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Tag: Okoh Aihe

  • NBC and NCC, what manner of template for the Buhari administration? – By Okoh Aihe

    NBC and NCC, what manner of template for the Buhari administration? – By Okoh Aihe

    The dissolution of the boards of government parastatals, agencies and companies the other day by the new government may have sent so many messages. But two of them I can relate to immediately. One, that the government is trying to create  opportunities for a new set of people to dine on the table. Two, and which is more ennobling, is that this government is serious enough to wear a bold face and clean the Augean stables of all its filthiness and shame. 

    I am at an intersection here that is not too enviable, trapped between the two extreme ends. I am old enough to know that no matter the drive of the new administration, there must be some hardened hearts who will dig in to eat and chop. After all, the previous government came with the mantra of anti corruption but left the country in total bewilderment, as many can testify today that corruption has never been this blatant in the land or so devastating on the people, with so many plunged into multidimensional poverty, as a new set of people exhibit the odious manifestations of new arriviste. 

    However, I stay more with the fact that the Augean stables need serious cleaning for the rebuilding process of the nation to begin. And so many people do agree with me on this. Because, discussing this matter of cleansing the other day, an old friend of mine simply directed my attention to one of the most important ministries in this nation. Go there and carry out a little conversation with the workers and you will begin to see the depth of rot the previous government plunged the nation into in just eight years. 

    It is eye-catching that the new administration has decided to start from the superficialities, the low hanging fruits in the system; in the main, the boards of  parastatals and agencies peopled by politicians, most of whom are so unprincipled that in whatever capacity they find accommodation, they serve as virus to destroy the system. Without mincing words they destroyed the system under the Buhari administration . 

    Without any sampling done yet, this writer can state here, based on the information at his disposal from two organisations, the National Broadcasting Organisation (NBC) and the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), that membership of the boards under the previous administration were so badly constituted and so badly run, that a careful appraisal needs to be carried so that the nation does not go that opprobrious route again. 

    Ironically, these agencies did have great boards in the past which set them on the path to greatness. Under Dr Tom Adaba, pioneer Director General of the National Broadcasting Commission, Mr Peter Enahoro, who just passed recently, as board chairman, provided great leadership that helped establish a sure foundation for the broadcast regulator and the industry.

    With Engr Ernest Ndukwe as the Executive Vice Chairman of the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), the late Ahmed Joda, who headed the board of the Commission, provided the needed leadership by a fledgling organisation to gain traction. Both the NBC and the NCC were so firmly established that no matter the sustained assault on their roots, they have refused to succumb to the greed of politicians. Unfortunately, their resistance is failing. 

    The difference between the past and the present is that the laws were allowed to operate in the past while the politicians of today stamped on power with absolute ferocity. Look at the irony. The soldiers allowed Decree 38 of 1992, now the National Broadcasting Commission Act CAP N11 2004, to work even in the appointment of the board, while the civilian administration of 1999 allowed the Nigerian Communications Act to work, which Act was indeed reviewed in 2003. Both laws are very clear on who to appoint to the board. Unfortunately, the laws made no sense to the Buhari variant of politicians. Board members were appointed arbitrarily and without recourse to the laws and the consequential effects will last us adversely for a very long time. 

    Sample this. A source told this writer that in one of those moments, former Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, engaged in what would seem an exhilarating moment of valedictory peroration when he told the story of how he cobbled together the board of the NBC. Perhaps enjoying a  flash of roguish satisfaction, Mohammed told his captive audience of the NBC how he appointed the 

    members. Bashir Omolaja Bolarinwa, the board chairman, was the factional leader of his party, APC, in Kwara State. Some other members were from the same Kwara State, while one member was his classmate at the Law School, which, according to him, they attended in old age. A particular member was abroad, attending meetings virtually. 

    Yet everything was done in the name of the President. That was the headline in the newspapers: Buhari appoints Bolarinwa as new chairman of the NBC board. You may need to look at the Act under Composition of the Commission and what the Act says in Section 3(2). 

    With the board headed by a proxy, anything could go wrong, and they did  go wrong – finances, administration, employment and just anything you could think about. Regulatory independence was lost completely. At some point, the Independent Corrupt Practices and other Related Offences Commission ( ICPC) had to move in to stop the financial muddling and drain at the NBC. 

    At the Nigerian Communications Commission, the Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Dr Isa Pantami, sacked a respected board chairman, Senator Olabiyi Durojaiye of blessed memory, in order to pave way for his minnows and lackeys. The minister moved former board chairman of NITDA, Prof Adeolu Akande, to the NCC as the chairman of the board, and also appointed all kinds of people that couldn’t look him in the face, in order to have full control of the Commission. He then got on the driving seat and drove the Commission the way he liked with the conniving acquiescence of some characters in the Presidential Villa. The strong organisation the administration met was bedraggled with unrestrained power exhibition and plain villainy and pillaging. This is totally at variance with Section 5 of the Communications Act 2003.

    It is no coincidence that the same template was implemented at the two agencies that were once powerful. Is this what happened in the other agencies, parastatals and government companies under the Buhari administration? Could the ministers have been governments unto themselves, doing things without restraint and recourse to higher authorities? So, what happens next, sweep the malfeasance under the carpet and pretend nothing happened? 

    If the new government must hear, let the officials know that there is no joy yet in some of the parastatals and government agencies. They are aware that some of these highly placed officials who did them in are trying to make their way back, and are praying fervently that the government must act urgently to protect them and punish those who, through their villainy, imposed smallness and impotence on the agencies. 

    Dokpesi: Epilogue

    The journey starts here, At this juncture, Where the good is not interred/ The journey starts here, In the memory of his presence, Where he told a devoted protege, The other day, During a visitation/ “From this moment, you People will talk, And I will listen.”/The journey starts here, From this moment, Raypower and AIT will talk. The world will Hear them/ And Dr Raymond Aleogho Dokpesi will listen, knowing the journey starts here/ The journey starts here, The end is only the beginning, For Raymond Aleogho Dokpesi.

  • Dokpesi: A broadcast exponent stages a final show – By Okoh Aihe

    Dokpesi: A broadcast exponent stages a final show – By Okoh Aihe

    Today, Dr Raymond Aleogho Dokpesi will return to Agenebode with his friends. The big boys who have been with him most of his life, the crème de la crème  of the society with the incandescent stars, the ordinary folks of the society for whom he had so much love, having struggled up from extreme poverty himself, his professional colleagues – the marine engineers and broadcasters, who cheered him on as he broke new grounds for their industries, and the Dokpesi family, which is quite large; they will gather in Agenebode for a grand exit party that will do their son good.

    I don’t know whether Sunny Ade will be there, the grand musician with electric feet and even electric fingers as he commands the guitar into entertaining obedience. He loves Jimmy Cliff too and remains one of his early friends as well. Agenebode will receive big people from government, businesses and even the entertainment industry, such as had never been witnessed in the history of that beautiful town by the River Niger,  in honour of a son that has planted their name firmly on the global map.

    Dokpesi is a city boy with a voluminous appetite for hard work, big parties and beautiful women. Except that after this particular party, he will not be returning to the city with his friends. Reason: he has been apotheosised and now lives in a different realm of the cosmos.

    The auguries made a mistake in failing to announce the birth of a son that would change the world. Although Ibadan was already growing into a big city when he was born on October 25, 1951, the mother, Aishetu didn’t have the privilege of running to a hospital but at the back of their small home where she had had most of her other children, all female. It was a very lowly birth but which came with a lot of joy for the family.

    Perhaps that is the way they come, the children that will change the world. Over two thousand years ago, when Jesus came into the world through Bethlehem, Judea, there was no place for him in the inn but had to be properly wrapped and placed in a manger, or a sheep hold, for convenient explanation. Yet, his doctrine changed the world.

