On the 11th of October, 2023, Prof. Umar Danbatta took a bow from office as Aminu Maida was appointed by President Ahmed Tinubu as the executive vice chairman of the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC).
To stakeholders, Prof. Danbatta has done well in boosting the ICT sector, especially in the area of its contribution to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of Nigeria.
As Aminu Maida takes over from Danbatta, however, stakeholders have urged him to continue in that momentum, even as they have set an agenda that will guide him in his quest to take the ICT sector to the next level.
Recall that Maida is a seasoned technical professional with over 15 years of diverse experience in FinTech, Telecoms, and Enterprise Technology.
Before his appointment as the executive vice chairman of the NCC, Maida served as the executive director, Technology and Operations at Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement System Plc (NIBSS), a central switch company owned by the Central Bank of Nigeria and all licensed Deposit Money Banks in Nigeria.
He has gained international experience working in various roles. He was previously the chief technology officer at Arca Payments Network, a Nigerian-based FinTech company, and a senior manager at Cisco Systems UK. Between 2010 and 2014, Maida worked as a network design consultant at EE, a part of BT Group and one of the largest mobile communications companies in the UK. From 2006 to 2010, he served as a system engineer at Ubiquisys, a leading company in intelligent 3G and LTE small cells, which is now part of Cisco.
Maida holds an MEng in Information Systems Engineering from Imperial College London (2002) and a PhD in Electrical and Electronic Engineering from the University of Bath UK (2006). He also completed a Post Graduate Diploma in Entrepreneurship (FinTech Pathway) program at the Cambridge Judge Business School between 2018 and 2019.
Maida‘s appointment to the NCC is notable as he comes from outside the Nigerian telecom industry, bringing a fresh perspective and extensive experience in telecom operations, stakeholders averred.
„This is the more reason we need to set an agenda for him to guide him on areas he needs to start working on,“ the national president, National Association of Telecoms Subscribers (NATCOMS), Chief Adeolu Ogunbanjo told LEADERSHIP.
Ogunbanjo posited that Maida inherited several unfinished projects from his predecessor, including multiple taxation, Right-of-Way (RoW), rekindling the quest for Critical National Infrastructure bill to tackle the issue of vandalism, and achieving broadband penetration targets.
Multiple taxation:
On multiple taxation, Ogunbanjo decried the about 49 different taxes and levies that operators have to pay, even as he appealed to the new EVC to work with the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) to review the taxes.
Recall that telecom businesses attracted only $25.81 million Foreign Direct Investments (FDI) in the second quarter of this year, compared to the $153.50 million recorded in the same period last year. This represents a 494 percent decline year on year.
„I appeal to Maida to set up a committee that will meet with FIRS and examine some of these taxes because it is killing the industry. It is seriously affecting FDI into the country. He should work with FIRS to ensure that the multiple taxation issue is addressed,“ the national president, NATCOMS appealed.
In the same vein, the chairman, Association of Licensed Telecommunications Operators of Nigeria (ALTON), Engr. Gbenga Adebayo, averred that telecom operators have continued to bear the brunt of multiple taxation and coerced compliance with tax and levy demands that have no legal basis by sub-nationals, adding that this threatens investment, sustainability, and industry growth.
Adebayo listed some of the taxes and levies as ecology tax for gaseous emission, sewage, sanitation, and public convenience levy for base stations, fumigation levies, states‘ demand for the payment of fumigation charges of base stations, sanitation and refuse effluent tax for base stations, business premises tax for base stations, annual renewal on Right of Way (RoW), and fire service levy.
He lamented that tenements rates charged per base station in some states are far higher than rates per square meter charged by the same state for residential and commercial buildings when the infrastructure occupies the same land.
Adebayo, however, advocated the need for the sector to collaborate with the presidential committee on Fiscal Policy and Tax Reforms to address the perennial incidence of multiple taxation in the Nigerian telecommunications sector, including the elimination of the currently suspended excise duty on telecommunications services.
Damages to telecoms infrastructure:
Adebayo averred that telecommunications serves as an ‚enabler‘ for all other critical infrastructure and infrastructure sectors vital to national productivity and security. To function optimally, ALTON chairman said telecommunications infrastructure relies on complex and interconnected support ecosystem consisting of fiber, satellites, towers, base stations, switches, data centers, etc., which need to function uninterrupted for the delivery of optimal Quality of Service (QoS).
