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Tag: Okoh Aihe

  • Time for BON to help NBC cure its weakness – By Okoh Aihe

    Time for BON to help NBC cure its weakness – By Okoh Aihe

    The Broadcasting Organisation of Nigeria (BON), last week, raised a cry that the broadcast industry was facing very uncertain times in the country. Ironically, most of the problems seem to be coming from the curator of the industry, the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC) which, by law, is charged with the regulation, protection and promotion of the industry.

    BON is the umbrella body sheltering public and private broadcasting organisations in the country.

    In two separate letters addressed to the Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, and the NBC, respectively, BON accused the regulator of flouting its own rules in superintending the industry and, in the process, create chaos and uncertainties for the operators.

    Although there were always residual skirmishes between the industry and the regulator, matters seem to have come to a head under the Muhammadu Buhari administration, when the fastest dispensation of justice and resolution of any issue is recourse to fine by the regulator.

    Plus the residual concerns, the immediate cause of the outrage is the N5m fine imposed on Channels Television as result of a “professionally” handled interview granted Dr Datti Baba-Ahmed, Vice Presidential candidate of the Labour Party, by Seun Okinbaloye on March 22, 2023. Part of the content was disagreeable to the All Progressive Congress (APC), whose Director of Media and Publicity, Presidential Campaign Council, Bayo Onanuga, petitioned the regulator, demanding for a sanction on Channels.

    Without giving any little opportunity to Channels to defend the broadcast, the regulator immediately flashed a red card. This has not gone down well with the industry which could only look back at recent history of fines to conclude that the regulator is trying to destroy the broadcast industry by subordinating its powers to external entities.

    In requesting the Minister, Lai Mohammed, to call the NBC to order as it continues to display flagrant violation to the Nigeria Broadcasting Code, BON, in a March 3, 2023, letter, signed by Dr Yemisi Bamgbose, Executive Secretary, stated that “in recent times, NBC has refused to follow its rules as stipulated in the Code on investigation of infraction as well as imposition of fines on broadcast houses on alleged infractions.”

    “Section 14.3.1.(a) (b) (c) (d) stipulates how to handle complaints. Section 15.3.1 (a) (b) (c) stipulates categories of fines and what constitutes infractions in each category,” BON pointed out.

    Added to BON’s worries are the unfortunate developments in recent times where the broadcasters were not even allowed to see the complaints against them or given an opportunity for a defence before a high-handed punishment by the regulator.

    In the letter to the NBC, BON stated as follows:

    “There are reasons to believe that NBC is being influenced in its decisions to the detriment of the industry which it is supposed to nurture and grow.

    “It is unfortunate that NBC without due process relied on a petition from a publicity campaign Committee of a political party to impose heavy fines on Channels Television when due process was not followed,” BON noted while pointing the regulator to the relevant sections of the industry Code.

    Is this a mere red herring by BON? Not at all. The organisation has demonstrated its thoroughness by quoting some sections of the Code with which the NBC operates, and here we take only 14.3.1 and 14.3.2

    14.3.1. The Commission shall, on receipt of complaint(s): a. Inform and require the Broadcaster to provide, within a specified period determined by the Commission, a response in writing and a recording of the relevant materials.

    14.3.2. The Broadcaster’s failure to supply the requested materials or make statements in response to the inquiries within the stipulated time limit shall be deemed as acceptance of the complaint(s), and the appropriate sanctions shall be applied.

    You may not really need a lawyer to interpret the foregoing which is clearer than daylight. The uproar is that the rules are being roundly violated and people are inferring reasons.

    BON enjoys the support of the audience and the listeners they serve. The Human Rights community is outraged that things have really fallen apart in the regulatory ecosystem. The Media Rights Agenda (MRA) and the International Press Centre (IPC) have thrown their weight behind BON in the wake of the fine on Channels, and are asking that it be withdrawn.

    Officials of the organisations, Edetaen Ojo (MRA) and Lanre Arogundade (IPC), in a joint statement, alerted that “NBC has in this instance again exercised quasi-judicial powers injudiciously, by constituting itself to the prosecutor and the judge over a case brought before it by a third party. In previous instances, it has also additionally been the accuser.”

    The Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP) and Centre for Journalism Innovation and Development (CJID) have sued President Muhammadu Buhari over the N5 million fine on Channels Television. The Minister, Lai Mohammed, and the NBC are joined in the suit.

    As it is, there are so many people and organisations fighting for the soul of the NBC, to restore the regulatory agency to its senses, sanity and independence in spite of its own failings. They think that an institution should be able to stand on its own and deliver expected services to the nation.

    Since debut in 1992, the NBC was designed to serve public good but its fortunes and believability have plummeted in recent years. The reasons are not far fetched

    In a matter as serious as press freedom, the ability of the media to function without some hermetic strictures, there was a little bit of comic relief, some hilarity perhaps to induce unintended catharsis for those of us too troubled by the happenings at the NBC. Just laugh out loud and purge yourself of all stress and troubling anxieties.

    In the letter to the Minister, BON wrote: “It is in the light of the above and for many other reasons that we are passionately calling on the Honourable Minister of Information and Culture as the supervising Minister to urgently call NBC to order in other to avoid total decimation in the hitherto respected regulatory body.”

    Really? The problem at the NBC emanates from the Minister. The structure of the regulatory agency has remained very solid over the years with well trained staff ready to do their job. Unfortunately, the NBC Act creates an unstable Board with a three year tenure, and a super Minister whose command must be obeyed.

    Section 6 under the Act, titled: Power of the Minister to give directives, states as follows: “Subject to the provisions of this Act, the Minister may give the Commission directives of a 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.”

    A minister who is versed in law is only taking advantage of that unhealthy provision in the Act and he can claim not to have committed any evil at all, except that the industry is reeling in pain and frustration because of his meddlesomeness at the NBC.

    At the moment there are so many things wrong with the industry, all traced to the hold of the Minister on the regulator as empowered by law. For instance, the Digital Switchover (DSO) has not worked at all except for a few embedded within the system to benefit financially, because a Minister has chosen to be in charge of a technical process without giving opportunity to those who can make the Switchover happen.

    The NBC needs help as even its leadership cannot claim to be acting without external pressure and directives to jeopardise the fortunes of an industry and even create tension in the polity. One redeeming opportunity is for BON to put recent actions of the regulator to test by heading to the court, armed with the Broadcast Act and the Nigeria Broadcasting Code. The determination of the court has a way of strengthening regulatory processes.

    The NBC has gone beyond placating and reporting. The system must be redeemed from its frailties even for the health and pride of the staff who have spent all their working years at the regulatory body.

  • Broadcasting as beauty and the beast – By Okoh Aihe

    Broadcasting as beauty and the beast – By Okoh Aihe

    Paul Rusesabagina, whose heroics during the 1994 Rwanda genocide inspired the Oscar nominated movie, Hotel Rwanda, is back in the United States, after being released from jail in his country, to spend the rest of his remaining life in peace and never dream of politics in his country again. 

    Resisting a bizarre twist of fate in a country with deep ethnic crevices, Rusesabagina,  manager of four star Hotel des Mille Collines in Kigali, suddenly found himself in the middle of a gory reality drama, and used his skills and connections to shelter over 1200 Tutsis and moderate Hutus and saved them from a horrible end in the hands of racially bigoted and indoctrinated Interahamwe militia. 

    The 2004 film acknowledged Rusesabagina’s heroism. But the Rwanda President, Paul Kagame who grew weary of Rusesabagina’s growing international profile, outspokenness and criticism against his government, decided to act once and for all. Keep him away for eternal damnation, until the United States and the government of Qatar stepped into the matter and secured his release last week.

    Incendiary broadcasting provided the fuel for the ethnic cleansing fire that ran through Rwanda from April 1994. Following the death of President Juvenal Habyarimana and his Burundian counterpart, Cyprien Ntaryamira, in a plane crash, plane allegedly shot down by some rebels, the Tutsis bore the heavy weight of recrimination and, within a hundred days in hell, over a million of them, including some Hutus, ironically, were murdered in a wave of madness. Broadcasting played an ignoble role. 