    Dokpesi had the mind to change the world. Growing up was painful. The small body was wracked by a mysterious ailment and tomorrow was kept in forlorness. His mother Aishetu ate pain and sorrow as daily meals. Watching her very closely and the pain his birth had imposed on the family, Dokpesi chose hope  very early in life, hope painted in colours that elicit great pictures for a better tomorrow. He offered to be The Handkerchief that will wipe the sweat of the sorrowing and eventually grew to become the Araba that shelters all.

    It was a great choice that has helped him conquer fear and several heights in various fields of endeavour. That is why his star friends are accompanying him home today because there is an opportunity for one last party, for the galaxy to flaunt its stars.

    Dokpesi’s background did not deter his determination, instead it is his determination that came through very forcefully as a testament to the sterner stuff ingrained in him. Good grades in the secondary school in Nigeria, academic records from graduate to doctoral level in Poland, funded through a government scholarship. And the world at his feet. He was in a hurry to live life and achieve results.

    Those who don’t know him say, he is lucky. Others envy his success and try to persecute him, according to the people’s lawyer, Prof Mike Ozekhome (SAN), in Dokpesi’s authorised biography, The Handkerchief.

    But Dokpesi fought for everything in his life and gave the very picture of a man who perhaps may not feel pain even if you use his head to break a coconut, as they say in   my part of the world. Everyday of his life, he behaved like a stunt man in a movie, except that his actions were deliberate and very calculated to achieve expected outcomes.

    Until his biography was published over a year ago,  when he was 70, so many people didn’t know how old he was, because Dokpesi has been part of the nation’s narrative for a very long time. He had built a perfect strategy matched with street sense in relating with the authorities, including the big boys in the society, without forgetting the ordinary folks.

    Dokpesi had a mind for all,  and the humility to relate with people irrespective of class and age. The other day, my son placed a call to me and I told him I was at a meeting with Chairman Emeritus. Who? Mr Dokpesi? Let me talk to him. That is how they called him, all my children; for them not the niceties or the anachronism of High Chief. No. Simply Mr. And he enjoyed it all, speaking to a young man in his early twenties like his age mate or business partner. And he gave very candid advise that the boy will live with all the days of his life.

    Please, forgive the digression. Dokpesi loved the scent of history. After an historical participation in politics in the old Gongola State in 1983, where he was Chief of Staff to Alhaji Bamanga Tukur, the first ever for a non native anywhere in the country, he put together a stellar cast of characters in the persons of Late Major Gen. Musa Yar’Adua, MKO Abiola and Bamanga Tukur, the only living of the daring quartet, to float the first indigenous shipping company in Nigeria, the African Ocean Line, which was very successful until the economy of the nation started to go burst.

    However what seems to be his payoff line now is his frontline role in promoting private broadcasting enterprise in the country. Never one to witness any relapse or dull moment in his life, when broadcasting was deregulated in 1992 by the military government under Gen. Ibrahim Babangida, Dokpesi became one of the first licensees and by September 1, 1994, launched what many would recall as the most beautiful broadcast signals in the country. Raypower 100.5, with Raypower eventually becoming his moniker,  was launched. Twenty Four hour broadcasting was born. History confirmed and cemented. Since then, it was one man competing against himself, breaking all available records. Africa Independent Television (AIT) followed, and then FAAJI Fm. AIT International was launched in New York in the first tenure of former President Olusegun Obasanjo, where both Dokpesi and the Nigerian President boasted at the venue, Grand Hyatt, that time had come for the world to hear from Nigeria in a reordering of a new information order that will radiate from the African continent.

    Dokpesi was a bold and courageous man, moving with the strength of a raging bull and crushing everything on his part. He never held anything back from the people, but instead, spread his investments across the nation, from east to west and from north to south. Whether in Gombe, Katsina, Oshogbo, Port Harcourt, Calabar, Bayelsa, Edo, his native state, Dokpesi maintained a point of presence, ingratiating himself to the people with his audacious investments.

    He built Lagos, Port Harcourt and Abuja to be the hub of his operations and, my God, the power of broadcasting transformed those immediate environments, with Alagbado in Lagos and Kpaduma Hills in Abuja as clear evidence of property value.

    There is a story we know. President Goodluck Jonathan who handed over to President Buhari reaffirmed that story at the Day of Tributes for Dokpesi in Abuja on Monday. He told the gathering that when Nigeria, under President Musa Yar’Adua buckled from hosting the FIFA Age World Cup in 2009 because of cost, Dokpesi came to him with an alternative proposal which saved the nation from global opprobrium.

    Daar Communications hosted the FIFA World Cup for Nigeria, for which the previous administration would nearly demolish him for collecting money from the government without procurement. The Buhari government lost the case in court.

    Dokpesi’s boldness brought him trouble. He was always marked for demolition for his beliefs, his politics and audacity. His stations were burnt many times. He dodged assassins’ bullets and, in one of those attempts, his head driver, Danladi, was killed in a hail of bullets at Alagbado, Lagos. Some say Dokpesi was a cat with nine lives, but almost every day, he mocked death. Only a few years back when he was to undergo a major surgery in the United Kingdom for an ailment related to cancer, the surgery was halted because the Nigerian government under Buhari had seized the money he transferred to the UK hospital. The money was resting in Emefiele’s Central Bank while Dokpesi was primed for death.

    But God always comes true for the poor and the harassed. An Angel came in the form of a Good Samaritan who made immediate alternative arrangements in Dubai. Dokpesi survived the conspiracy to kill him in the hospital and much later would also frustrate their conspiracy to jail him. Thanks to good lawyers and a bold judiciary.

    I can say now with every information at my disposal that those who hate him are few, very few. Since his apotheosis, there  has been an overwhelming flow of love from within Nigeria and across the nations of the world, even across party lines, if you were to measure the way that some Nigerians bury their lives in politics.

    The National Burial Committee headed by Senator Ben Obi has demonstrated overwhelming love and commitment to a friend and brother. Nigerians who came to the International Conference Centre in Abuja for the Day of Tributes, have also poured out their love for a patriot whose transition to glory is only a promotion to a supervisory position in the spirit realm.

    Dokpesi left us a stunning parting gift. I was fortunate to be the first guest in News 24 Studio on Monday during the tributes. Sitting at a corner of that massive studio, with the entire surrounding wall cybernised and smart, except for the entrance door, and his bold pictures bearing down on me all around from the video walls, I wondered at the vision of a man who lived ahead  of his time, and I simply melted. News 24 Studio is a befitting and lasting testimony to the beauty of deregulated broadcasting.

    Dokpesi dreamed too big. Whether in shipping, broadcasting, business, politics and social commitment to the people, he was generations ahead of us all. In our smallness and inability to understand him, we bore  him a grudge and hated him to the extent of putting him on demolition line. May God forgive us and keep his voice and peace in perpetuity.

    Okoh Aihe is a coauthor of the authorised biography of Chief Raymond Dokpesi, The Handkerchief.

  • Before a former minister returns to the ministry – By Okoh Aihe

    Before a former minister returns to the ministry – By Okoh Aihe

    An industry source called the other day to ask one troubling question: did you hear anything? I hear things all the time was my riposte. It will be an unfortunate disservice to over three decades in the journalism profession if I don’t hear things.

    Oh, this is about Dr. Isa Pantami, former Minister of Communications and Digital Economy. He doesn’t want to leave the Ministry or its parastatals. He is plotting a return.

    Hey! You can’t quarrel with that. Dr Pantami can take any action that excites his body. After all, he is a politician. And Nigerian politicians are known to be very restless, like locusts, which is why they move from one party to another once they sense any impending moment of dullness or a dip in the expected returns on political investment. Pantami is obviously too exciteable to accommodate any dullness.