He regretted that there have been incidences of adverse cross-sectoral impact on QoS arising from damage to such infrastructure due to excavation during civil works such as road construction, deliberate/negligent vandalization and sabotage, as well as theft of cable, equipment, and supplies such as diesel, generators, and batteries, undue delay in the issuance of site approvals for new towers/base stations, as well as harassment of staff/site access denial by state/local agencies to enforce levy payments.
ALTON chairman, however, called for a collaborative partnership with key stakeholders to secure executive and legislative action on the declaration of telecoms infrastructure as Critical National Infrastructure (CNI) and criminalization of malicious site sealing, access denials, and willful/negligent destruction of telecommunications infrastructure.
„This can be done either by an executive order or relevant amendment of the Cybercrimes Act; an attempt was made by the immediate past National Security Adviser (NSA) to secure Presidential approval for an Executive Order (EO). The new EVC is respectfully requested to liaise with the current NSA to bring to fruition the EO on CNI,“ he appealed.
“The new NCC boss should also rekindle the quest for a Critical National Infrastructure Bill, a bill that will tackle the issue of vandalism of base stations, which is very rampant,” Ogunbanjo advocated.
Right of Way (RoW):
On Right of Way (RoW), Ogunbanjo has appealed to Maida to invest in states like Anambra that has waived RoW charges while continuing the conversations with other states to follow suit. „If all state governments waived their RoW charges, Nigeria will be able to achieve 70 percent broadband penetration by 2025,“ Ogunbanjo assured.
Adebayo joined his voice to appeal to the NCC boss to sensitize and advocate for state governments‘ adoption of the harmonized RoW charge of N145/Linear Meter approved by the National Economic Council in 2019.
According to him, “To support the provision of widespread broadband service, including 5G services, we recommend that the new NCC boss should set more affordable prices for spectrum, taking into consideration the developmental benefits improved broadband delivery will have on our local economy, especially as studies have shown that high spectrum prices are linked to slower broadband speed and poor coverage.
“The Commission should introduce a flexible spectrum license payment terms in line with the recommendations of the Nigerian National Broadband Plan 2020 – 2025, which will allow operators to spread payments of spectrum fees across the lifetime of the license.
“The Commission should also incentivize investment in spectrum by providing additional value in the form of rebates on regulatory fees and other payables, especially where such frequencies are needed for backhaul purposes as an alternative to fiber. This will reduce the capital expenses of such operators and enable a faster rollout of services on such spectrum. We believe that this aligns with the HM’s objective to develop incentive structures to drive investments as espoused in the Strategic Plan.
“With specific reference to 5G, a review of the licensing approach and pricing methodology for 5G backhaul frequencies, as the current methodology is designed for legacy narrow backhaul channel sizes, which means costs quickly become unsustainable for the newer wider channels required for 5G service. This should be done with the aim of reducing the rollout cost burden on operators.”
No need for an increase in tariff:
While there is agitation by telecom operators to increase call and data tariff, Ogunbanjo has urged Maida to ignore such agitations, as it will be unfair to Nigerians who are grappling with a lot of challenges. „We know operators are not immune to the harsh economy. However, Nigerians are also bearing the brunt as well. Increasing call tariff, at this critical time that is hard to deal with, will be unfair to subscribers,” he averred.
Maida‘s Response:
Maida has disclosed that the pursuit of improved Quality of Service (QoS) on the networks and achieving broadband penetration targets are some of his priorities while assuring of his support to the vision of the federal government and the ministry of Communications, Innovations, and Digital Economy.
Maida averred that he will align its regulatory focus to achieve the promises of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s Renewed Hope agenda to advance the nation’s digital transformation agenda.
There is a need to ensure that the NCC strategically focuses on ensuring all Nigerians have access to affordable and reliable broadband services. Part of this is to ensure effective broadband infrastructure diffusion across the length and breadth of Nigeria, he posited.
“Considering the fact that many people are going more digital and virtual in everything they do, the telecom infrastructure is now under much stress. President Tinubu’s vision emphasizes 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.
“As such, we would align with this aspiration to increase broadband penetration to 70 percent and to cover 90 percent of the population by 2025. Therefore, we need to build a reliable telecom 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 the security of our telecom infrastructure, among others. Efforts must be made to significantly improve service delivery by ensuring the NCC is performance-driven.
„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 President Bola Ahmed Tinubu. We would not deviate from that,“ he disclosed.