    Documenting those horrible days for posterity in her book, From Red Earth, Denise Uwimana, a miracle survivor wrote: “When I turned the radio to RTLM next morning, a fanatical voice was announcing an order “from the top” that the hour had come for all “snakes and cockroaches” to die. “Look in the bushes!” the voice screamed. “Look in the swamps! Wherever you find Tutsi, kill! Kill without mercy!” He named specific “enemies and traitors” to be targeted first and ended with a shriek: “The mass graves are still half-empty! Fill them up!”

    Broadcasting became a beast in Rwanda and tribal deviants exploited its ugly capacity to push the country over the edge. 

    One observation here; those who flaunt superiority complex, as some people are wont to do in Nigeria, always end up creating demons that destroy a society.

    Those familiar with the historical nightmare of Rwanda will be happy that broadcasting in Nigeria is not left in the hands of the government with a central command from the federal or state authorities but deregulated and democratised since 1992 to provide plurality of voices and opinions. They will be happy when, from time to time, the broadcast regulator which is the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC), roars into action and sometimes, parcels out sanctions to knock seemingly erring broadcasters into line. 

    This would have been the natural expectation except that, in the case of Nigeria, the law has been framed in such a way that it can easily be manipulated to ruin the kind of joy that a deregulated broadcast sector once introduced, the kind of joy that made pioneer broadcast regulator, Prof Tom Adaba, to rephrase a particular lyrics from the Third World musical group, “now that we find broadcasting what do we do with it?”

    The Minister of Information and Culture is empowered to sit astride the nation’s broadcast law and dish out commands even based on whims and caprices.

    Recent developments in the broadcast industry do not bring any comfort at all. An interview granted Dr Datti Baba-Ahmed, the Vice Presidential candidate of the Labour Party by Seun Okinbaloye of Channels Television, has generated a new wave of controversy. Again that wouldn’t be an issue if the people believe in the purity, sanctity and independence of the broadcast laws.

    Riled by the contents of the interview aired March 22, 2023, Mr Bayo Onanuga, Director, Media and Publicity, All Progressive Congress (APC) Presidential Campaign Council, on March 30, fired a petition to the NBC, asking the regulator to sanction Channels Television for breaching sections of the Nigeria Broadcasting Code. 

    Said Onanuga in the petition, “The Code states in Section 3.8.1(b) that ‘A Broadcaster shall ensure that no programme contains anything which amounts to subversion of constituted authority or compromises the unity or corporate existence of the nation as a Sovereign state.

    ”The comment by Mr. Datti later on the same programme that if ‘President Buhari should hand over to the President-elect by 29th May, that would be the end of democracy is another case of unguarded statement and breach of Section 5.3.3(b), which states that – ‘A Broadcaster shall avoid divisive and inflammatory matters in its provocative form in using political material’.

    ”Furthermore, Section 3.0.2.1 said that no Broadcaster shall encourage or incite crime, lead to public hate, disorder or repugnant to public feelings’ materials that cause disaffection.”

    Onanuga therefore urged the NBC to sanction Channels TV based on identified breaches.

    The fine came soon enough. N5m slammed on Channels. The punishment could be more severe next time, the regulator warned. The NBC letter was dated March 27, 2023. But no problems with the dates, about the witch crying in the night and the child dying in the morning. A little abracadabra with the dates remains a suspicion here. After all, Nigerians are not bad mathematicians, putting two and two together to get a befitting answer. 

    People are outraged. Some of us that have followed Onanuga over the years with earned obsequiousness are troubled that he doesn’t seem to have understood the changing story of the Nigeria nation. An election has held that may earn the worst grades in our electoral history, the nation has been fractured beyond ethnic lines, and INEC is being blamed for helping push the nation towards the precipice. Even Onanuga’s position on some issues remain contentious and very discomforting. Add the letter to the NBC to the plate on the table!

    A petition from an incoming government to a regulator carries too much punch. It is not just a letter, it is beyond subtle blackmail. It is pure coercion. How could Onanuga have missed that even in a moment of justifiable anger?

    This writer has spoken to former regulators and even those presently working at the NBC. They are of the same opinion that the petition didn’t mean well for the independence of the regulator. Instead, it tried to create a pathway for them to follow even if they knew what to do in the first place. 

    The relationship between President elect, Senator Bola Ahmed Tinubu, and the Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, is very much in public domain. Already there are subterranean grumblings that the Minister’s position on recent action taken by the regulator against TVC which belongs to Tinubu has unnerved some of the workers. 

    One question from the foregoing is, what will happen to industry regulation once the new government comes in? 

    While time will supply answers to the above question, one will want to observe that the country is passing through challenging times. The broadcasters will need to be more creative in managing the hubris of supposed election winners who are still spitting fire from Olympian heights, and the disappointment and frustrations of supposed losers at the nadir quarters of their present life. The media needs to preach sophrosyne and tolerance.

    The sight of red earth is not always very comforting. When I got home years go and looked into the room where Daddy will be taking his eternal test, the first thing I saw was the read earth, meaning that the grave was ready for its permanent occupant. 

    We don’t need red earth all over the nation. Too many have gone already for the obvious reason that the nation failed to protect them. We don’t need to add more. Broadcasters should be bold enough to hold politicians responsible for their actions irrespective of the red eyes of the broadcast regulators and their appointers. 

  • For Telecoms, the taste of half bread – By Okoh Aihe

    For Telecoms, the taste of half bread – By Okoh Aihe

    Two evils remain insidiously inimical to any industry. They are very much alive  in the telecommunications industry, like Prometheus unchained, ready to do damage any time. They are multiple taxation and regulatory capture. For any business, the knowledge of the existence of this twin evil remains the beginning of wisdom, and the planting of a small seed that will yield a great harvest. 

    At some point we shall revisit regulatory capture and what it has done to some industries in Nigeria under this administration that is winding down, while we let the other evil, multiple taxation, enjoy an ignoble attention in this write up.

    An industry that drinks from the harmful cocktail of taxes is said to Labour  under multiple taxation. No industry exemplifies that more than the telecommunications industry which, because of noticeable successes in nearly all parts of the world, is subjected to a different bouquet of taxes. Those looking for euphemism, a beautiful wrap to decorate a bad situation, call it harvesting the low hanging fruits. Oh, the low hanging attractive fruits that arrest the eyes, to the extent, that you must easily pluck them for relished demolition.

    Multiple taxation hurts very badly and investors view it with red eyes like mother-hen looking at the young chick in the fire. 

    This is the reason that at this particular time, when so many things are seemingly very wrong with the nation: extensively failed elections, bad economic policies inducing untold pain, a despondency akin only to the one we saw during the civil war, and young lives forced into perennial uncertainty and flight from their country, one man, and a very unlikely one for that matter, is enjoying a rave of appreciation. Dr Isa Pantami, Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, is having a good time under the sun.

    When I spoke to Gbolahan Awonuga, Director, Operations at ALTON (Association of Licensed Telecommunications Operators of Nigeria), he was full of praise for the Minister, saying, “We thank the Honourable Minister for seeing this through. We also thank the regulator, the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) for supporting the industry at this time.”

    Let’s explain the source of Gbolahan’s excitement. Members of his association wear the shoes and they know where they hurt very badly. In August last year, the Nigerian government introduced new excise duty that would be collected from the various industries. There was general outrage but the telecommunications operators cried out that since they wouldn’t want to die under a welter of taxes, they would have to pass the 5 per cent excise duty to the subscribers. 

    Granted that at this particular time, a government lacking the creativity of sparking the economy could easily resort to a new irritating tax, the truth had to be told that the telecommunications industry was already drowning in taxes. Monday night, Gbolahan supplied this writer a list which ranges from the obvious to the very ridiculous, including: way leave, water way, community access fee and shop rate. They are 41 in all. 

    And gbam!!! A desperate government added another 5 per cent excise duty. 

    Gbolahan explained the implications with an inconvenient math. Recall that VAT was recently increased to 7.5 per cent. The excise duty of 5 per cent would have brought total charges on service to 12.5 per cent! Please know that the duty would have been imposed on your calls. Every call, local and international.

