How Reps Saved Telecom Industry From Major Crisis

Fresh facts have emerged on how immediate past Speaker of the House of Representatives and current chief of staff to the president, Hon. Femi Gbajabiamila, prevented what would have turned out to be a serious crisis in the telecom industry.

Industry watchers who spoke on Gbajabiamila tenure in office for eight years, praised him for not endorsing a curious executive bill, which 90 percent of the stakeholders rejected at a public hearing.

The executive bill, which the industry sources feared was intended to whittle down the regulatory powers of the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) and the Nigerian Communications Act 2003 was sent to the 9th Assembly by the federal government through the office of the former minister of communications and digital economy, Prof Isa Pantami.

Among the critical stakeholders invited to the public hearing were the NCC; NBC, Association of Licensed Telecommunications Companies of Nigeria (ALTON), Association of Telecommunications Companies of Nigeria (ATCON), Nigerian Computer Society (NCS), Nigeria Internet Group (NIG), Computer and Allied Product Dealers Association (CAPDAN) Investors, and experts.

An earlier stakeholders’ meeting on the bill did not achieve the desired goal.

The bill was allegedly rejected by 90 percent of stakeholder organisations and individuals in attendance at a public hearing on it.

The sponsors of the bill under former President Muhammadu Buhari administration had wanted the National Information Technology Development Agency Act 28 (2007) repealed and National Information Technology Development Agency Act enacted to provide for the administration, implementation, regulation of Information Technology systems and practices as well as digital economy in Nigeria and for other related matters.

Checks by LEADERSHIP showed that the bill was passed in the Senate but failed in the Lower Chamber.

When our correspondent checked the votes and proceedings of the House from the time the Senate passed it till the last day the House sat, it was not listed anywhere for concurrence.

The bill sought to change Nigerian Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) into a full -blown regulatory agency and subsume the regulatory powers of the NCC, and the Nigerian Communications Act 2003.

Investigations showed that the executive forwarded the bill to the National Assembly and was passed by the Senate on May 16, 2023, with a target to secure presidential assent before the May 29 expiration of the Buhari administration.

The bill, however, ran into a brick wall in the House of Representatives where the executive could not convince any of the committees to clear it.

It was learnt that hours after the Senate passed the bill, it was sent to the House for concurrence and was listed in the Order Paper for debate even when it was not originally scheduled to be debated.

The inclusion of the bill in the Order Paper allegedly angered Gbajabiamila, who warned the clerk of the House against the “smuggled” Bill in the Order Paper of the House.

That pronouncement by the speaker was said to be the masterstroke that killed the bill and saved Nigeria from potential embarrassment and loss of investors’ confidence in the telecom industry, considered to be the best performing industry in the country since the return to democracy in 1999.