The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), reportedly shared its experience with Guinea-Bissau Agency. The commissioned experience NCC’s executive vice-chairman, Prof. Umar Garba Danbatta let loose is based on regulatory models and approaches his commission has utilized to balance the Nigerian telecom sector while boosting digital accessibility in the country.
The Telecom National Regulatory Authority of Guinea-Bissau was welcomed by Danbatta, when they arrived in Abuja on May 26 — a dedicated week of sharing professional initiatives with Guinea-Bissau’s Autoridade Reguladora Nacional (ARN), that is expected to bolster across Africa’s digital sector.
The NCC’s current Chairman who also directs the affairs of the West African Telecommunication Regulatory Assembly (WATRA), Prof. Umar Garba Danbatta, felt it is needful to share professional insight with the Guinea-Bissau’s telecommunications agency. While the ARN, on the other hand, intends to stabilize bilateral relations with a fellow West African commission.
According to the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), which recognizes Nigeria’s telecom commission as a regulatory body, other westerners should emulate its methods of regulating digital affairs. The NCC’s mission of representing Africa as its paramount regulatory commission willing to support other African countries.
Since a Nigerian (Danbatta), currently directs the affairs of WATRA, the NCC chairman acknowledged the ARN visit to gain insight — Danbatta promises Guinea-Bissau cordial support while they continue to cooperate in dealing with telecom affairs of their respective agency.
“The 16 members of the regional organization share a common vision in ensuring that the citizens are not digitally excluded.” Danbatta their cooperation with ARN will “ensure that access to information and communication technology services are not only ubiquitous but that they are available and affordable through effective national and regional policies.”
However, it is worth noting that the NCC’s commitment can also be flawed due to inadequate resources, staged telecom infrastructures vandalism, multiple taxations, confronting illegal licensing. “We identified 217 *clusters of access gaps* and today, we have ensured more Nigerians are digitally-included by reducing the number of access gaps to 114 currently.”
“Nigeria’s telecoms sector had reached an all-time-high, basic internet subscription of 154 million; over 87 million broadband subscriptions, representing 45.93 percent broadband penetration.” The NCC has strategized methods to resolve these challenges — “over 207 million voice subscriptions with teledensity standing at 108.94 percent as of October 2020.”
The chairman of WATRA, Prof, Umar Garba Danbatta, instructed his secretary, Aliu Aboki, to visit the 16 member countries that make up the western union, WATRA, — a cordial visit to ensure and remind each member owes allegiance to Africa, towards cooperating with the WATRA to develop a standard Telecom ecosystem in West Africa.
According to Danbatta who believes this current collaborative initiative “at the level of WATRA, will be strengthened, so that together, we can act in a manner that other parts of Africa can be able to copy from us.” While he commended Guinea-Bissau’s interest in gaining insight to channel this knowledge in their respective telecom industry.
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