    Where is the protection for the poor woman in the village? Where is the cover for my old grandmother? Gbolahan asked.

    Pantami provided the answer last week, and the answer came with lots of hope and refreshing optimism. Hear him.

    “I am happy to report to you that President Muhammadu Buhari, GCFR, has approved the exemption of the digital economy sector from the five per cent excise duty to be paid and this is because of the strength of the argument presented to him by the Committee that additional burden on telecom sector will increase the sufferings of Nigerians and the other sectors that are not making as much contribution to the economy should be challenged to do more and pay the 5 per cent excise duty,” Pantami said. 

    The minister headed the Committee which made a compelling case to the President. The Committee probably reclined its weight on the local adage that it is unwise to kill the goose that lays the golden egg. The telecom sector was already doing more than enough. The sector provides the super structure that carries the weight of every sector of the economy, and even politics and political decisions. 2022 second quarter contribution to the GDP by the digital economy sector, which includes telecommunications, stands at 18.44 per cent. Quarterly revenue generation has jumped to N480bn from 51bn previously, according to Pantami.

    In spite of the rise in cost of doing business in Nigeria, and a visibly challenged economy, the sector has not increased rates in terms of service provision, and has also continued to generate very good paying jobs. 

    Gbolahan says “power determines everything.” The minister affirms this by saying that the telecom sector has over 32,000 generators in various base stations across the nation. With the price of a litre of diesel standing at about N850, it is benumbing to think of how much is used to power the generators daily and be able to provide their bouquet of services to their subscribers. 

    In this instance, the minister got it right. The telecommunications sector is overburdened with all kinds of payments, including legitimate taxes and hush payments to stop some village heads and area boys from making trouble and disturbing their service rollout. The field of play is challenged and made very vulnerable by all kinds of coercions which succeeding legitimate governments have not been able to deal with. 

    In spite of a bright score, the minister needs to do some more. Payments to the various governments, from local government councils to states and the federal government, are way too much. There has to be a concerted effort to streamline all of them and make such payments more convenient and less painful.

    Besides, under the Buhari administration the telecommunications sector has witnessed a plunge in fortunes. The regulator of the industry has fallen from its apogee of  importance to some low-level struggle for existence and relevance. I am not fascinated by the hand-pumping and claims of achievements based on whimsical submissions. There will come a time for profiling and a shout for help to restore the regulator to its once enviable status of importance at the local and international level.

    For the time being, the case at hand is like the story of half bread or say, the taste of half bread, which is better than no taste at all. The industry can now begin to ask for more from this platform of very humble achievement, from the Minister and the regulator, to do the industry more good and excite it for more economic activities and creativity.

    The extortioners of Suleja

    Suleja, which is a border town between Abuja and Niger State, is less than twenty five minutes drive from the Federal Capital Territory (FCT). The drive is so short that my friend calls the distance throw stone instead of stone throw, that is, if you enjoy the local adage. In the days of yore, Suleja provided an attractive stop for travellers going up north.

    The coming of Abuja has stripped it of that importance, relegating it to a miserable background. But should that be responsible for the nastiness playing out at Suleja? Those who live at Suleja will hardly know that they don’t live in Abuja but in Niger State.

    However, Abuja visitors to Suleja endure all kinds of bestial treatment in the hands of  vehicle inspector officers, supposedly. Two young ladies I know have suffered the same fate within two weeks and they tell the same story. They simply seize their vehicles in traffic, point out a non existent infraction, and the journey of pain begins from there. They don’t seem to recognise Abuja vehicle papers, so some kind of payments must be made to them to process their papers for you. Yesterday, one of them cried out to me.

    They extorted N14,600 from her but only gave receipt for N2,000. A Niger State VIO officer Who was kind enough to speak to me on phone said the people belong to a different arm of government but only wear our uniform to carry out their operations. Should I call it nefarious operations? Who is in charge of these criminals on the road, please? 

  • Technology, always about National interest – By Okoh Aihe

    Technology, always about National interest – By Okoh Aihe

    I am not going to write about those who break bones and spill blood to impose themselves as leaders on the hapless people. I will not lampoon those who hoped upon hope expecting the Independent Electoral Commission (INEC) to deliver on a project on which it has shown infinite incapacity to handle.

    I will not also write about the recent wave of sanctions on broadcast stations by the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC) for falling short of the standards of broadcasting as enshrined in the Nigeria Broadcasting Code; for it has become too commonplace to make sense or even news in my own little estimation. Nor will I be the one to begin to talk about the clear and present danger that may soon befall the broadcast regulator. The signs are too ominous to be ignored even by those without love for the nation’s broadcast sector. What I see in front can result in massive plunder and comprehensive emasculation of the broadcast industry.

    Troubling as the times may be, my concern this day is to look at a couple of nations of the world and the way they align technology to enhance their national security and national interest and not fight personal battles. For some of these nations, technology is always about national interest irrespective of the government in power. They demonstrate the veracity of the statement, government is a continuum.

    I will start with TikTok, that disruptive social media platform that sounds more like the sound of a wall clock. Since appearing under its present name in 2017, without prejudice to preceding history, the video sharing platform of snackable contents, owned by ByteDance and Chinese owner,  Zhang Yiming, has gained traction globally, especially since merging with Muscical.ly in 2018.

    By this year, TikTok has over 1.53bn users globally and the networth has jumped over $50bn. The young people like it especially. In this world of bullish narcissism, when social media personalities market even the most bizarre tastes and entertainers want every minute detail of their fantasy covered for public consumption, while politicians exhibit some of their latest acquisitions with stolen wealth, TikTok has enjoyed a fairy ride and accelerated populism. It has also earned a little bit of trouble that is affecting its footprints globally. It is not because of what TIkTok is doing wrong, which really has not been proven by anybody, but by reason of provenance.

    TikTok is Chinese, if you permit such directness. And here is the ailment. While labouring to emerge from a chequered history of being hated and overlooked by the rest of the world, China has really not been open enough to earn any trust from the global community. If the country is not playing war games, it is doing certain things too clandestinely which fall short of global acceptable standards.

    For instance, in the summer of 2020, there was a boarder clash between China and India, leading to some deaths. TikTok became a direct victim with over 200 million people disconnected from its App immediately. The Indian government needed to send a clear message to an overbearing neighbour. It was a great loss.

    Since then some other countries have taken stern measures against TikTok. They include: Afghanistan, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Canada, United Kingdom and a host of other countries.

    But America leads the pack in a most standard way, arguing her position very vehemently, from the twin positions of national security and national interest. On the suspicion that the Chinese government could exploit its relationship with TikTok to  mine data which the company collects from its subscribers and gain an advantage over the US government or spy on journalists who report China, President Trump signed an executive order to the effect that TIkTok cedes ownership to American investors.

    CNN reported in March this year that “China has national security laws that require companies under its jurisdiction to cooperate with a broad range of security activities.”

    Trapped in some turmoil, TikTok  chief executive, Shou Zi Chew, had said that the Chinese government had yet to make such a request, explaining that TIkTok was not obliged to respond in the affirmative even if it did ask. TIkTok doesn’t operate in China but the founding company, ByteDance, does.

    But nobody is buying any of that. Not President Joe Biden who, although had rescinded the Trump executive order, is enjoying Congress support in dealing a decisive blow, which he did late last year, by signing a legislation prohibiting TikTok on federal government mobile devices. A number of states in America are following the prints of the Biden government on TIkTok. Meaning that if you work for the American government or some of these states, you are not allowed to allow TikTok on your mobile work devices.

    Let’s take the journey back. The developed west always have their issues with China. Under President Donald Trump, those issues never abated but escalated to a new height. I had nursed the thought that a major cause of that sour relationship was the scramble for the leadership of 5G technology at the global level.

    China had been bullish in the promotion of 5G and even giving discounted sales to encourage nations to try out the technology often described by some  as a monster capable of unleashing unimaginable development.

    For a time, Chinese companies, Huawei and ZTE had a great run across the world, most irritatingly even in Europe and the Americas. This wasn’t to last forever. Some countries believe that Chinese companies  embed spyware in their equipment.

