The other day the government announcement the board appointments of forty-two government agencies and parastatals. Very good news it was for me, hoping that at last, my silent and open prayers must have been answered. I nearly reached for a magnifying glass incase my reading glasses were getting too weak to enable me read the press statement with understanding; alas, the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) wasn’t on the list.
“President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has appointed board chairpersons for 42 federal organisations and a secretary to the board of the Civil Defence, Immigration, and Prisons Services.
“The President has also appointed a new managing director for the Nigerian Railway Corporation and a director general for the National Board for Technology Incubation (NBTI).
“President Tinubu directs the board chairpersons not to interfere with the management of the organisations, emphasising that their positions are not executive,” the statement signed by Bayo Onanuga, Special Adviser to the President (Information & Strategy), said in part. This was January 23, 2025.
Ironically, I wasn’t too disappointed. The President of any country is a very busy person. For the Nigerian President, the basket of worries is heavier because there are too many things he has to sort – poverty in the land, the purity of data from the National Bureau of Statistics about the rightness and wrongness of data – whether headline inflation is 34 percent and food inflation is 40 percent; insecurity and daily carnage on our roads, the inability of previous administrations to communicate effectively that Nigeria doesn’t really have enough money to provide all the infrastructure, including roads, and that it must work through Public Private Partnership (PPP) to deliver some services, that the energy sector remains a shame and can really not cater for the development needs of the people, and that life expectations in Nigeria will remain a mirage except all parties are able to come to the reality that the nation must move ahead on a clean slate without bitterness, mistrust and festering acrimonies. There are other sundry issues too numerous and troubling to be listed.
The Nigerian President has too many things to think about and board appointments, though an issue for the loyalists, may not be so compulsive as to serve as distraction or inordinate concern.
However, I want to reiterate my appeal that President Tinubu should appoint a Board for the NCC as a matter of urgency in order to put developmental expectations in the telecommunications sector on a seeming virtual accelerator. As we say in this part of the world, to move the industry forward but moving the industry forward might be too slow to deliver on the promises by this government which has a psychedelic commitment to a digital economy.
The Nigerian Communications Act 2003 does not envisage any day NCC will not have a Board, as it states very clearly that “the President shall ensure at all times there are a minimum of 6 serving Commissioners on the Board at any and all times, made up of – the Chief Executive, 2 Executive Commissioners and three non-executive Commissioners.
A fully composed Board, according to the Act, should consist of 9 Commissioners which include: a chairman, a chief executive who shall also be the Executive Vce Chairman, 2 Executive Commissioners, and 5 non-executive Commissioners, who shall be appointed by the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
Those who are advocating for the Board to be constituted, including this writer, harbour the opinion that the diversity of background, experience and knowledge of the members may encourage fresh thinking, hopes, aspirations and fresh drive to the activities and programme implementation at the NCC.
Their expectations are anchored on a provision of the Act which states as follows: Commissioners shall be persons of recognised standing, qualification and experience in one or more of the following fields – finance or accounting; law; consumer affairs; telecommunications engineering; information technology; engineering generally; economics; and Public Administration.
The dream of having all these professionals in one board can be too tantalising to be real but it has happened before and can still happen again if the President picks well irrespective of party affiliations. Unfortunately, these professionals can quickly morph into the garb of politicians and begin a ruination of the system. That is what happened under the last administration which inflicted so extensive a damage on the Commission from which it is still struggling to recover.
But the President, in the statement, warned the newly appointed chairpersons and board members not to interfere with the management of the organisations. Same should be said of the NCC when the Board is constituted because of antecedents that are too ugly to always recall.
But some voices at the NCC are not in a hurry to forget yesterday. A particular source told this writer, “We pray not to have a transactional Board. The last Board was horrible. We want a chairman with capacity.”
All the same, a Board is needed to help the policy thrust of the Commission and facilitate good decision making. A Board that can take the Commission to the next level and bring various experiences to bear on its operations, according to another source.
At the moment, there are only three Commissioners, one of which is the Executive Vice Chairman ((EVC), and two Executive Commissioners, all from a part of the country, which strains a provision of the Act that states clearly that they must be drawn from the 6 geo-political zones of Nigeria subject to confirmation by the Senate.
I do not have the boldness to ever insinuate that the NCC is running in breach of the Act. My only appeal is that the President should constitute the Board and remove the Commission from a needless cul-de-sac and avoidable hermetic strictures.