    Whether out of excitement, enthusiasm or even overzealousness, Pantami swept into the ministry with gusto and began to initiate series of actions that would reverberate in the entire telecommunications industry. Actions in the industry, whether by the Ministry or the regulator, are weighed on the strength of the Communiications Act 2003, which can unquestionably be described as the Bible of telecommunications.

    Under his watch the Nigerian Communications Communications Commission (NCC) conducted two 5G auctions in the 3.5GHz band and raked in over $800m. That was a good harvest, something extraordinary that the Buhari government would always gloat over.

    In spite of the preceding observation, the minister does not  have the good luck to enjoy the kind of cover which the NBC Act Cap N11 2004, gives the counterpart in Section 6, to the effect, that the minister can give any general direction that can override any regulatory decision of the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC). Instead the Communications Act 2003 shields the Nigerian Communications Commission from every external encumbrance and restricts the minister and his ministry to the areas of policy.

    This could be the reason some of the actions of the minister at the Communications and Digital Economy ministry didn’t seem to ingratiate him to the industry irrespective of his claims of achievements. He came in a blaze and left in a welter of furore. On being appointed minister in August 2019, Pantami immediately moved into the regulator’s property at Mbora, Abuja. This was too close for comfort. The regulator’s peace had been traduced and uncertainty would soon envelope the regulator that used to be the pride of the nation and even the continent.

    The minister started to exert undue influence on the regulator by way of regulatory capture. All of a sudden, there was a rash and indiscriminate employment at the NCC. Could the minister have gotten too close to know that there was staffing need at the NCC and decided to help solve the problem?  Employment used to be planned at the NCC like procurement, methodical and diligent, and only available for some of the best in the land.

    This time there was a deluge of employment without respect for the principles of the Federal Character Commission. Most of the people recruited were spirited into zonal offices where their employment would never really be accounted for. The nominal roll spiralled from less than 800 in 2019 to over 1600 in 2023. Some people call what happened at the NCC a big employment scam. But I wouldn’t be that harsh. The regulator came under so much pressure that it forgot it’s indenpence enshrined in the Act or lost the scent of its corporate culture.

    For instance, the minister claimed to have been given approval by former President Muhammadu Buhari to employ three directors. Profs. Salahu Balarabe Junaid and Aminu Ahmad were employed as NCC directors. Perhaps they were part of his technical team but it broke the norm. Why were they not employed as Ministry staff? In the past, NCC staff were seconded to the ministers for all necessary technical  support, people with competences in various fields of communications.

    Furthermore, as a proof of the obtuse recruitment at the Commission in the past few years, a promotion exercise carried out by the regulator early this year, had all 15 Senior Officers (GL9) that were promoted come from a section of the country. Insiders even nailed  it down to a couple of states in that part of the country. Some workers at the Commission said that was a very strange development and traced it to external pressure.

    Pantami’s tenure at the ministry destroyed peace and long existing camaraderie at the NCC and sowed discord, distrust and suspicion among the staff. Some workers were given positions of advantage and all of sudden they began to themselves as products of sections of the country instead of the harmony that used to be among them. They were no longer part of the knitted whole.

    In a particular instance, the minister wrote to the President early in the year and prayed that a particular position at the Universal Service Provision Fund (USPF) be indemnified in the name of one person, until this person retires. I can testify that the person in the position is a good man, a very good, affable guy. I don’t think that such indemnity is what he yearns for. No. Not at all. But  I also want to say that good souls can buckle under sustained pressure.

    Although the minister is the USP Board chairman with the executive vice chairman of the NCC as vice, he does not have the support of the Communications Act 2003, from Sections 112 to 120 to canvass such request or validate such appointment.

    To support his prayer, the   minister  made reference to a certain section of the Act in his memo to the President late December. Beyond the Act, this is what Section 23 of the Universal Access and Universal Service Regulation 2007, says: The Commission shall appoint an individual person to serve as the head of the USP Secretariat ( the USP Secretary ) who shall be responsible for the day to day operations of the secretariat. The USP Secretary shall be an employee of the Commission that has been seconded from the Commission’s staff to serve as the USP Secretary on or a full-time basis.“

    The  Commission has its internal employment policy  which allows it to move workers around internally to work in different positions. The minister has only meddled in, and muddled up such internal policy.

    Here is what seems to be Pantami’s final act. In a letter dated May 8, the Commission conveyed the approval of waiver request made to the President through the minister by Emerging Markets Telecommunications Limited (EMTS). At a time the country is neck-deep in debt and lacks cash to run even daily operations, the President gave a 50 per cent waiver on the huge debt being owed by EMTS on spectrum fees. The waiver is as follows: Forty Three Billion, Six Hundred and Eighty Million, Forty Eight Thousand, Seven Hundred and Sixty Seven Naira and Fifty Kobo only (N43,608,048,767.50) and for the 2100MHZ band, the sum of Twenty Nine Billion,Three Hundred and Twenty Nine Million, Nine Hundred and Seventy Seven Thousand And Six Hundred Naira only (N29,329,977, 600). Over the next ten years the balance would be paid in instalments as follows N4,360,804,876.75 for the 900/1800MHz and N2,932,997,760.00 for the 2100MHz band.

    On Monday night, an industry source told this writer, “we shall respond. We know who is doing this. It is not the NCC but the minister.”  Such response may further cause its own disharmony in the industry and cost the government much needed funds.

    Under the last administration, the NCC behaved like refugees of a conquered territory, permanently under fear. There was nothing too small to attract the minister’s attention. In May last year, having been blindsided on a conference organised by the NCC in Lagos, the minister fired a memo to the Commission demanding for all their programmes for the remaining months of the year.

    Under the last administration, some agencies suffered shame and top government officials were pressured to behave like zombies and turn their back on the rule books and the industries they were appointed to regulate.

    Do you hear things? This writer hears a lot. There are frantic moves in some agencies for certain things not to ever come into the open. Others are making the rounds in government circles to maintain perpetuity in office or, on the extreme side, just lobotomise everybody to ensure the past is interred, forever.

  • 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.

  • Let the Communications Minister return to the Ministry – By Okoh Aihe

    Let the Communications Minister return to the Ministry – By Okoh Aihe

    In another one week, the new government of Nigeria will be over two days old. Still enjoying the freshness of a child with all his innocence, if there is anything like that in the life of some of our politicians who are wayward for crookedness.

    The other significant import is that every high level player in the past administration would long have gone home, holding on to the Shakespearean maxim of the past being prologue. They have seen and they have conquered; it is now the responsibility of some of us, little fellas, to begin to chronicle their exploits in office or even judge them.

    One of those top government functionaries who should be home by now is the Communications and Digital Economy Minister, Dr Isa Pantami. Or does he want to go home?

    From all indications, the minister did his bit and should be having a deserved rest, but for the controversies. There are concerns at the moment about last minute spectrum sales and the broadcasters raising a cry that their business is being carved to pieces before their very eyes. This will not stir my innards for this material. Time will avail us of the veracity in every whisper at some point.

    In spite of what the minister may claim to have achieved, one particular action he took very early on assumption of office will haunt his legacy well into the future. Because that action raises a mirror to his activities as minister, whether they were genuine or specially designed to paper over some very terrible operations within his administration. The question this raises for me at the moment is, where will the next Minister of Communications and Digital Economy operate from? To extend it further, from within the Ministry or from the regulator’s property at Mbora, Abuja?

    Dr Isa Pantami was appointed Minister of Communications, as the portfolio  was designated in August 2019. Immediately, he took over the property built by the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) for its subsidiary, the Digital Bridge Institute (DBI) at Mbora. Was it sheer ignorance or plain hubris? Whatever it was, the regulator was helplessly arm-twisted while the industry looked unperturbed or simply in trepidation for the present or a future that would come with all its ugliness.