    When Trump spoke on April 12, 2019, his position on 5G was very clear. “We cannot allow any other country to out-compete the United States in this powerful industry of the future. We are leading by so much in so many different industries of that type, and we can’t let that happen. The race to 5G is a race America must win, and it’s a race, frankly, that our great companies are now involved in. We have given them the incentive they need. It’s a race we will win,” he said.

    Although the skirmishes between Trump and the Biden administration is so well known, the government’s position on 5G remains the same. The American government and its people must have a commanding say in the matter.

    Biden has only throttled on from where Trump left off. Fortunately Biden has also enjoyed the support of the Congress in taking some crucial decisions. It is about national interest, not about anybody, party or even the President. It is about the American people.

    The US Congress is putting pressure on the multi-agency body, the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) to quickly complete work on their investigations of TikTok and draw some conclusions. In a letter to Janet Yellen, Treasury Secretary and Chair of the Committee, Senators Richard Blumemthal, D, and Jerry Moran, R, expressed their fears over activities and safety of TikTok, and urged CFIUS to conclude its investigations and impose stricter sanctions and structural changes on the organisation. In this matter, the President, Biden, and the Congress are headed in the same direction but all in the American interest.

    But what lessons do we learn as a people and a nation? The recent elections to elect new Assembly members in the country is so fractured and mired in sustained acrimonious controversies and accusations that it may prove difficult to expect anything good out of the lot. While I suggest that quality of choice across the nation will emerge with time, it will be suicidal not to encourage or challenge the new members to perform and rescue the nation in very challenging times.

    While nations concern themselves with the way technology treats government and its people, Nigeria and its government have largely been concerned with how technology hurts the ego of some individuals who labour under the delusion that their hurt is the nation’s hurt.

    So much has gone wrong under this administration. Could there be a flicker of hope that the new administration will offer something better?

    My little appeal is that the new National Assembly members should work to redeem the image of the revered institution, engage in some rigorous study in their areas of interest, and be knowledgeable enough to initiate tech bills that can impact on the nation. They should be knowledgeable enough to challenge government appointees who intimidate them with false knowledge and defraud the people with bogus ideas and unverifiable submissions.

    The lawmakers should do less oversight functions, visiting corporates and government agencies but should instead concentrate on the needful that can help the Nigerian people instead of helping a few pockets that may not help the nation when the journey gets real tough.

  • Technology challenges aggravate banking services – By Okoh Aihe

    Technology challenges aggravate banking services – By Okoh Aihe

    No. Our President, Muhammadu Buhari, is not wicked. He will not deliberately sanction a policy that plunged the nation into penury and release the people to the streets to wander like homeless zombies without a hope for tomorrow.

    This couldn’t be his idea of a cashless policy or even a Naira redesign variant that will take cash away from the people and make them nocturnal denizens of banks that ordinarily should operate in the day time. This couldn’t be anybody’s good idea. To go to the banks and see desperation in the eyes of a people that could literally ignite a fire.

    Was this the kind of situation that late Festus Iyayi foresaw in 1979, which gave birth to his first novel, Violence; the kind of poverty that could make people literally feast on each other just to survive for another day? If there was desperation then, the desperation is epidemic today.

    This couldn’t be the projection of the Central Bank governor, Godwin Emefiele, who, although very subdued now, was very rambunctious about his new policies; how even the locals in the villages could walk with a swagger with bank cards in their pockets and go about doing electronic transactions even in the countryside that never hosted a telecom base station.

    No. Emefiele doesn’t cut the image of the Sphinx of Giza, appropriately described as half man half beast. He was just doing a job, trying to bake policies that could mean well for the nation except that churning out these policies without a comprehensive impact analysis could turn humans into guinea pigs for half-baked monetary experiments.

    Both Buhari and Emefiele were sure that the policies would bring sanity to the money sector; cut waste and corruption, curb insecurity, banditry and ransom taking, knock down inflation which still enjoys runaway status, check the propensity to move about with large volumes of cash, and even do unsavoury deals, and even more immediate, check the ability of the politicians to buy votes in the ongoing elections.

    Weighed on the strength of the last pillar, vote buying, there is no gainsaying that the policies have failed very miserably. Although the Presidential election is nearly in the bag, the disputations are intense and both local and foreign observers, and even politicians, agree that INEC has done Nigeria a very bad one; the worst ever.

    Who really is a government policy designed for? The people or the government or just for a few fat maggots? What is the meaning of a policy designed without a heart for the people? Is it baked from the heart of wickedness or incompetence? Could it be both, combined?

    I am in the bank on this very day and my thoughts are overwhelming. I could only get in on the wings of residual goodwill. And here I am watching the milling crowd outside who don’t even know that somebody is watching them from within. Watching their frustrations and desperations and actually just afraid when this would get to a breaking point. Sensing my riveted attention at the crowd outside, the security man told me, “Oga, some of these people got here by 2am in the night. Yet, there is no money for them! No. No money for any of us”

    When I left the bank that fateful day, I decided to seek answers from those who should know. I called the telecoms regulator and a couple of operators to throw light into my dark tunnel of ignorance. What really is happening in the banking sector? Why are services comatose?

    Quite interestingly, sources from the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) and the telecommunications industry spoke nearly in the same words. I am not sure they had a meeting or a rehearsal for this.

    Remember, we said the Central Bank governor, Emefiele, is not a wicked man. My sources didn’t say so either. But this they said. The monetary policy of Naira redesign came so suddenly on the banks that they were least prepared for what has hit them. What this signifies is that the Central Bank may not have worked so closely with the banking industry in order to prepare them for what was coming their way.

    The operators said their networks are robust and ready for whatever load that may come on the networks, but the same cannot be said of the banks. The fact that subscribers are still able to enjoy their internet connections, send messages and make WhatsApp and FaceTime calls without glitches (permit me to borrow that word from INEC) means that the networks are strong enough for whatever services that may come their way. But not so for the banks.

    “What is happening is that the banking sector is overwhelmed. Their systems were not dimensioned to carry the kind of traffic occasioned by Naira redesign policy,” an NCC source said, adding that the banks who host their technology outside of the telcos should optimise their servers to cope with the new industry demands.

    My sources were really irked that the people more impacted upon by the government policies are the small workers out there, the artisans and others who work for daily pay, people who have no business with electronic money transfer or banking halls, people who have, within the period, almost been obliterated by the new policies. What  is happening before our very eyes, is that a helpless segment of the informal economy has nearly been decimated.

    While capacity remains at the heart of what is ailing the banks, both in technology and human capital, an NCC source captured it more appropriately, when he said that the Japa syndrome has hit the banking sector so badly that it will take them years to build up capacity to fill the gaps so opened up.

    I am told that Japa is a Yoruba word that means taking a flight for greener pastures. Although there was a steady growth of the number of professionals leaving Nigeria for greener pastures abroad, the situation became rampant under the Buhari administration when droves of doctors and IT specialists ran away from the country to offer their services where they would be best appreciated and paid for.

    In one of those moments, the Minister of Labour, Dr Chris Ngige, in a fit of anger, had said that the doctors could leave as the nation has enough doctors to cater for her citizens. There was outrage because those who go to Nigerian hospitals see and experience something contrary.

    The banking sector, like Ngige, cannot display the effrontery of saying its IT specialists could leave as it lacks the capacity for a refill. “The banks have lost IT staff that they cannot easily replace. The skill set is a big problem. It is a big challenge that should urgently be addressed,” the source said.

    Although there is an insipid development, of the Central Bank conceding to the banks to accept old notes after weeks of trampling on a Supreme Court judgement, the damage seems to have been done irretrievably. The banks have lost the trust of their customers; and their situation grows precarious when there is every reason to believe that the CBN will pursue its cashless policy to an unreasonable end.

    What should be done in the immediate? An industry source told this writer that the problem lies with the banks. They should think less of profit now and spend money in recruiting and training competent IT staff, expand the capacity of their servers and sit with telcos to discuss their challenges. They should also understand that this is a major crisis situation and learn to communicate with their customers on what to expect from the various platforms or even when the situation can begin to improve.

    Somebody even suggested that the banks can outsource some of their challenging operations to specialised technology firms after the twin issues of trust and safety have been dealt with.

