Maida, New NCC Director, Pledges To Uphold President Tinubu's Vision For The Digital Economy

Dr. Aminu Maida

Dr. Aminu Maida, the newly appointed Executive Vice Chairman (EVC) of the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), has said that he will connect the Commission's regulatory priorities with President Bola Ahmed Tinubu's Renewed Hope program in order to progress the country's digital transformation plan.

Maida addressed the Senior Management team of the organization at the NCC's head office in Abuja on Tuesday, and emphasized the need for the NCC to strategically prioritize ensuring that all Nigerians have access to cost-effective and dependable broadband services.

Assuring "effective broadband infrastructure diffusion across the length and breadth of Nigeria" is one aspect of this.

The new telecom regulator honored the former Commission chief executives for their admirable contribution to creating a robust telecoms market. Dr. Maida stated that one of his priorities will be to pursue higher network service quality while also supporting the Federal Government's and the Ministry of Communications, Innovations, and Digital Economy's mission.

"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 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.

"As such, we would align with this aspiration to increase broadband penetration to 70 per cent and to cover 90 per cent 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 security of our telecom infrastructure, among others. Efforts must be made to significantly improve service delivery by ensuring the NCC is performance-driven," he said.

"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 added that there was a plan to teach three million Nigerians digital skills and entrepreneurship as part of the Minister's Strategic Plan, and that doing so would necessitate the Commission supporting Digital Bridge Institute (DBI) as a digital training institution in order for it to be well-positioned to advance the government's agenda for youth empowerment.

The EVC also emphasized how crucial it is to effectively manage and utilize spectrum in order to support the planned digital connectivity agenda, which is essential for the delivery of services to the majority of Nigerians and businesses operating there.

While thanking his predecessors and the entire staff of the Commission for the admirable role being played in the digital transformation of all sectors by encouraging the deployment of baseline telecom infrastructure, Maida urged the staff of the Commission to work alongside his leadership with a sense of purpose to advance the actualization of the President's Renewed Hope agenda, which, he said, recognizes a thriving digital economy in achieving sustainable development.