    Perhaps one should establish here for proper understanding that the Ministry of Communications was domiciled at the Secretariat before the arrival of Pantami. Going to the Minister’s office in those was like walking through a pantheon of the gods; it was both chilling and thrilling to look at the pictures on the walls,  beginning from Arthur Prest (1951-1954), Kingsley Ozumba Mbadiwe (1954-1957), Samuel Ladoke Akintola (1957-1959), Olu Akinfosle (1959-1964), Aminu Kano (1966-1969), Ramat M. Mohammed (1972-1975), Olawale Ige (1990-1993) until Isa Pantami who may have abandoned them in their place of historical display and admiration to a place of opulent dwelling befitting a princely habitation.

    Speaking in Dallas in 1963, President J. F. Kennedy declared: “History after all, is the memory of a nation.”

    The framed pictures at the minister’s office in the ministry used to present that slice of history, a rich legacy that lingers. But did Pantami tread on that trajectory of history in order to carve a space for himself in the digital ecosystem for posterity?

    There is no problem with ambitions and aspirations and a burning readiness to strike a niche. It is the minister’s relocation of his office to the property of the regulator that flies in the face of modern telecommunications regulatory practices and strains common sense beyond reason.

    I am sure he should have found out by now that even if that action was taken innocently, it has gone a long way to invalidate the gamut of progress recorded in the sector in over two decades. Getting that embedded within the regulator has impaired its ability to function independently and display a high level of transparency in executing regulatory functions.

    Global bodies like the ITU, World Bank and the World Trade Organisation (WTO) all encourage the independence of the regulator and the need for the government and the regulator not to cohabit to avoid unnecessary pressure and industry capture.

    For instance, a document by infoDev, a World Bank Group multi-donor program that supports entrepreneurs in developing economies, explains the roles and advantages of the regulator as follows: “Separate regulatory authorities can implement government policy in an objective and impartial manner. Separation from state-owned telecommunications operators increases the ability of regulators to act impartially toward all market participants, for example in matters involving competition policy or interconnection.

    “Market confidence in the impartiality of regulatory decisions generally increases with the degree of independence of regulators from both operators and governments. Such market confidence promotes increased foreign and domestic investment in both incumbent operators and new entrants in the sector.”

    For most countries of the world, the telecommunications sector provides low hanging opportunities to attract investment and foster exponential development by making services available to the people. It is therefore the responsibility of the regulator to ensure that the market is commodious for the various stakeholders to express themselves in providing services and technology.

    There is no doubt that the NCC has done well for the telecommunications sector until 2019 when Pantami became the minister. All of a sudden the operating environment was minimised to accommodate sensibilities that were less professional and more of personal ego tripping.

    An NCC source told this writer that the past four years have been a nightmare which has refused to end. An organisation used to doing things very discreetly and in a structured manner was exposed variously to needless controversies which harmed the regulator even more.

    The source said that it is never a good wish for the minister and the regulator to share the same accommodation, ending with a prayer that a thing like that should never happen to the NCC again. The source explained that even if Pantami had the best intentions, human nature and weaknesses would supervene and gradually begin to corrode the strength of the regulator. Such corrosion has in no doubt weakened the Commission, making it more of an apparition to those who used to admire its ways.

    Such development has led this writer to one conclusion, that as Pantami vacates office, his successor should head to the accommodation in the ministry in order to start rebuilding what is left of the Telecomms sector. Without pretences, the ruin is much, and the building process will take time. Even more time for the NCC to gather itself together after submitting its authority to a minister who was too psychedelic to learn the rudiments of telecoms regulation.

    Telecommunications is serious business. The regulator should be allowed to pay unfettered attention to a sector which is providing the building blocks for the nation’s economy. Never again should a personality be appointed to exhibit a larger-than-life image over such an important sector, and then mock the nation with adulterated knowledge.

  • For NBC, one judgment too troubling – By Okoh Aihe

    For NBC, one judgment too troubling – By Okoh Aihe

    There was a significant development last week at the domain of the broadcast regulator, the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC). In a judgment that has been hailed as a landmark, if you have the stomach for cliches, a Federal High Court, forbade perpetually the regulator to ever place any fine on a broadcast operator.

    This has created tension within the NBC and even among those with residual relationships with the regulator. Two calls bear clear testimony to the happenings at the Commission. The first was to a former director at the NBC who wailed that the judgment has reduced the worth of the regulator and even the vision of those who worked there in the past.

    But the second call was fire. Just an innocuous call to a current director at the Commission to ask for the way forward, the voice screamed: “Why are they troubling us, why are they not suing based on Section 6 of the Broadcast Act? They know what the problem is but seem to overlook it.” Really?

    Let’s quickly look at the source of the outburst, Section 6 of the National Broadcasting Commission Act CAP N11, Laws of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 2004. “Subject to the provisions of this Act, the Minister may give the Commission directives of general character relating generally to particular matters with regard to the exercise by the Commission of its functions under this Act and it shall be the duty of the Commission to comply with such directives,” the Act states clearly.

    My source seems to infer that some of the happenings at the Commission are externally engineered with the regulator left to gather the broken pieces of a ruined regulatory reputation. It may serve our purpose at this time to revisit the judgment.

    The Federal High Court judge in Abuja, James Omotosho, in giving an order of perpetual injunction restraining the NBC from imposing fines on broadcasters henceforth, and also setting aside the N500, 000 fines imposed on 45 broadcasters since March 1, 2019, held that the NBC, not being a court of law, had no power to impose sanctions as punishment on broadcast stations.

    Omotosho also pointed out that the Nigeria Broadcasting Code which gives the Commission the power to impose sanction, is in conflict with Section 6 of the Constitution that vested judicial power in the court of law.

    What a coincidence! More like double jeopardy for NBC. The voice within the Commission shouted Section 6 of the National Broadcasting Commission Act, while Omotosho is also relying on Section 6 of the Constitution to make his declaration.

    Section 6 of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria is about Judicial Powers of the federation, with the first two clauses as follows: 6 (1) The judicial powers of the Federation shall be vested in the courts to which this section relates, being courts established for the Federation. (2) The judicial powers of a State shall be vested in the courts to which this section relates, being courts established, subject as provided by this Constitution, for a State.

    The judge berated the NBC for failing to comply with the law as it sat as complainant and, at the same time, the court and the judge on its own matter.

    “The action of the respondent qualifies as excessiveness,” as it had ascribed to itself the judicial and executive powers.

    Some Nigerians may ascribe this judgment as a fallout of recent happenings in the broadcast industry. No. This story dates back to 2019 and is a troubling reflection of the broadcast ecosystem which has hardly had any respite since 2015, when President Mohammadu Buhari came into office.

    Specifically, in March 2019, the NBC imposed a fine of N500, 000 each on 45 broadcast stations for infractions committed during the general elections. The Commission explained that the stations allowed politicians to make abusive, inciting and provocative statements in their programs.

    The Media Rights Agenda (MRA) saw the development as an action capable of constricting the broadcast space and through a motion, FHC/ABJ/CS/1386/2021, approached the Federal High Court to help tame the excessive actions and arbitrary fines imposed by the regulator. Barrister Noah Ajare, who filed the suit on behalf of MRA in November 2021, described the NBC action as a violation of the rules of natural justice. NBC was the sole respondent.

    Over three years later, the judge agreed with the complainant that NBC, which is not the Nigerian police, had no power to conduct criminal investigation that would lead to criminal trial and imposition of sanctions.

    “This will go against the doctrine of separation of powers,” he said.