    But for the time being, Nigerians need a reprieve, both from their banks and their government. They are not wrong in expecting to be treated decently, as human beings.

  • Prof Mahmood Yakubu in the eternal labyrinth of technology – By Okoh Aihe

    Prof Mahmood Yakubu in the eternal labyrinth of technology – By Okoh Aihe

    The other night sleep went far away from me and I found comfort in my little phone as I tried to find out what the rest of the global community was saying about Nigeria after a mismanaged election. You see, in spite of the challenges of our world, in spite of how deep some highly placed people want to push us in the mire, they cannot stop the world from getting into our rooms through some increasingly miniaturised equipment like the mobile phones, iPad, tablets or simply some other crazy stuffs that would bip each time there is breaking news.

    What the global media had to say about Nigeria was particularly savaging, goring and very contemptuous. I had to interrupt my wife’s sleep to read some of the stories to her. You know a bad situation can elicit the flow of good English, with adjectives pouring all over the place.

    This is what the Financial Times says: “What Nigeria needed above all was a clean election to reiterate the basic message of democracy: that a sovereign people can choose its leaders. Sadly, it did not happen. The election – which appears to have delivered the presidency to Bola Tinubu, a wealthy political fixer running for the incumbent All Progressive Congress – was badly mismanaged at best. It failed to set the example needed for West Africa, a region where too many national leaders have extended term limits or resorted to seizing power at gunpoint. Nigeria remains a democracy, but only just.”

    I read several of them that night and came to the lacerating conclusion that instead of boosting the nation’s profile with a most anticipated election, the Independent Electoral Commission (INEC) has diminished the status of Nigeria and attracted opprobrium to the nation even from very small countries which, only a few years ago, looked up to Nigeria gracefully for support. The biggest economy in Africa couldn’t even organise a simple election with all the money poured in.

    Do they know how this rings, like the little jingling bells that announced the approach of the lepers in the days of old?

    Sleep still wouldn’t come. In a couple of days, from March 5 to 9, 2023, the Nigerian President, Mohammadu Buhari, will be attending the United Nations Conference on the least Developed Countries in Doha, Qatar, on the invitation of the Emir of Qatar,

    Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani. The theme of the conference is, From Potential to Prosperity.

    “In Doha, President Buhari will reinforce Nigeria’s commitment to support the most vulnerable countries to meet their development challenges, highlighting areas through which the Nigerian government has provided them with various forms of assistance over time,” Malam Garba Shehu, said in a statement.

    Bad news burns faster than aviation fuel and also travels beyond the speed of sound. Just when the nation is failing, 163 million of the population plunged into multidimensional poverty, elections badly organised, attracting both local and international condemnation, a people in despicable forlornness, it is my prayer that irony will be fair to the President when he mounts the rostrum to speak. But will technology be?

    Oh, since the election, life is becoming unbearable at night. My mind went to my discussion with an Uber driver which formed the meat of my article published on November 11, 2020. Titled, Technology will punish you, the young driver had tried to explain to me how angry technology could be with those who take it for granted.

    I read part of it again and I thought the material was written only yesterday.

    “‘That is technology. If you don’t manage it well, it will punish you.’

    This fellow has very little idea about the profundity of his statement, which is to the effect that if you do not put your house in order and do things well in the way of the modern world, technology will not give you a hiding. Instead, it will spank you. Has this not happened in Nigeria in recent weeks when things literally keeled over, with heads down and heels up and there is so much confusion and untruth across the land?”

    The foregoing was in November 2020. In February 2023, the nation is trapped in the vortex of technology because one man, Prof Mahmood Yakubu, who had the gilded opportunity to superintend a major national assignment, had fiddled with the fire of messing with technology and peddling unbelievable inanities in the name of technology glitches.

    Enjoying the backing of a new Electoral Act and with lots of cash to spend, Yakubu was well documented as he promised a new dawn in election management, different from the abracadabra that was witnessed years ago in Kano and Osun, code-named inconclusive elections, which was a season that preceded the Electoral Act. Since then, Anambra, Ekiti and Osun proved redemptive, although the very discerning would always notice some lurking signs of failure in the background.

    This is the reason people are incensed that all the promises were aborted at the final point of execution when in a single election, the results of the National Assembly could be transmitted electronically at the polling units with the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) while the ultimate results of the Presidential candidates could not be sent in a situation that probably indicates that the INEC servers were isolated and placed on active and hibernation mode, to perform or underperform or not perform at all.

    While that irresponsible act of failure has robbed the nation of a transformative moment of glory, the reality is that Yakubu and his INEC have exposed so many people to the unforgiving anger of technology. So many young people who dreamt of the beginning of a new life, will have to hold fast to the only evidence they have, images of a set of people that blew their dreams to the wind.

    Do they care? “Technology will punish you” were the words of the Uber driver. When my children want to make fun of me, they do a little search on my name and begin to paint different colours of me with materials so excavated. There will always be people who see things differently from the things I write. And they are unforgiving in their responses.

    This is where technology is a monster. When the President walks into Doha, there will be people who will want to do a quick search on Nigeria. The images that will greet them will not be the best; a people unable to perform simple tasks: can’t distribute petrol, can’t make cash available to their people, and can’t even conduct elections with all the monies that were budgeted and released. Technology will serve them hot, steamy and damning.

    But the major irony is on the INEC chairman, Mahmood Yakubu. A professor of Political History with sterling academic background, Yakubu enjoyed a rich trajectory in life before cresting at INEC, where he has enjoyed some enviable days in the sun until ongoing elections set him up for approbation or reprobation. Lucky him, his distinguished education has served him well in a country where a number of PhD holders are truck drivers or driving Uber if they enjoy some luck.

    Sitting at my table well into the night, I don’t know how many young people are doing a check on Yakubu. What technology will wash up has little to do with his glittering academic past but more of the submission that as he prepares for this weekend’s gubernatorial election, Nigerians don’t trust him any more nor do they believe any of his promises.

    He has lost that credibility and credulity. This is no comfort zone. It is the dark place of history that technology will keep him going forward. Because at a time the nation entrusted him with a very major assignment to deliver on a process that could lead the country to a glorious future, Yakubu dropped the ball, for whatever reason.

    It doesn’t matter who wins or has won the election, it is about the process that was adulterated with high profile incompetence. Yakubu dropped the ball at the apogee of his career. What a shame! How very tragic!  That is what technology will record for him. That is his lot forever.

  • A President’s final dance, and they accuse technology – By Okoh Aihe

    A President’s final dance, and they accuse technology – By Okoh Aihe

    President Muhammadu Buhari sought to use the elections as a redemptive opportunity to burnish his tenure in office, mostly blighted and blemished by sustained bad performance and wrong decisions. He wished to give the nation such a free , fair and transparent election that would seal his place in history as a very good man who gave his people the latitude to make democratic choices in a very free environment devoid of coercion.

    It was the President’s last dance with the people, unfortunately the Independence National Electoral Commission (INEC) ruined that dance with bad music.

    The President wasn’t ready to take any chances or yield to excuses. After years in the legislative wilderness, President Buhari exercised the boldness which leaders before him lacked, and signed the Electoral Bill into law on February 25, 2022. A major meat in the Act is the provision for INEC to transmit election results electronically from the polling stations.

    Nigerian politicians have long been associated with fraudulent practices, of electoral malpractices and voter manipulation. Instant transmission of results immediately after voting would wipe all that and bring credibility to the process and respect to our dear country.

    INEC got all the approvals. Not even the National Assembly could question it’s financial request. Over N300bn. Even what it did not ask for it got. Free to take any decision that could make the electoral process look cool and acceptable.

    Enter BVAS – the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (just a little coinage to make the purveyors look smart), some little tech pad that will flash up your details in a moment and capture your activities at the polling station. Without a voter’s card containing all your details, you have no presence before BVAS. The machine wipes everything evil about voting.

    Once elections are concluded at a polling station and all the recordings done, the result would immediately be transmitted to the INEC server. Voila! The deed is done.

