…. establishes Nigeria Office for Developing the Indigenous Telecoms Sector
By Chibuike Nwabuko
Abuja (Sundiata Post) – The Executive Vice Chairman of the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), Prof Garba Danbatta has said that the commission is vigorously promoting local investment in digital infrastructure and competition in the provision of accessible high speed broadband infrastructure that will enable it deliver on the stipulated targets in the Nigerian National Broadband Plan (NNBP) 2020-2025.
This is also as he has informed that the Commission has established the Nigeria Office for Developing the Indigenous Telecoms Sector (NODITS) saddled with the responsibility of implementing the NPPIC as well as the Executive Orders 003 and 005 in line with President Muhammadu Buhari recently presented National Policy for the Promotion of Indigenous Content in the Nigerian Telecom Sector.
The EVC disclosed this on Thursday during a maiden virtual policy implementation assisted forum event (PIAFo), with the theme: “Facilitating policy implementation to deliver value in the Nigerian telecoms sector.”
Sundiata Post recalls that President Muhammadu Buhari had in May 6, 2021, launched the national policy for the promotion of indigenous content in the telecoms sector.
Danbatta assured that the Commission is wholly committed to realising the vision of the President for promoting indigenous content in the telecommunications sector as has been done in the Agricultural and Petroleum sectors to achieve our goals of significant participation, preservation of scarce foreign exchange and improving the lives of Nigerians.
Accordingly to him, it focuses on major areas in the telecoms sector such as manufacturing, software development, compliance, monitoring, licensing, funding, people, and research & development for digital innovation and entrepreneurship.
Danbatta said the primary objective of the policy is to encourage local and foreign investments in the Nigerian communications industry.
“The National Telecommunications Policy posited that the domestic production of telecommunications hardware and software is desirable for national development,” the EVC added.
“It further states that Government shall encourage domestic production of telecommunications equipment, components and software to meet local and export demands.
“With the steady evolution of Telecommunications in Nigeria, the industry and its infrastructure are appreciated as the infrastructure of infrastructures, positioned to drive growth and efficiency in every other sector (both private and public) by supporting the optimisation of institutions and processes in the ecosystem.
Earlier in his welcome address, the organising Committee Chairman of the PIAFo, Omobayi Azeez stated that the forum was designed by the Business Metrics Nigeria Team to take the promises of the indigenous content policy in the telecoms sector beyond verbal commitment. Adding that the objective of the policy can only be achieved by creating active dialogue around it to ensure that individual stakeholders understand how they fit into the bigger picture and what role is expected of them to attain these objectives for the greater good of our economy.
He noted that Nigerian archive is replete with good policies across the various sectors of the economy, but that poor implementation has always characterized the system.
He however stressed that the desire is to change this order of poetic policy pronouncement and prosaic execution by creating a midpoint interface between the government and private sector players, where policies can be dissected, digested and driven to effective implementation, and later appraised using measurable metrics to assess their success over time.