    The annoying refrain in the country today is “go to court.” This is a latter day development though bred by the evil in the polity. MRA has gone to court and has ignited some light at the dark end of the tunnel.

    This effort is not lost on the Nigerian Guild of Editors, which, in a statement signed by its President, Mustapha Isah, and General Secretary, Dr Iyobosa  Uwugiaren, hailed the courage of MRA for testing what it described as the draconian Act of the NBC.

    “Justice Omotosho’s ruling on Wednesday vindicated our consistent position over the years that the NBC cannot be the accuser, the investigator and the judge on matters relating to alleged breach of the Broadcast Code.

    “Our position has always been that an independent body or institution should be the one to examine any perceived infraction by the broadcast stations, which should be given the opportunity to defend themselves,” the Guild said in the statement.

    The NBC has said it is going on appeal. This is the right way to go as such development gives the courts the responsibility to make pronouncements on the matter until a final conclusion is reached.

    Unfortunately, I do not need the power of clairvoyance to say that the NBC may lack support or enjoy any little sympathy from any quarters. Either perpetually troubled by its failure in office or sheer inexplicable irritability, this government has subjected the media to sustained ordeal, leading to cries of media suppression and oppression from the Buhari government.

    The NBC has been the most potent weapon in the attack line. While the fine was pegged at N500, 000 early 2019, the new Broadcasting Code which came into operation in a welter of controversies on July 4, 2019, upgraded such fines to N5m. This explains why the standard fine of late has remained N5m. This fine has come in torrents; either making them look ludicrous or just plain mischief or damaging harassment, that they have elicited remonstrations from the Nigerian public, including broadcast operators.

    Fortunately, for the career civil servants at the NBC, the broadcasters can see beyond their tears that the problems of their industry are induced by powers beyond the Commission. And they want such shadowing authority addressed.

    Quite a few things are being thrown up by this court judgment, the first one being that there is something wrong with Section 6 of the NBC Act that has to be addressed urgently in order to give life to the broadcast regulator and those who operate in the industry. While it is easy to point accusing fingers at the supervising Minister, there is the need for frankness in admitting that the Minister enjoys the protection of

    Section 6 until it is revisited through an amendment.

    The judgment also puts the regulator in a very painful and helpless situation and that doesn’t help any regulator anywhere in the world. Each judgment reduces the capacity of the regulator to perform its responsibilities. Under this administration, there have been a number of judgments against the NBC and the regulator is progressively weakened.

    Recall that in May 25, 2022, a Lagos High Court gave one Mr Femi Davies judgement against the NBC, in which case, Justice Ambrose Lewis-Allagoa, completely thrashed the 6th edition of the Nigeria Broadcasting Code, describing it as ultra vires, incompetent null and void, and therefore perpetually restrained the Commission from implementing it.

    In a little twist of irony, on July 13, 2022, an Appeal Court sitting in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, directed the NBC to make a determination in the channels sub-licence case between Multichoice Nigeria Limited  and Metro Digital based on the provisions of the Code. The NBC wrote to Multichoice on October 25,  2022, directing the organisation to obey relevant sections of the Code in sub-licensing some channels to Metro Digital, but has this resolved the problems?

    The Omotosho ruling puts the NBC in a bind but the regulator should see some good from such a devastating punch. While regulatory fervency will be impaired for some time, it will be an act of courage for the NBC to carry out some self introspection and cure itself of what it has always been accused of: sitting as judge in its cases and being intolerant of, and impervious to even good ideas from the industry.

    It makes common sense for institutions to strive to preserve their institutional culture instead of exposing it to the avarice and manipulations by politicians whose tenure moves faster than quicksand. There is something about the culture of the NBC that must be preserved.

  • From Imo State, technology shines light to the future – By Okoh Aihe

    From Imo State, technology shines light to the future – By Okoh Aihe

    It is always a feeling of joy when Dr Chimezie  Amadi gets in touch. A feeling that something can really go well in the country if there is somebody to push a vision, somebody to make a sacrifice in order to make a difference. Amadi comes with a freshness which nourishes a wearied life in our dear nation.

    When we introduced him on this page in October last year, Amadi who just joined the Imo State government on secondment from the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), was nursing the Digital Imo idea and was kind enough to share it with us for dispassionate assessment. The project which is targeted at introducing the unemployed young people of Imo State to the world of technology and also help depopulate  the sordid world of unemployment, has gained traction and is receiving generous commendations.

    Dr Chimezie Amadi, who is the Commissioner for Digital Economy and E-Government, went to Imo State with a concrete vision and measurable work plan and, his state which used to be known for a number of things far from good news, is enjoying the zenith by ranking agencies.

    Our recent conversation ignited some fire in me and I don’t want to call it fury. My mind went to the NITDA Bill at the National Assembly with which the Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Dr Isa Pantami, and a few desperate cohorts, want to supplant the telecoms regulatory agency, the Nigerian Communicatioms Commmission (NCC). All of a sudden, a small development agency wants to grow wings and swallow up the biggest regulatory agency in Africa and people fail to see the making of evil.

    Do they know what it takes to build a regulatory agency like the NCC? They should get across to Engr Ernest Ndukwe for answers and if their power for necromancy hasn’t failed them, they should also reach out to late Alhaji Ahmed Joda. Building an NCC, for instance, demands a lot of investment in the right human capital, that was before politics assumed the power of employment at the Commission, lots of training – local and international; the NCC worker is trained for the present and future of work, and can function in whatever ecosystem he is placed. Amadi is paradigmatic of the knowledge capital available at the NCC and it is fitting that the Governor of the state, Senator Hope Uzodinma, looked beyond politics to pick those to work with him.

    Amadi’s SkillUpImo, which has become a cardinal programme of the Uzodinma government has given a vista of opportunity for the young people in the state to acquire digital skills and be given start up equipment or seed funding to start their businesses.

    With training centres at the Federal University of Technology, Owerri (FUTO), Imo State University, KO Mbadiwe University, Federal Polytechnic, Nekede, College of Health Management Services, Alvan Ikoku College of Education, University of Agriculture and Environmental Sciences, Claristian University, Imo State Polytechnic, and Ministry of Digital Economy and E-Government, the state has been able to democratise technology adoption trainings for the majority and make it available in the nook and cranny of the state.

    The result, according to Amadi, is that “We have been able to position Imo as a leading digital skills hub in the country. We graduated 5000 students in Cohort 1 who were trained in various digital and tech skills. The governor has equipped them in their various startup endeavours. He gave out almost 3000 laptops, car tracking kits and smart phones for some of the graduates, while some others with visual and hearing challenges were given a hundred thousand Naira each.”

    Amadi pointed out that what has happened in Imo State is that the government has “engineered a startup economy” where the young graduates have quickly embedded themselves into providing government with tech services and also providing needed digital services for other businesses in the state.

    “People can see there is an economy beyond agriculture, building of roads, and buying and selling. They have come to realise that there is an economy fuelled by the Internet,” he said.

    Could Amadi just be staying on the rooftop and blowing his trumpet to draw attention to non existent achievements or call it even a wave of developments in the state? The testimonies of other people provide the answer.

    A recent report by FATE Institute of the famed FATE Foundation titled, State of Entrepreneurship Index for Nigeria, puts Imo State well ahead of other states of the federation. Which is a little surprising, just like South Korea being put above Sweden, USA, China and the United Kingdom among others in tech development and connectivity index some years ago. Over time it has become very obvious that such development depends on genuine actions taken to uplift an environment, organisation or a country.

    For instance, the FATE Institute based its ranking on five major pillars, which include: Business Performance, Skills Acquisition, Innovation and Technology, Perception of Opportunities, and Enabling Business Environment. Some of these pillars were directly addressed by Amadi in his SkillUpImmo document. There is every indication that Cohort 2 which is targeting 15,000 trainees will bring even more visibility to the activities of the Imo State government.