    I was at the polling station shortly after 7am. Some young little girls, the age of my children, who got there at about 6am had taken it upon themselves to organise the activities at the unit before the INEC officials would come shortly after 10am. Nobody was angry. Everybody chatted and cracked jokes under the watchful eyes of the security personnel.

    Everything went smoothly until the young fellas failed to upload the result to the INEC server or transmit the results electronically. They gave what now seems to be a choreographed answer: after the password is inputed, the result is not going. Tempers flared but with my age neatly tucked into my velvet trouser, I tried to make interventions. But this was an unfolding national scandal clearly orchestrated by INEC at a very high level.

    Technology is not stupid. It would always offer what it is given. Technology has little stomach for empathy. While it can easily be manipulated no matter the sophistication, it would throw up the truth when properly solicited. The details are always interred in its cold heart. The BVAS is a little piece of machine that enjoys no unusual sophistication. It’s only a matter of time for truth to come into the open.

    There is something about character, competence and consistency. This INEC, headed by Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, lacks them all. Unfortunately, Mahmood maintains a rile smile that is most taunting and irritatingly insulting. His failure at INEC has invited the international community to feast on the nation; the election observers are telling us all the little things we should have done to clean up the electoral process. The insult we are receiving is nonpareil, all because of the calamitous failure of one man. Yakubu fails to, or has refused to understand that from the moment the BVAS failed to work at the polling units, his integrity has attracted that indelible mark of condemnation in perpetuity, like the mark of Cain.

    There was always something about this election season, some kind of precursor to a bad outing. Months preceding the election, the petrol stations across the nation simply ran out of fuel, and the managers in the supply chain gave all kinds of reasons and promised to nail the problem before last Saturday. Prices within the period fluctuated upwards and not downwards, to the extent that no member of this administration can tell a motorist the real pump price anywhere in the country. The problem remains unfixed, one of the reasons people could hardly leave their abode to vote in places where they had registered.

    Another sign. Few weeks ago, the Central Bank introduced a currency policy that took nearly Three Trillion old Naira notes away from circulation but injected less than N500bn redesigned denominations into the systems, leaving the people reeling in pains with some going to sleep at ATMs and a few stripping naked or dying in the banking halls. There were restrictions that pegged the amount of money somebody could withdraw. Even that little amount which could be as little as N5, 000, was not available. They said it was to constrain the easy flow of illicit funds at the election on Saturday. It worked, although not totally foolproof.

    But there was to follow the wonder of all wonders. The nation is so fractured that even anything is believable. You simply withdraw it from the realm of phantasmagoria and give it a reality jab. Just a few days to the Presidential election, the rumour swirled that the mobile network operators in the country were going to shut down their networks, render impossible the use of bank cards while all fund transfer within the period would be suspended. The explanation being that the authorities, and there are so many of them in Nigeria, didn’t want politicians to be able to transfer monies to voters. Remember there was a trader money in the last election which was nothing more than a hoodoo, if you were able to sample the living standards of some of the beneficiaries today.

    It never occurred to any of those spin doctors that if the networks were to shut down for one minute, the election was dead on arrival. Reason being that there would hardly be any communications going on in the country, the various communication arteries from the Federal Capital to the States and State capitals, and rural areas, would be dangerously compromised. But the rumour was strong enough to force out the Public Affairs Dirctor of the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), Mr Reuben Muoka, to make clarifications, stressing that the communication grid across the nation would be alive and running, and that, in fact, the NCC had dedicated a 622 short code to aid communications.

    One could understand the frenetic concerns of the phone users. With telecommunications being one of the few dividends of democracy since 1999, nobody wanted to endure the ripples of nomophobia while being denied a ubiquitous equipment that makes their life tolerable in the painful hell the politicians have created.

    This takes me to the final point in this material. I want to express profound gratitude to former President, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, whose administrative wizardry brought life to the communications industry in the year 2000. He democratised the use of phones in the country and this has therefore made it possible for the failure of institutions and individuals to be documented in real time. Citizen journalism is making life impossible for dinosaurs who want to hold the nation down to the past.

    Last weekends woeful performance by INEC has been documented in the cyberspace by millions of young people across the nation. When they see the smiling face of Yakubu, they will remember the story of a man who was given an important assignment but failed to deliver so miserably.

    Buhari’s reign as President fractured the nation but Yakubu and INEC aimed at a complete dismemberment of the country which the resolute will of the Nigerian people has conquered.

    My last line. Technology didn’t fail. Yakubu failed this nation. My little prayer is that the building blocks of a new nation should begin from the ashes of this disappointment by ensuring that those connected with this comprehensive failure be punished comprehensively.

    Congratulating a Minister
    Last Friday, the Minister of Communications and Digital Economy inaugurated the Board of the Universal Service Provision Fund (USPF). For convenient recall, Section 114 of the NIgerian Communications Act 2003, established USPF, while the Board which is headed by the Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, is established by Section 115 of the Act. The EVC of the NCC is the Vice Chair.

    The Board which is constituted by the President on the advice of the Minister, draws its members as follows: 2 Commissioners, one representative of the Ministry, one representative of the Minister of Finance, one representative of the Chairman, National Planning Commission, and four private sector representatives.

    The Minister, Dr Isa Pantami assumed office in August 2019. For nearly four years, the minister was the Board. However, last Friday, wisdom and the Constitution prevailed as he decided to constitute the Board. My only observation here is that this is the time to write handover notes and not to constitute boards. All the same, congratulations to him and to the new Board of the USPF!

  • For broadcasting, a future ungarnished – By Okoh Aihe

    For broadcasting, a future ungarnished – By Okoh Aihe

    It was pretty good news for the broadcast space the other day when the broadcast regulator, the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC), gave a report sheet dating back to 2018. For a country seemingly wallowing in chaos, it was a breather to steer us away from the nail-biting Naira scarcity out there and the consequential outrage that has snowballed into riots in some parts of the country.

    Just listening to the opening lines on television, my immediate reaction was that the present administration, headed by President Mohammadu Buhari, has started to prepare its handover notes. Having seen a copy of the speech by the Director General of the Commission, Malam Balarabe Shehu Ilelah, that first impression is hardly faulted. The entire report is centred on the good things the President is doing for the broadcast industry.

    Cashing in on the approval of 67 new broadcast licenses to reflect on the  achievements, Malam Ilelah gushed on the President’s intrinsic democratic values for encouraging plurality of voices in the broadcast industry. The history of approval, which documents 473 licenses under his administration, “has shown that President Buhari is actually a democrat and media friendly who uphold media freedom and pluralism

    “I am publicly unveiling the list to the general public today. This is a great milestone in furthering pluralism and freedom of expression,” Ilelah enthused.

    The licenses were released in the following order. 210 licenses in 2018, 159 in 2021, 32 in 2022, another 5 in 2022, and 67 in 2023, with more in view, according to the broadcast regulator.

    The foregoing is evidence that this administration has not been miserly with license approvals except that lived reality doesn’t portray the President as media friendly. If anything, this government has a notorious disdain and distaste for the nation’s media industry, with quite a number shut at some point while some have had to endure a torrid season of fines. This has been the sore point between media practitioners and the government that the latter should be more accommodating of dissenting views. 

    Being mindful that the independence of regulatory agencies has been a major challenge under the Buhari administration, Ilelah happily announced that the President has given the regulator the independence to handle broadcast license processes without encumbrances. 

    “Mr. President has approved for the independence of NBC from any political interference in the exercise of its regulatory functions particularly with respect to issuance and withdrawal of broadcasting license. This has helped immensely in the reduction of violations by broadcasters as we used to see before,” Ilelah said. 

    Unfortunately, my position in respect of the above is very discomforting. While I am equally happy that quite a number of licenses have been approved, I want to observe that the process has been so arbitrary that there were grumblings, not so long ago, that some licenses were issued by the Minister of Information and Culture without the goodwill of even inviting any input from the regulator. Are those licenses included in the batches listed by the regulator?

    Please also permit me to say something about the independence of the regulator. While it would have been salutary for the President to grant the regulator such independence which is denied it by the Broadcast Act, such speculation remains a pipe dream. This writer has the information that the recent approvals were communicated directly to the Minister by the Chief of Staff to the President, instead of communicating with the NBC through the Minister. This hardly demonstrates any independence.

