Maida Assumes Office as NCC boss, promises affordable Internet

Dr. Aminu Maida, the newly appointed Executive Vice Chairman of the Nigerian Communications Commission, took office on Tuesday and promised to give top priority to the objective of ensuring that all Nigerians have access to dependable, reasonably priced broadband internet services.

The NCC head informed the senior management team that he plans to realign the Commission’s regulatory priorities to support President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s Renewed Hope agenda, which aims to advance the nation’s digital transformation efforts, in a statement released by the Commission’s Director of Public Affairs, Reuben Muoka, on Wednesday.

Under his direction, the NCC will guarantee “effective broadband infrastructure diffusion across the length and breadth of Nigeria,” according to Maida.

He conveyed his gratitude for the significant efforts that previous Commission Chief Executives have made to bolstering the telecom sector.

Maida also emphasized that improving telecom network service quality and aligning with the goal of the Federal Government and the Ministry of Communications, Innovations, and Digital Economy are two of his top priorities.

The head of the NCC stated, “Considering the fact that many people are going more digital and virtual in everything they do, the telecom infrastructure is now under much stress.” He also emphasized the need to create more communication infrastructure across the country.

 “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,” he said.

 “As such, we would align with this aspiration to increase broadband penetration to 70% and to cover 90% 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, and 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.”

Speaking on Tinubu’s agenda, Maida said, “The two major areas are job creation and enabling the digital economy. Where we are going in a nutshell is; that 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.

“We would not entertain anything that deviates from this direction because my key performance indicators (KPIs) are fed into the Minister’s KPIs and the President’s KPIs come from the electorate that put him into power. The Hon. Minister has said clearly that he is ready to build a robust digital infrastructure and empower three million Nigerians digitally and we have to do our best to support him in this regard.”

Maida continued by stating that a target of the Minister’s Strategic Plan is to provide three million Nigerians with digital skills and the ability to start their own business. Additionally, he emphasized how crucial it is that the Commission back the Digital Bridge Institute (DBI), a digital training center, in order for it to successfully support the government’s youth empowerment program.

Maida was named the new EVC/CEO of NCC by Tinubu in a recent reorganization that affected three agencies within the Ministry of Communications, Innovation, and Digital Economy.

With this modification, Prof. Umar Danbatta, who had served in that capacity since August 2015, departed.