    Another testimony. Dr Pantami who was Special Guest of Honour at the graduation of the first 5000 trainees described the “Imo State programme as a shift from creating job employees to producing job creators.”

    Such is the power of tech knowledge acquisition, transforming very little fellas into big guys overnight, ready to rule the world.

    Speaking to this writer in October last year, Amadi explained, “The Digital IMO project aims to train 100,000 youth, women and people living with disabilities in core 21st century skills in software development, blockchain, game development and other technical vocational skills.”

    This was our position then. “The easiest verdict to give here is that Amadi is fully prepared for his new job as the Commissioner for Digital Economy and e-Governance. But that is not the way it works in government, especially at the state level, where petty jealousy and frivolous gossip are credentials for daily governance, where urgent files would go on circumlocutory journeys and may never return. It is the responsibility of Senator Uzodinma to empower his new Ministry and support it to use technology to straighten administrative processes , and make governance, businesses and investment appealing and attractive. In fact, be the first to run a state on technology.”

    From all indications, the governor has empowered Amadi who is working towards achieving his dream for Imo State as the stats have demonstrated. We wish him well.

    But my little fascination with the Imo project is its demonstration that development is not rocket science. In a country where youth unemployment is well over 53 per cent, the state has done well in trying to take its youths off the streets and wean them of frustration through digital tech training.

    If this model is working, and there is the need to do more inquisition, it will not  be a bad idea for other states to look at what works for them too, more than building roads and bridges and giving poverty tokens to undocumented population, and initiate development projects that rests more in building capacity in the people to ensure the future of work. The way to the future  is technology, obviously.

  • Reprieve for NCC as NITDA Bill flounders – By Okoh Aihe

    Reprieve for NCC as NITDA Bill flounders – By Okoh Aihe

    It was the final sandbagging of the Nigerian Communications Communication (NCC). An ignoble fait accompli intricately woven by very devious hearts and presented to an acquiescing group of lawmakers with superficial understanding of how some politicians could deploy terrible politricks to ruin the independence of even one of the most stable regulatory agencies in the country.

    Oh, Regulatory Capture again. Two words that effectively capture the appropriation of the operations of a regulatory organisation by government  or powerful people, including politicians. But the story unfolding here is more than Regulatory Capture. It is a subtle plan to lacerate the NCC into the unfortunate position of impotence and make it a shell of its once vibrant self. 

    Really the meeting by the Senate Committe on ICT and Cyber Security on April 27, 2023, shouldn’t be about the NCC but about NITDA whose Amendment Bill was enjoying a posthaste trip to a final place of approval. The 2002 NITDA Act was being repealed and to be replaced by the Bill under processing at the National Assembly, which should provide for the Administration, Implementation and Regulation of Information Technology Systems and Practices As Well As Digital Economy in Nigeria and for Related Matters. 

    Everything was clinically thought out. The mise en scene enjoyed an occultic reverence. The Senate Committee would have the hearing that day and take its decision to the Senate floor a few days later for approval and transmission to the lower House for concurrence. The deed would be done and the Bill will become an Act.

    Beautiful script. In the hall were promoters of the Bill, Communications and Digital Economy Minister, Dr Isa Pantami and NITDA Director General, Kashifu Inuwa Abdullahi. This writer gathered that both were feeling very cool and perhaps already relishing Pantami’s farewell gift to the industry. Industry reps were also present and so was the regulator who perhaps was on the side of a minister whose intention towards the industry it superintends was far from salutary. It may be more fitting to describe his action as poisoned benevolence and plain mischief. 

    The thing about good scripting is the surprise element which pops up when it is least expected. Just when it was going to be a wrap (I am borrowing a TV terminology) the Committee asked for further submissions. A voice came up, a very still voice but very unintimidated. Like the still voice of Al Pacino (Lt. Col. Frank Slade) rising up to defend O’Donnel (Charles) at Baird, a prep school in New England, in the 1992 Oscar winning film, Scent of a Woman. Life could visit individuals and organisations with regrettable vicissitudes. That voice came with the NCC delegation. The Committee members were shocked as they promptly reminded the voice that the boss of the NCC, the minister, had spoken. 

    The voice insisted that it had nothing but a little observation and an addition to what the minister had said. The voice observed that the Nigerian Communications Act 2003 has been so pressurised that it was becoming difficult for the NCC to carry out its responsibilities. The Act, according to the voice, has all it takes to properly regulate the telecommunications industry, which is totally different from the role of NITDA as a development agency. What the NITDA Bill seeks to do, the voice further observed, is to borrow so much from the Communications Act and present them as its new functions. There would be confusion in the industry as a result of multiple regulations.

    The voice was intrusively sane. “We should not have multiple regulations in the sector. It doesn’t augur well for the industry. NITDA is not a regulator but a development agency. The Bill significantly took so much from the NCA 2003”, the voice maintained. 

    Pandora’s Box, in all its beauty, has a way with trouble. The minister knew this and endured that seemingly informed effrontery. 

    But it was Ayoola Babatunde Oke Esq of ICT Derivatives Limited that got under the minister’s flesh. Oke, who introduced himself as an interested member of the public and an adviser to a former minister of Communications, read from a prepared paper, titled: A National Dialogue on the Pending NITDA Bill 2021.

    His introduction, under The Purpose of the Bill, created some level of discomfort. According to him, “I have personally reviewed the new NITDA Bill and I cannot discern functional purpose. In my mind a Bill can be introduced when there is a need for a new law or need for a review of an existing law. A Bill is not made just for the sake of making a bill  it must have a clear purpose and discernible agenda of what it seeks to address, which could be to restructure socio-economic or political culture and behavioural patterns or facilitate strategies to promote goals.”

    He posited an understanding of the Ministry of Communications and Digital Economy by stating the functions of its parastatals as follows: NCC -ICT industry regulation; NITDA – IT industry support and development; NIPOST – Postal service delivery and access infrastructure; Galaxy Backbone – ICT infrastructure provision for Federal Government and its agencies; NIGCOMSAT – Commercialisation of Government’s satellite resources; USPF/NITDF – Managed fund to incentivise universal access; NFMC – Prudent and co-ordinated allocation of frequency resources; and Ministry of Communication Technology – Policy formulation and Policy impact assessment. 

    The foregoing is a hard summary devoid of emotions. Oke argued that the functions of NITDA have completely been altered to the point that the first 7 functions of NITDA under the new Bill did not exist in the current law.

    “In the new Bill there is now a heavy presence of regulatory functions and powers and this raises the question if NITDA wants to continue as a Developmental Agency or a Regulatory Agency or both,” Oke observed. 

    The purpose of NITDA as it stands, Oke argued, is to implement a clear regulatory agenda. Here is proof according to his presentation. 

    “The purpose of this Act is to create an effective, impartial, and independent regulatory framework for the development of the Nigerian information technology sector and digital economy, which shall include:

    “Regulate the use, development, standardisation, research, and application of information technology, emerging technology and digital services practices, activities and systems in Nigeria; Regulate the use of data for business and security analytics and intelligence, subject to any other law on the subject; and Regulate the acquisition and use of digital systems and services in Government establishments and create a framework for the auditing of Government information technology systems and digital services platforms,”

    The ears have heard enough. The minister shot up from his seat, frothing with anger. A frustrated and retired civil servant who was a mere assistant to a minister shouldn’t  have the guts to challenge a well written document informed by modern developments in the ever expanding and developing world of ICT and digital economy. 

    He has erudition behind him, he bragged, as he unfolded his long list of degrees. He even attended Harvard and some other big universities around the world. The ultimate is that he is a professor in his chosen field, and a professor cannot put out the wrong document. The NITDA Bill was well considered, in his opinion. 

