Aminu Waida, Nigeria’s new telecoms chief promises ‘not to deviate from Tinubu’s digital economy vision’ as he resumes duty

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Dr. Aminu Maida, Executive Vice Chairman/Chief Executive Officer of Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), says he will not deviate from President Bola Tinubua’s digital economy vision as he resumes duty at the telecoms regulatory agency’s Abuja headquarters.

Nigeria’s new telecoms regulatory chief, who spoke to NCC’s senior management team at the Commission’s head office in Abuja on Tuesday says there is a need to ensure that the telecoms regulator is focused on ensuring all Nigerians have access to affordable and reliable broadband services. 

Maida also said he would align NCC’s regulatory focus to achieve the promises of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s Renewed Hope agenda to advance the nation’s digital transformation agenda, according to a press statement made available to Technology Times. 

Dr Aminu Maida: My agenda as EVC of NCC

Part of this is to ensure “effective broadband infrastructure diffusion across the length and breadth of Nigeria, says Maida, who paid tributes to former chief executives of NCC for their laudable role in building a resilient telecoms industry. 

For Maida, the pursuit of improved quality of service on the networks will be one of his priorities, as well as supporting the vision of the Federal Government and the Ministry of Communications, Innovations and Digital Economy. 

“Considering the fact that many people are going more digital and virtual in everything they do,” Maida adds, “the telecoms infrastructure is now under much stress. President Tinubu’s vision emphasises the need to build more robust broadband connectivity that will not only facilitate seamless digital transactions but also serve as the bedrock for e-governance and other socio-economic initiatives.” 

Along this line, “we would align with this aspiration to increase broadband penetration to 70% and to cover 90% of the population by 2025. Therefore, we need to build a reliable telecoms industry with impressive quality of service (QoS) indicators with quality of experience (QoE) as our watchword and ultimate goal. This also requires us to address a number of issues such as the Right of Way (RoW) challenge, ensuring security of our telecom infrastructure, among others. Efforts must be made to significantly improve service delivery by ensuring the NCC is performance-driven.“

According to him, “Mr President has a very clear agenda from which all of us are going to take our direction. The two major areas are job creation and enabling the digital economy. Where we are going in a nutshell is: everything that we do in this Commission has to align directly with the Strategic Plan of the Hon. Minister of Communications, Innovations and Digital Economy, Dr Bosun Tijani, and ultimately to the Renewed Hope agenda of His Excellency, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu. We would not deviate from that.” 

He explains further that, “we would not entertain anything that deviates from this direction because my key performance indicators (KPIs) are fed into the Minister’s KPIs and the President KPIs come from the electorate that put him into power. The Hon. Minister has said it clearly that he is ready build a robust digital infrastructure and empower three million Nigerians digitally and we have to do our best to support him in this regard.” 

In line with the Strategic Plan of the Minister to empower three million Nigerians in digital skills and entrepreneurship, Maida said that plan requires NCC to support Digital Bridge Institute (DBI) as a digital training institution, to be well positioned in driving the government’s agenda on youth empowerment. 

The EVC also emphasised the importance of effective spectrum management and utilisation in supporting the envisioned digital connectivity agenda, which is critical to service deployment to the generality of Nigerians and businesses in the country. 

Maida, appreciated his predecessors and the entire staff of NCC for the laudable role being played in digital transformation of all sectors by stimulating the deployment of baseline telecoms infrastructure.

But he also wants the telecoms regulator’s staff to join his leadership with a sense of purpose as a team towards advancing the actualisation of the President’s Renewed Hope agenda, which according to him recognises a thriving digital economy in achieving sustainable development and quality of life for all citizens.