    The Act says that the NBC should process licenses through the Minister while the President remains the final approving authority. Through that process some of the broadcast requests to the President have been adulterated with people infusing all kinds of interests in the space between the Minister’s office and the Presidency. The abuse has been more rampant under this administration. 

    Coincidentally, the independence of the broadcast regulator was one of the troubling issues raised at a two-day programme, themed: Conversations Between Industry Stakeholders in Broadcasting Legislative/Regulatory Issues, which held in Abuja early February. 

    Organised by the Institute for Media and Society with support from the European Union, the participants drawn from the academia, the civil society, media and government were vociferous in calling for a free and well-funded broadcast regulator,  equipped well enough to tackle the challenges of constantly changing technology and other modern regulatory headaches, including the meddlesomeness of government. 

    “We need to fix the broadcast regulator in order to fix the broadcast industry, because democracy has no meaning without a strong media,” they said.

    One other issue raised at the meeting was the need to cover the broadcast open spaces and service gaps or underserved areas in the border communities. A participant shared his experience in Kazaure in Jigawa State where the locals receive radio broadcasts only from Niger Republic and none from Nigeria. The meeting observed that such development could lead to information manipulation and challenged the NBC to embark on creative regulation that could take broadcast services to those environments. NBC officials were present and they know how very concerned everybody was. My little question here is, does any of the new licenses address the needs of the border communities?

    Malam Ilelah was frank enough to admit that even with presidential support there have been challenges on the path of implementing the Digital Switchover process. A project sanctioned by the ITU to migrate broadcasting to digital platforms and free up frequencies for telecommunications services, has stalled nearly inexorably in the country. With all the shenanigans, the process has been extremely rudderless under this administration.

    “The Commission is currently working on simultaneous delivery of Nigeria to the life changing experience of digital broadcasting using SIMULCRYPT. Against this background, ITS and NTA-Star Nigeria have signed an agreement to actualizing this in the earliest possible time. To rejig DSO, the Board of the Commission has approved licensing the 3rd signal distributor. This is in addition to the existing ones; ITS and Pinnacle,” Ilelah said.

    With profound respect to preceding information, I want to state that there is hardly any flesh attached to the bone. The word, SIMULCRYPT, is plainly an anticipatory tech obscurantism which has little to do with elevating the switchover process other than the fact that customers of the two signal carriers, ITS and NTA-Star, will be able to use the same decoder/set top boxes to receive their signals. That will hardly help a process that is not working at the moment.

    There is also the suggestion that a third signal distributor will be licensed to make the DSO process run better. I am sorry to state here that the third signal distributor will not come with a magic wand but instead will only complicate the process. The MInisterial  Committee that replaced a Presidential Committee hardly understands the process and, if it does, receives orders from a source without knowledge of the entire process. 

    Concerning the DSO, the problem is not licensing, the problem has to do with capacity, and the bigger problem being the embedded interests that are making money from a process that is atrophying away. The regulator must call time, do a genuine self introspection and strive to restart the process all over again; this time for the good of the people, not the good of a few. 

    ELECTION, ONLY 3 DAYS HENCE

    Dear Readers, please don’t wait another minute before making your Voter’s Card ready. Be the first to head to the Polls on Saturday and strive to change all the things we have so often complained about in our daily life, in the newspapers and on radio and television. Take an action that will impact life and the future of this country. Don’t whine or complain ever again. Take a definite step! Vote the Candidate of your Choice and be Man or Woman enough to ward off every pressure. God bless Nigeria.

  • Empowering telcos to reduce the pains of cashless policy – By Okoh Aihe

    Empowering telcos to reduce the pains of cashless policy – By Okoh Aihe

    On my birthday, my prayer for Nigeria is not a cashless crunch that sends nearly everybody to the very nadir of life, but a prayer that Nigerians feel the kind of verve and optimism that have enveloped me this day, and build the kind of hope and audacity that ridicule adversity. 

    Apart from a pervasive befuddlement across the nation arising from the bungling of a very brilliant policy, two stories which may be quite the experience of a number of people across the nation, occupy the very nerve of my thoughts this morning.

    Remember, it is my happy day, as I write, February 14, so, don’t share a tear. Instead have a good laugh because laughter has a way of bringing healing and replacing pain with sweet sensations. 

    Story one. I have a PoS (Point of Sale) or Mobile Money agent close to where I live. He would usually handle my little cash challenges and make life easier for an older person. On this very day, sometime last week, I did not see him for nearly a full day until he came late in the evening to try to execute some transfers. According to his story, he woke up at 3.30am in the morning, leaving his young wife at home to go and queue for cash in the bank. When he got to the ATM (automated teller machine), he was number 52; meaning some people may have gotten there hours before him. The machine dispensed cash to 30 people and stopped. He proceeded to another bank where his number was 15. The machine served only 3 people and stopped. All day, the young man roamed from one bank to another only to discover that luck can be a rarity in a season of government’s confusion. 

    Story two. Another PoS agent not very far away from where I live, to share in the grief and sorrow of those life has nearly forgotten, the very people whose resilience and amenability to the vagaries of life can proof useful lessons to curators of policies introduced on the wings of deus ex machina. Over a week ago, this young lady and her husband whose business used to enjoy some level of boom, suddenly started to stock iced soft drinks and doughnuts. What is the meaning of this, I asked. Oh a change in line of business while waiting for the situation to sort itself out. I don’t have to endanger the survival of my family, she vowed. How would they pay? Oh, through transfers. 

    This has become every man’s story, every woman’s story. Overnight, small businesses that form the corner pillar of any economy have vanished and the voices of those ordinary folks are too weak to be accommodated by the designers of policies aimed at putting Nigeria ahead of the rest of the world in a cashless commitment to modernity. 

    There is a concourse of opinions that the cashless policy of the government, promoted by the Central Bank governor, Godwin Emefiele, is not a bad one but only hurriedly introduced. It would therefore make sense for people of goodwill to rally together to save it from a sudden death that may be very damaging to the nation. 

    In the face of rising anger towards the policy, a couple of people told me within the past few days that two primary problems exist on the path of faithful implementation of the policy. The first is the scarcity of new Naira notes, which only the Central Bank governor can solve through accommodation of variegated opinions to achieve results, while the second is external, the absence of reliable communications backbone that can carry the plethora of services being introduced to the telecom networks. This remains a core problem, prompting a source to tell this writer that if the people in the city are witnessing acute difficulties occasioned by the new policy, those in the rural areas must be close to hell in their daily experiences. 

    Why would somebody be that despondent in summarising happenings in parts of the countryside? Just wait.

    An industry source told this writer that the biggest obstacle to the implementation of the cashless policy is the telecoms sector, whose infrastructure is challenged severely at the moment. The networks were not prepared for what is happening now and, as a result, they are stretched because of the volume of transactions. Services are slow and very frustrating because of the absence of capacity. However, there is a glimmer of hope as the telcos may have upgraded their capacity in some areas because they need a minimum of 3G network to transmit the election results. 

    A source within the regulatory authority, the Nigerian Communications Commission, NCC, corroborated that position when it said, “The transaction backbone is a complete mess. Your network is as good as the weakest link. You can have very good capacity in your radio access network but if your transmission is not good, it is a very big problem.”

    It doesn’t matter whether it is 2G, 3G, 4G, 5G or any other G you may want to add in order to boost your sense of achievement, the homogeneous thread is the transmission backbone which is presently very fickle. The fibre optics links between base stations form the most reliable backbone as against microwave which is very unreliable. 

    The more reason that the rural areas or even some of the underserved areas in the cities and the rural communities will suffer more is that most of these places are covered by 2G base stations which are not primed for data transactions. 

    Another NCC source lamented the failure of the InfraCos to bring relief to far-flung areas of the country. The Infrastructure Companies (InfraCos) concept was designed by the NCC to enable some companies, licensed on a regional basis, to provide fibre optics points of presence in all the 774 local government areas in the country. The market was divided into 7 regions, with Lagos designated as a market of its own because of its vast business opportunities. There was some counterpart fund for the companies, some kind of seed support specially set aside by the regulator. The operators were to bridge service gaps across the regions of the country. The laudable idea was comparable to the OpenReach of the UK which is managed by Ofcom, that country’s telecoms regulator. 

