countries in Europe, Africa, Middle East and Central Asia, under the ITU, announced the process in 2006 and a closure was expected in 2015; and then 2020. Nigeria missed both windows and there is yet no window of comfort for the entire process.

    My primary concern was that the Nigerian government should not trigger confusion in two strategic industries at the same time as the effects could be lasting and very debilitating to the socio-political process. Recently, the Government, through the Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Dr Isa Pantami, directed telecommunications service providers to unplug all the phone lines that have not been synced with their NINs from their networks. Over 80m lines out of the nearly 198m lines in Nigeria by the end of February this year, according to the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), have been affected. There is an underlying confusion in the industry whose understanding eludes everybody, or nobody simply wants to talk about it because of it’s very sensitive nature. More confusion could arise were the government, through the NBC, pressure broadcasters to vacate their frequencies and move over to digital platforms that are really not ready in every sense of the word.

    This writer was reliably informed that the position of the NBC may not enjoy any support from the broadcasters, under the Broadcasting Organisation of Nigeria (BON) who vehemently maintains the position that nothing much has happened in the DSO process to warrant such directive. Although the NBC has launched the programme in a few states of the federation, the broadcasters contend none of the states enjoy up to 85 per cent signal coverage, thus making analogue switch off illusory.

    However, the NBC maintains the position that a switch off in some of these states will bring commercial activities to the process as TV homes would now be forced to buy Set Top boxes from the manufacturers in order to continue to receive signals. The small Set Top box will help convert analogue signals to digital. While this position remains valid, the regulator has been encouraged to first redeem the entire process through noticeable strategic decisions and actions before pressing for commerce. Friends of the industry are pushing for a common understanding between the regulator and operators in order to provide good services to TV users.

    Happenings in the telecommunications industry are more troubling, very troubling. The withdrawal of over 80m lines from operators’ platforms have not only disoriented phone users from their routine life of communications but the action may also have put financial projections by the providers in jeopardy. But since registration has been ongoing for over a year and there are security dimensions to the entire process, the right to complain has nearly been abridged, as nobody wants to be accused of been complicit in the security miasma spreading through the land. Moreover, nobody wants to smell the scent of money or even think of revenue projections when lives are being epidemically terminated.

    But there is a truth that nearly everybody involved in the process is anxious to sweep under the carpet for a hiding or wish would never come to light forever. That truth comes with troubling implications for personal identity safety or for National security in the long run. The disconnection of nearly a third of the lines on the networks is not the fault of the operators but that of the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) which lacks the capacity to undertake the exercise on a massive scale. Discussions at their various meetings, this writer finds out, clearly point to the intrusion of that painful deficit. For instance, NIMC is charged with the final verification of every subscriber, but it could take the organisation three weeks to get back to the operators on a single verification. For this reason, the process of getting the 80m lines back on the networks is progressing at snail speed.

    This writer gathered that the NIMC platform is so small that it can hardly accommodate activities from the operators. The result is that the platform regularly breaks down. The other is that it has proven herculian for NIMC to format and integrate about 90,000 devices, including fingerprint scanners, which the operators bought to support the registration exercise across the nation. At the moment only about 10 per cent has been configured on the NIMC network.

    The frustration in the registration process is so overwhelming that the Minister and NIMC have decided to engage a third party to provide Tokenisation as a stop gap for individuals who are in the registration process. The Token will last for about three days. The individuals will have to pay a flat sum of N250 for the Token. Don’t ask me about the owner of the money being collected. This is what unnerves me. The organisation providing the Token will have to mirror the NIMC NETWORK. The troubling implication is that individual identities that should be in the safekeep of NIMC have been put in the hands of an individual or organisation who could be complicit in the security challenges facing the country.

    Yes, the nation is in search of solutions but doing so in the deep or in the dark, dark world.

    Looking at the two exercises, an industry expert provided a damning summary. “Some individuals have put a chain of commercial interests in projects that are supposed to be populist. They are already calculating profits from ill-conceived ideas,” the source lamented.

    The source challenged me to figure something out. NIMC doesn’t have capacity, yet it wants to offer paid training to the network operators and wants the operators to pay for the software in their devices; they even want to collect money for Tokens, while the DSO managers have all kinds of costs built into the value chain. Why does money occupy such a central place in the two projects?

    I did not have an answer but here is my considered response on a second thought. The two projects are so vital to the nation that the promoters don’t need to erect pecuniary roadblocks on the implementation route. All eyes should be on the implementation outcomes and how they benefit the people.

  • DSO: Nigeria goes to Egypt for help – By Okoh Aihe

    DSO: Nigeria goes to Egypt for help – By Okoh Aihe

    By Okoh Aihe

    In my neck of the wood the snake is not a likeable animal at all; not just that it crawls on its belly to its eternal shame but more of its subtlety and venomous wickedness. Twice I was an unfortunate victim of its wickedness. The first nearly left me blind. The second with a crooked finger. So, when you see the snake, especially around the home, there is nothing about cruelty to animals, it’s either the snake goes or you go. In that situation it is not who kills the snake, man or woman, that matters, the expected result is for the snake to die. Desperation.