    Perhaps, I should introduce Ayo Oke a little further. Before working with the minister, Oke was a Legal Assistant to Engr Ernest Ndukwe, former EVC of the NCC. In his position,  he was privy to, or was even involved in putting together some foundation documents that have helped grow the NCC. Oke is smart and can be quite forceful in canvassing his point of view. 

    Having stated the above, I want to say I really do not see the source of the minister’s indignation. In spite of his demonstrated learning, there is obviously a misunderstanding of roles and responsibilities. Sections 23, 24 and 25 of the NCA 2003, are very clear about the roles of the minister which essentially have to do with policy formulation, determination and monitoring, and negotiating and executing international treaties for Nigeria. The minister made an offensive misstep in fighting to initiate a Bill for NITDA, one of the agencies under his ministry, and trying to force it through the National Assembly. What happened to fairness and equity in dealing with the other parastatals under him?

    My little observation is that the minister has been permitted such overwhelming indulgence to the extent that even some of his excesses became normalised by his coterie of followers and even his bosses. 

    I will give a brief summary. Once appointed minister, Pantami took possession of the NCC building at Mbora,  Abuja, which was built for the Digital Bridge Institute (DBI) by the Commission. Nobody ordered him back to the ministry. One of his first actions was to eject Hon. Abike Dabiri-Erewa, Chairperson of the Nigerian in Diaspora Commission, whose agency was kindly accommodated in the building by the NCC. In another moment, at an event in the building attended by President Muhammadu Buhari, Pantami got up twice to interrupt Prof Garba Umar Danbatta, EVC of the NCC, who was addressing the gathering, thus breaching protocol. No repremind, no warning. 

    One of Pantami’s cardinal policies was the National Identification Number (NIN) and Subscriber Identity Module (SIM) introduced late 2020, to link phones and national IDs, which would help curb insecurity by making it impossible for criminals to use mobile phones for their nefarious trade. Introduced at the height of COVID-19, the exercise remains a fiasco as insecurity has since festered. So much money has been wasted but nobody talks much about it now, except that the process has been tokenized for some people to make quick money. 

    In May 2022, the minister directed the NCC through a query that all NCC’s Public Programmes for the remaining period of the year must first be brought to his attention. The regulator did not have the liver to point the minister to the contents of NCA 2003. This writer is pained to inform that even now the minister approves daily routines, including ordinary internal travels that are done by officials of the Commission. 

    With questions not being asked of a super minister, the NITDA Bill was designed for an opportune moment of glorious departure. A befitting farewell gift for NITDA and a seed of chaos for the industry. But Providence supervened in the final moments, giving the NCC a reprieve it must seize with both hands. 

  • From Adamawa, a redeeming opportunity for NBC – By Okoh Aihe

    From Adamawa, a redeeming opportunity for NBC – By Okoh Aihe

    It is difficult to forecast a closure to the sustained drama happening in Nigeria. In the manner of all beautiful or bizarre shows, before one scene comes to an end, the other is loading with more complicated suspense and details beyond the imagination of any script writer. Or tell me, how would you ever put the script of the Adamawa governorship election together except from a warped mind with infinite capacity for evil? 

    The story is in the public domain. A supplementary election was held. While the process was going through some challenges as it headed towards a resolution, a usurper in the name of Hudu Yunusa, who is the Regional Electoral Commissioner, flanked by full security apparatus, announced the candidate of the All Progress Congress (APC), Aishatu Dahiru, popularly called Binani, as winner. The result was scribbled on a crumpled paper, probably torn from one of his children’s notebooks.  

    Bedlam is a light word to be used under the circumstance. Perhaps I should use a more high sounding word, hugger-mugger. A nation already traumatised by INEC’s failure to conduct a credible and acceptable election, was fearing for the worst. NTA that has failed to pursue the cause of modern broadcasting, got a scoop, an exclusive, as it was on the other side of town, taking a live acceptance speech of the winner. 

    Binani hailed the Adamawa people for making political history by electing the first female governor in our dear country, saying this will encourage the female folks in Nigeria and across the continent.  

    Thankfully, INEC cut short the pipe dream and saved the nation from such elevated ignominy and perfidy. The REC was wrong to usurp the functions of the Returning Officer, it said. The election body followed the process through and declared the right winner, proven with figures, PDP’s Ahmadu Umaru Fintiri, who is being returned to office. 

    However, the role of the NTA in this drama of the absurd, has exposed the broadcast regulator, the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC), to a new level of scrutiny, with a number of people asking, why the regulator has not been so fast in sanctioning the NTA as it has done recently, dishing out fines to broadcasters seemingly trapped on the wrong side of the law. 

    NTA is the public broadcaster funded with tax payers’ money. In the days of yore, it prided itself as the biggest network in Africa, chose when to open daily broadcast, whose voice should be heard and whose face should be seen. NTA was a de facto regulator, to the extent that when broadcasting was deregulated in 1992, its officials refused to accept the status of the NBC established by Decree 38, now an Act of Parliament, National Broadcasting Commission Act CAP N11, Laws of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 2004. 

    Broadcast writers have, in the past, encouraged the regulator to rein in the NTA by issuing it with a broadcast license, even if symbolically, without paying the license fee; this writer is not aware that this has been done. So, NTA remains a failed eagle unto itself, living in expired glory whose currency has been fully appropriated by the razzle dazzle of modern day broadcasters. NTA’s primary audience remains the government whose purpose it serves. 

    Looking at the antecedents of NTA, the question in the wind is, was NTA a part of the big script put together to throw Nigeria into confusion starting from Adamawa? Answers will come from the ongoing investigations but human rights lawyer and activist, Femi Falana (SAN), has asked for the scrutiny of Binani as well in the entire saga. 

    For the sins of NTA, the NBC is being pilloried by quite a number of people who want to see justice served democratically instead of peacemeal dispensation of punishment to perceived enemies. And they have a point. 

    In the past, or let’s circumscribe it to the election period, several stations, including AIT, Channels, Arise TV, TVC and a host of others, have been sanctioned for “severe infractions.” And lately, Channels got another hit because of an interview with Datti Baba Ahmed, Vice Presidential candidate of the Labour Party. 

    In capturing the litany of fines on broadcasters, the Broadcasting Organisation of Nigeria (BON)wrote in their letter to the NBC: “We dare say that imposition of fines on Channels Television and many other cases in the recent past are not only arbitrary but smacks of high handedness which is already suffocating the broadcast media in the country.”

    In the heat of this protestation, why are people suggesting another punishment for one of the BON members, NTA?

    The answer I get is very straight forward. The offence is grave because NTA was part of an intricate civilian cum political coup to cause mayhem in the country, and should therefore not be let off easily.

    I have also asked, will NBC sanction NTA? The answer I get is lucicrous. What do you think? they retorted. 

    What do I think? Let me paint a little picture that may look very ordinary but harbours some truth. The NBC is the regulator of the entire broadcast industry. However, both the NBC and the NTA belong to the Ministry of Information and Culture superintended by Alhaji Lai Mohammed. If you look at the history of sanctions since the coming of Mohammed as minister , nearly every sanction, except the one on TVC, carries his imprimatur. This writer is aware that the minister is still railing at that particular sanction on TVC. 

    Under the President Muhammadu Buhari administration, some agencies were blanketed or captured by their supervising ministers. The NBC is one of those agencies. It looks unimaginable to me that the minister would sanction the NTA irrespective of its poor performance at Adamawa and the extensive outrage and condemnation such performance attracted from a concerned populace. 

    However, I expect something to shift as the NBC has to begin a recalibration of its self respect, relevance and worth as the life of this administration ebbs out. It has to be a long way back to the top which perhaps will begin with how it handles the NTA “severe infraction,” if I am permitted to borrow that phrase from its sanction letters.