    Speaking in January 2015 at the presentation of an InfraCo license to MainOne Cable, former Executive Vice Chairman, EVC, Dr Eugene Juwah of blessed memory, had said: “When the 7 InfraCos finally come on board, they are expected to take broadband infrastructure from the ocean and connect them to the cities and hinterland across the country to make Internet ubiquitous in Nigeria. This will in turn impact positively on the economy.”

    Hopes were high then periscoping the telecoms future of this nation. But things happened. There were security challenges in parts of the north. The situation festered even more because some of the states of the federation saw telecom operations as low-hanging fruits to mobilise easy revenue, and therefore would not give right-of-way (RoW) except at premium price. Frustrated by their greed, IHS returned its license for North Central. 

    “We were supposed to bring point of service (PoS) to the 774 Local Government Areas (LGAs). That has not taken off at all,” my source fumed.

    Years later when the country created a cashless policy that should have been driven seamlessly by the telecom sector, it has suddenly turned out that, apart from the failure of the government to be fastidious in the planning and execution of such policy, the industry has its own challenges, that would make us feel some more pain in the implementation of a simple policy. 

    Remember, I am writing this on my birthday and therefore, no lamentations. What should we do? My source made three bold suggestions. One. The nation needs a bold and purposeful leadership that can fiberise the length and breadth of the country. Two. The Central Bank should create a special Forex window to enable telecom operators access funds for timely rollout of services instead of forcing them to the parallel market with all its uncertainties. Three. The security forces should provide cover for  operators as they try to roll out services or supply diesel to base stations. 

    Meanwhile, something urgent should be done to remove people from the present distress and desperation they are experiencing.

  • A broadcast conversation unbroken by hermetic controls – By Okoh Aihe

    A broadcast conversation unbroken by hermetic controls – By Okoh Aihe

    There is something about irony which dresses like an apparition and walks the street to humble man’s best intentioned efforts. In the last day of a two-day programme, last Friday, when a small group of people drawn from various fields of interests, were working on a communique centred on the independence of the broadcast regulator, the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC), the same regulator was dishing out sanctions to two broadcast operators, Arise News and TVC.

    Television Continental (TVC) from the stable of Continental Broadcasting Services and Arise News operated by Arise Global Media Limited were sanctioned for sustained but documented breach of the Nigeria Broadcasting Code. In the manner of you don’t hit a tsetse fly from the head of a child without showing the dead fly as evidence, or the child would mistake it for a slap, the NBC, in the letters signed by its DG, Mallam Balarabe Shehu Ilelah, listed a litany of breaches for which the two stations were fined N2m each.

    Whether the NBC equally engaged the stations in a sustained discourse of the entire process or the regulator simply caved in under political pressure, is yet to be ascertained. But whether the breaches actually exist is totally out of the question. It is always about due process although the regulator should have acted earlier.

    The programme with the theme: Conversation Between Industry Stakeholders on Issues in Broadcasting Legislative/Regulatory Frameworks,  was organised in Abuja by the Institute for Media and Society (IMS) on February 2 and 3, 2023, as part of activities under the Support-to- Media component of the European Union Support to Democratic Governance in Nigeria (EU-SDGN II) project.

    Participants at the meeting were drawn from different stakeholder groups, including the media industry unions and associations, national legislature, regulators, civil society organisations; media professionals, managers and owners; as well as journalism and media training institutions.

    In plenary and panel discussions, the meeting addressed various topics, including: Contemporary Reforms in the Nigerian Broadcasting Sector: The State of Play; The Journey Towards Independent Regulation in the Broadcasting Sector: Issues in the Legislative/Regulation Reform Process; Government Appropriation, Digital Access Fees, Radio/TV Sets – Shaping a Suitable Resource Pot for Broadcasting in Nigeria; The Broadcasting Regulator in the Technology and Politics of the Convergence Era in Nigeria: What Jurisdiction? What Power? Addressing the Liberty of the Broadcast Industry: Trends in Legislation and Regulation in Nigeria; Pace of Licensing, Cost of Licensing, Plurality of the Landscape: What has Changed? What has remained the same? Looking at Sanctions System in the Broadcast Industry Regulation from several lenses: The Technical, the Economic, The Political; and Third-Sector Broadcasting: Contemporary Concerns on the Development of the sub-sector.

    So many industry issues were washed up during discussions, some of them very bizarre and ludicrous. The regulatory fickleness and helplessness of the NBC in terms of its laws and resources was a central thread that ran through the discourse. For a very prominent agency that is central to the deepening of the democratic process, besides permanently putting the citizenry in the know in terms of information and education, and you may add entertainment, the NBC looks too traumatised to earn any success.

    Troubled by unfolding information, it was agreed that the broadcast law needs urgent amendment not just for the industry but for the survival of the regulator.

    The current broadcast law hardly has a spine and the industry with all its equipment to reach any part of the world, travelling on the wings of modern technology, has nearly lost its voice, ironically. Tell me, which other law in Nigeria, a country of 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), will permit a minister to pick 3 out of a 10-member board, including the chairman, from his own state. The NBC law subjects the regulator to the whims and caprices of the minister and Alhaji Lai Mohammed, who is the Minister of Information and Culture, has not failed to take full advantage of such a tantalising opportunity. In fact, his hold on the broadcast regulator is overwhelmingly scandalous.

    From the information available, it emerged that of all the deregulated sectors in the country, the broadcast industry is particularly enduring a very torrid existence at the moment and that concerted efforts should be made to cure it of its troubling baggage. Specific recommendations were made but permit me to transpose two to this article. They are as follows:

    One. The independence of the National Broadcasting Commission should be strengthened in law and in practice, including by ensuring that the tenures of the Director-General and Board members are clearly stated and that they have security of tenure; that the funding of the Commission is adequate for its functions and secure; and that the Commission is insulated from political, economic and other interference or pressures.

    Two. Full powers should be granted to the NBC to carry out the full range of its regulatory functions, including the issuance of broadcast licenses. Accordingly, Section 39(2) of the Constitution and the proviso to it should be amended to vest in the Commission the final authority to issue broadcast licences while other encumbrances in the National Broadcasting Commission Act should be removed so that the process of licensing broadcast stations should begin and end with the NBC.

    An appeal also went to the National Assembly to take urgent steps that will ensure that community broadcasting is properly recognised and defined in legislation, and adequately provided for in the licensing process, to better address the plurality of the broadcast sector.

    To situate the story properly, Community Radio Licensing was one of the final acts of President Goodluck Jonathan in 2015 before conceding victory to former military leader, Muhammadu Buhari. It was sweet victory for those who had engaged on a protracted struggle for the birth of that tier of broadcasting.

    A particular testimony by one of the proponents who is now an operator, even makes the case for Community Broadcasting more compelling. Engr Morgan Okwoche who runs the Agba Community Radio, Oju, Benue State, told the meeting that during the collection of PVCs in his locality, the station which broadcasts in 9 local languages, translated all INEC messages into local dialects, and embarked on an aggressive campaign which yielded generous results.

    “It was serious voter education,” he said. “In a particular council ward, the information dissemination was so successful that all PVCs were collected except one, whose owner had died.”

    Because democracy dies in silence if we continue to silence the media, it was strongly suggested that the government should encourage Community Broadcasting in order to boost democratic beliefs in the grassroots. And even more overriding is the appeal that the government and the industry should give more support to the regulator in order to facilitate the good health of the entire broadcast sector.

    Corrigendum

    After reading my article last week, titled: Telecoms, a humble review of a minister’s Scorecard, a former colleague reached out to me immediately to bring two things to my attention. One, that the title of Executive Secretary as head of USPF has since been dropped for Secretary, which is the position of the Nigerian Communications Act 2003. Two, that the office of the USPF was never moved from the NCC office at Maitama to Jabi (Mbora) as stated in my article. The error is regretted. It was never intended to diminish the status of the minister. I pray he is able to take this slap on the chin with graceful equanimity. My sincere apologies.