TELECOMS ROADMAP AND A MINISTER’S DREAMS 

 Sonny Aragba-Akpore argues that Tijani’s plans are ambitious

Cerebral as Bosun Tijani, Nigeria’s Communications, Innovation and Digital Economy Minister may be, his 31-page roadmap for telecommunications sector looks ambitious and a dream taken too far.

Nigeria is a very interesting country where there are constant policy somersaults. This is a country described by the late Edo musician, Osayomore Joseph that “by special arrangement, God and Satan could agree to hold a mutual meeting” (strange handshakes) and resolve issues. So far no one has faulted the musician.

And the Abami Eda (the strange one) Fela Anikulapo-Kuti was even more direct in his admonition. “Dem go turn green to red and white to blue” in one of hit songs deployed to lampoon the establishment.

But I admire the minister’s courage and his good intentions fueled by his deep beliefs.

We can only wish him success within the space of time that he has because even if he stays on for eight years, let us assume that there are no hiccups, and Nigeria does not happen to him, as it will still end up as a wild goose chase. So I write with cautious optimism.

   Let us refresh a little about a few things in the telecommunications industry and what happened before Tijani came. A minister before him initiated Rural Telephony Project (RTP) for which millions of dollars were budgeted /invested but shortly after, nobody heard anything about the project. The project ended before it began and nobody has been rebuked for that, and nobody is telling us what happened.

Years later, the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) came out with a beautiful initiative tagged Open Access Model through Infrastructure Companies (Infracos) to improve on the rural telephone programme .

This model was properly defined and expected to take telecommunications services to unserved and underserved communities in Nigeria. Ordinarily, the NCC sold the idea to the government which accepted the template and was prepared to run with it.

Licensees were to deploy services to the areas/zones they were licensed. The NCC voted huge funds to actualise the programme based on timelines to be fulfilled by licensees before the commission could disburse money to the companies to enable them take the services to the six geopolitical zones of Nigeria including Lagos and Abuja.

Beautiful as the idea was, after huge expenditure, not one single company has shown any significant moves in taking the services to those for whom they should. Because of the attraction of the funds from NCC, the programme became political tools as some of the beneficiaries of the licences began to jostle for the money even when they were not sure of any tangible timelines.

The Open Access Model for Next Generation Optic Fibre Broadband Network Initiative of 2014 was very robust in template but no company showed any meaningful progress in its implementation.

The idea was for the Infracos to provide last-mile services in the six geopolitical zones with Lagos standing alone for its peculiarity being the commercial hub of the country.

Main One Cable Company Limited and IHS Limited got the first two licenses to cover Lagos and the North Central zone including the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) respectively.

But for reasons not too far from alleged bottlenecks for commercial roll-out of its services, IHS declined the license a few years later.

The NCC named five companies to cover North East Zone (Brinks Integrated Solutions Limited) North West (Fleek Network Limited) South-South (Raenna Nigeria Limited) South West (Odua Infraco Resources Limited) and Southeast (Zinox Technology Limited). The Infracos were expected to cover access gaps especially in underserved and unserved areas of the country and provide a wholesale layer to transmission services on a non-discriminatory open access price regulated basis.

They were also expected to provide layer 1 metro dark fiber services on a commercial basis, and deployment of metropolitan fibre to provide transmission services of point of access to seekers. Nine years after, the programme remains unimplemented and nobody is telling us what happened to the funds that were voted for the project.

If he so wished, the minister may open up inquiries into this with NCC officials to make an honest presentation on the status of the Infracos if indeed they still have it in their books and ready to review and implement it according to the plans put in place for that purpose. The minister may be alarmed at what he will be told.

Tijani should also ask questions too about the fate of the fifth generation networks (5G) so he could be adequately guided on the progress recorded so far by the beneficiaries of the licenses including the federal government and the NCC as operators are tongue- in -cheek about their challenges.

He may be shocked to note that the network operators and the citizens have very little to show for this. He will note too that the government is the biggest beneficiary of 5G licensing because the licensing fees of $820.8 million went to the federal government and while the network providers and the regulator think of what to make out of this, the citizens are “Waiting for Godot” as Samuel Beckett wrote.

So when Tijani released his very interesting roadmap, the other day, he probably forgot that he was not going to have a solo race especially in a country where there is a strange relationship between policy and implementation.

Mister Minister sir, you mean very well especially having been  successful as an entrepreneur but you are in Nigeria and you are not running alone so even if you believe in your capacity to achieve the milestones you have listed, can you also vouch for your team members?

The minister’s beautiful document states very clearly what could take Nigeria out of the woods and move away from the outskirts of globalization and despite all the pretensions that we have achieved so much in ICT, by bandying unverifiable statistics to back claims of success, we are still far away compared to other nations who play by the rules of engagement.

  The minister spoke glowingly the other day that his ministry and the template he and his team have created will generate over three million jobs in four years. Specifically, he said, he is committed to attracting over $5billion that will empower startups to grow the industry to support a large number of startups that are expected to power the economy. Shortly after that, the minister  in a live appearance on Channels Television’s Sunrise Daily highlighted the government’s commitment to achieving the goal of digital literacy.

“We have plans to train three million Nigerians in technical skills within the coming years, with a collaborative effort between my ministry and state governments to ensure the success of this initiative.

 “The plan is that by 2030, 95%of Nigerians should be digitally literate. Digital literacy doesn’t mean that you become a technical talent, but it gives you the foundation to be able to choose that you also want to participate in the digital economy.” He explained the plans to establish hardware training centres in prominent tech hubs like Aba in Abia State and Computer Village in Lagos State. These centres aim to promote manpower development and create job opportunities for all Nigerians.

Simple as the pronouncements were, he didn’t give details on how this ambitious pursuit will make a difference in the Nigerian economy which is comatose as a result of dwindling fortunes and self- inflicted pains and poor policies.

Aragba-Akpore is a member of THISDAY Editorial Board