    At the time of the drama in Adamawa, some top management members of the Commission were attending the National Association of Broadcaters Conference (NAB) in Las Vegas in the United States. No. It wasn’t a jamboree. NAB is home to the latest broadcast equipment exhibition and about the biggest broadcast conference in the world. Any regulator worth its salt must attend NAB annually to refresh and just learn. I am very excited that in spite of being in very dire straits in recent years, the NBC was still able to fund some of its staff to attend. 

    But I welcome them back home. There is a job to be done. Nigerians expect to hear from the NBC and perhaps be comforted by the kind of decision it will take concerning the NTA. They want to see some similitude of action to determine whether the NBC is ready for the next phase of its journey which begins in just over a month. 

  • In the twilight of a government, tech projects guzzle billions – By Okoh Aihe

    In the twilight of a government, tech projects guzzle billions – By Okoh Aihe

    Lately, there has been a rash of tech contracts, all wearing the accoutrement of patriotism and the insignia of a government that is desperate to leave a fertile legacy for the people. The little problem is that time is running out fast for this administration and it is nigh impossible to bundle high end projects into the few days that are left in its lifespan. Just over a month!

    Let’s take a few screaming headlines in the past few days and months, just a few: FG awards Over N85bn Census Contract to Zinox Technologies (The Guardian, February 9, 2023); Census: FEC approves N15.3bn for ICT devices to aid exercise (Premium Times, April 6, 2023); and FEC approves N24.2bn free Internet for 20 airports, varsities and markets (Vanguard, March 29, 2023).

    Beautiful projects, you may want to suggest. There is no doubt that the nation needs a dependable census in order to save us from frivolities with figures. It is hardly possible for two government departments to quote the same population figure for the country. Everything is guesswork, making planning even a guesswork because there is no structured explanation of the number of people the nation is planning for.

    There is also no doubt that Zinox Technologies, the first major indigenous computer manufacturers with high networth international reach, is appropriately suited to handle this huge project. Two tech contracts or more have been awarded for the same project. The eyebrows could be kept very busy, being raised all the time at the nature of contracts being awarded at the twilight of this administration. A question by a layman here is what contracts are being awarded that couldn’t be bundled into one to deliver on a project. The people behind Zinox, including the chairman, Leo Stan Ekeh, have proven so much of their tech mettle that they couldn’t just be selling shells to the National Population Commission (NPC) without any blood (software) running in them. There has to be a convenient explanation for the various contracts.

    There is another problem anyway. The Nigerian government has done so badly with technology lately, especially viewed from the template of INEC 2023 election disaster, that it will prove a little Herculean for any one in government to canvas for credulous acceptance of their activities based on the dependability of technology. Just add the Adamawa supplementary election outcome to the plate of disasters on INEC’s table, it becomes even more difficult and an undeserved haste for the government to be pushing for a census using technology, without putting a closure to very troubling elections.

    However, the most puzzling of the contracts is the rollout of WiFi at airports, varsities and markets across the nation. Attractive as it may sound and look, it breaks all credulity, strains business sense, questions morality and demonstrates the government’s meddlesomeness in places where it has no business.

    This writer can say here without equivocations that there are already provisions by the Universal Service Provision Fund (USPF), domiciled at the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), and National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), (you may also want to add Tertiary Education Trust Fund, TETFUND), to fund technology rollout in higher institutions. However, this particular contract has been passed to the NCC for funding instead of those other bodies. What business has the regulator with the airport WiFi?

    Announcing such a needless intervention, a happy Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Dr Isa Pantami, said:

    “The Federal Executive Council today approved two memos for the Nigerian Communications Commission, a parastatal under the supervision of the Federal Ministry of Communications and Digital Economy.

    “In these two memos, certain intervention projects are going to be implemented by the federal government of Nigeria, through the Nigerian Communications Commission, of providing internet in 20 selected airports in Nigeria and higher institutions of learning and also some markets to support micro, small and medium enterprises.”

    The minister’s effusions are understandable but totally misplaced and misdirected. Those funds being taken from the NCC are not for the right cause.

    It is the responsibility of the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) to develop its facilities as stated in the FAAN Act of 1996 as amended in 1999. It states in part:

    “To develop, provide and maintain at airports and within the Nigeria Air Space all necessary services and facilities for the safe, orderly, expeditious and economic operations of air transport.

    “To provide adequate conditions under which passengers and goods may be carried by air and under which aircraft may be used for other gainful purposes, and for prohibiting the carriage by air of goods of such classes as may be prescribed.”

    The Act accommodates relationships with other parties like agents or working in partnership with other persons to build out facilities for passengers’ comfort and general efficiency of the airport.

    Since nothing is novel under the sun and Nigeria does not live in isolation from the rest of the world, we decided to have a quick check at some of the most popular airports around the world. First stop was London Heathrow.

    When the Heathrow management needed to upgrade the airport WiFi facilities in April 2019 for the delight of its numerous passengers, it got into a relationship with an American Internet service provider, Boingo, which provides such tech services in different airports across the world.

    At the time, property head at Heathrow, John Arbuckle said: “Whether passengers are streaming, browsing or working on the go, we’re excited to improve their connectivity experience with the latest generation of Boingo’s award-winning Wi-Fi.

    “This is just one of many initiatives that Heathrow has invested in to serve and delight our 80 million passengers, making Heathrow a world-class airport.”

    Dawn Callahan, Boingo chief marketing officer, called their Passpoint Wi-Fi technology a game-changer which they were happy to introduce at Heathrow.

    Next stop is Dubai, the tiny Emirate country that some Nigerians love to vacation in or even buy property at the Burj Khalifa with stolen money just to rub shoulders with genuine dollar billionaires from other parts of the world.

    Five years earlier, in February 2014, Boingo was selected to manage the WiFi facility and digital advertising sales and support for Dubai International (DXB) and Al Maktoum International at Dubai World Central with a combined traffic of 66 million passengers at the time. The facility would allow passengers easy access to high speed internet and entertainment contents.

    October 2005, Boingo was among the three wireless internet service providers selected to provide WiFi facilities at the Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport; the other two being Concourse Communications Group LLC and Sprint Nextel Corp.

    Boingo is also a leading WiFi service provider to some of the major airports around the world, including: Beijing Capital International, Tokyo International, O’Hare International and JFK International in New York.

    This material is not about Boingo but just to demonstrate here that there is nothing we are doing in Nigeria that has not been done in other parts of the world, even in a much better way. It is the responsibility of the airport authority or owners to develop and maintain facilities at the airport, and to pick partners who can monetise the facilities so deployed. Running the airport is a major business for professionals with niche specialisation. It is therefore unconscionable to blackmail parastatals like the NCC to fund projects which are outside the provisions of the Acts establishing them or projects not originally budgeted for.

    “So, we have set our team in order, we have developed the sustainability model, so that even after the deployment, the maintenance will be very effective,” the minister said.

    Who are the we and who is deploying what and who is maintaining the facility? It is free WiFi to the unsuspecting airport user. What is the subterranean thinking behind this WiFi freebie? This, for me, looks more like a shrouded gambit leading to ill intentions.

    One is beginning to suspect that the major reason the nation is in so much financial difficulty, with many more people slipping into multidimensional poverty, is because there are so many funds going into the wrong projects where there are embedded interests.

    In which other country of the world is the telecoms regulator building WiFi at the airports?

    The NCC has been corralled for the wrong reasons and pushed beyond the confines of basic telecoms regulations. There is fear, financial and intellectual haemorrhage at the organisation because of extraneous pressure, and the system seems too conquered to complain or even cry out in pain. This regulator needs help. Urgently!