    More in the similitude of a fight in the ring getting rough and deadly, you throw the punches with both hands, even with eyes shut. All that is important is to fight yourself out of trouble. Desperation.

    As I read the story of the a Nigerian team going down to Egypt to seek help for the implementation of the Digital Switchover (DSO) programme, never mind what the scriptures say about those who go down to Egypt for help in Isaiah 31:1 (Woe to those who go down to Egypt for help), my only wish was for the ultimate result to come, no matter the jurisdiction it would come from.

    The journey from analogue transmission to digital commenced in 2006 as per decision taken by the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), and was pegged to end in 2015, although each jurisdiction and country was encouraged to choose its speed but the journey had that termination date.

    However, Nigeria has not been very fortunate with the process. 2015 wasn’t a reality and 2020 was also sadly missed. And now the country is at that point where desperation creeps in. Desperation. You can now begin to understand the journey to Egypt. Desperation.

    This administration made it a programme of choice to be implemented because of the overwhelming advantages including its capacity to unleash job opportunities and also affect the financial fortunes of the country. Migrating analogue to digital means that broadcasters would have to vacate some spectrums which would then be sold for huge amounts for telecommunications services.

    But first thing first. There must be a migration away from the analogue system of transmission for the nation to have open access to the funds at the end of the tunnel. For a nation that has not been creative in so many fields of endeavour, compelling it to hang perilously to only a major source of funds – crude oil – which is not even refined in the country any way, it is very little surprise that Nigeria has not been able to pry intricate opportunities open, including opportunities from digital migration.

    So we pass the buck without wanting to be involved in processes that will challenge the intellect. In Nigeria the DSO should be implemented by the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC), with policy support from the Ministry of Information and Culture. During the President Goodluck Jonathan administration, the NBC was the arrowhead of implementation. But not any more. The Ministry has taken over now and it has been behind the force of movement or DSO launches we have seen in parts of the country.

    From all indications there are serious challenges. The journey to Egypt was to source for funds from the African Import-Export Bank (Afreximbank). The team was led by the Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, whose efforts at pushing the project was keenly acknowledged by the President of the Bank, Benedict Oramah. The Minister rehearsed some of the progress made in the DSO programme in Nigeria and also stated that at the moment, financial requirement was putting a drag on the speed.

    The financial request of $165m was placed on the table by Godfrey Ohuabunwa, Chairman, Set Top Box Manufacturers Association of Nigeria. The amount is broken down in the following order: $125m for Set Top Boxes, $30m for signal distributors and $10m for marketing and promotion.

    It is gladdening to know that Afreximbank’s Oramah promised to help build a support package for Nigeria and then use the country’s template to assist other African countries who are struggling with the DSO programme.

    It is worth observing that the trip to Egypt is a clear indication that action has not completely stopped in pushing the DSO programme and even more heartwarming that there was a ready heart willing to give a helping hand. But this has not put paid to the desperation that is becoming palpable.

    Last time the NBC got money for DSO, it was a one-time approval of N9.4bn by the Federal Executive Council (FEC) for legacy debts in order to rescue the entire programme or transition from looming collapse. This was in February 10, 2021.

    There seems to be something very wrong with our style of implementation and this may not be the fault of the NBC. This explains why in spite of a rippling motion, there is hardly any tangible headway forward.

    Look at it this way. Before the ITU decision in 2006, the city of Berlin initiated the first switchover in 2003. Luxembourg, which you may call a very small country in Europe, was the first country to do a complete switchover in September 2006. An industry source told this writer within the week that Ghana, Kenya and Tanzania have made more progress in the DSO programme than Nigeria.

    Is the NBC getting the needed support from other arms of government apart from the apparent lordship of a supervising minister? For the DSO to gain traction in America, the Congress got fully involved, making all the necessary laws and fund approval for the programme to sail smoothly. When there were three setbacks in December 2008, February 2009, and finally June 2009, the Congress was in the picture and played its role completely. Is the National Assembly of Nigeria so involved in the process that the last fund approval was made by FEC? The DSO is an important project; why is it left for the NBC to carry with its arms tied behind? Why is it so difficult for us as a people to get into situations that would challenge the intellect or demand rigorous interrogation?

    An industry source has advised that we must change the method of implementation and decide whether to go full digital or not. “We are still essentially transmitting analogue in Nigeria because everywhere they have a DSO launch in Nigeria, they equate a city to a state.” The source frowned at this development, arguing that the fact that a launch was done in central Lagos or Kano city does not mean the whole of the state has been covered.

    My source who is highly knowledgeable in the industry suggested a retooling of the entire process which would require the NBC to cover a state completely, do a switchover from analogue to digital, before heading for another state. It will then be possible to create a switchover map which the NBC can follow diligently and rescue the programme from a near state of anarchy. And stop desperation!