Eugene Juwah’s milestones in NCC

JUSTUS ADEJUMOH

The exit of Dr Eugene Ikemefuna Juwah did not come as a surprise to many because his five-year tenure ended July 29, 2015. When his nomination was confirmed by the Senate on August 5, 2010 as the Executive Vice Chairman (EVC) of the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), not much was known of him.

He slinked into the big shoe his predecessor, Earnest Ndukwe wore for a decade as the EVC of the regulatory agency that invoked telecommunications revolution in the country.

There is no doubt that Juwah has raised the Commission’s performance bar. As at the time he took over the realm of affairs at NCC, the telecom industry’s subscriber base was about 80 million. But as at this August when he was replaced, almost 150 subscribers were recorded.

Industry analysts are of the view that Juwah’s administration has indeed impacted on the industry positively and otherwise. They believe his effort in the Global System for Mobile communications (GSM) segment of the industry is laudable. But they also posit that the Juwah’s passive response to some industry issues was not proactive enough. A case in point is the CDMA segment which went moribund and closure of the likes of Multilinks, Starcomms and Zoommobile.

According to Deolu Ogunbanjo, President of the National Association of Telecommunications Subscribers (NATCOMS), “The regulatory agency did do enough to save the CDMA operators. They are not in the same class with the GSM service providers. Applying the same rules and regulations to both will definitely sink the CDMA operators. And that is exactly one of the problems the CDMA operators had. Even Visafone that is the only active one now is struggling because it has not been adequately assisted by NCC in the area of policy and related issues.”

Juwah’s administration in NCC brought about some revolutionary milestones that will last in the history of the industry. The compulsory Subscriber Identification Module (SIM) card registration exercise is one of such critical initiatives he brought to being. It can only be imagined if such a scheme was not put in place, with the stiff insecurity state the country is currently facing. Of course, it could be worse than what we have been witnessing.

Without gainsaying, all the criminal activities such as armed robbery, kidnapping, threat to life, cyber crime among others would have assumed a more dangerous dimension they pose today.

The SIM registration exercise under Juwah is one benevolent step NCC took to ameliorate subscribers’ plight. The commission was responsible for the registration fee which is about N120 per subscriber.

Six months into his tenure as NCC EVC, Juwah promised to work assiduously to ensure steady growth in the telecommunications sector. According to him, “NCC would be working towards sustaining this growth, but the next five years, I will focus on six key areas, namely consolidation and integration of mobile wireless services; fixed line and broadband deployment for national development; and enhanced competitive market as well as choice for the consumers.”

He also outlined three other areas of focus to include vigorous compliance monitoring and enforcement of regulations and directions, national connectivity for accelerated growth, enhanced international relations.

Shortly after he became the helmsman of NCC, Juwah declared zero tolerance for non-compliance to rules and regulations by the industry stakeholders. Indeed, his administration has recorded more sanctions imposed on erring operators during his tenure.

However, it cannot be wished away that the challenges of Quality of Service (QoS) and customer care service were not adequately addressed by NCC under Juwah.

Although, his credible performance raises controversies among some observers, who are of the opinion that the stronger challenges the industry had before Juwah came on board were already being tackled by Juwah’s predecessor, Ernest Ndukwe.

Most people also strongly believe that NCC is not responsive enough to the subscribers’ plight. Their grouse that the regulator should compel the operators to adequately compensate their respective subscribers with airtime for poor quality service instead of NCC collecting the hundreds of millions of naira into its account. This development often prompted the subscribers’ association (NATCOMS) to drag NCC and operators to law court.

NCC proposal and eventual release of N6.1 billion for 80 million subscribers in 2012 stirred controversy. However, Juwah insisted that it is a good bargain for the country. The exercise brought the real subscriber figure to near accuracy because of the differentiation of active and non-active lines.

One major area of concentration NCC under Juwah has been focusing on in recent times is how to fast-track Internet penetration in the country through Broadband.

In view of this, the former Minister of Communication Technology, Omobola Johnson, last year flagged off the soft launch of the Broadband Awareness Campaign with the slogan: ‘Connected Nigeria, Connected Nigerians’, Johnson said the campaign will raise awareness of the transformational benefits of Broadband and disseminate information on the benefits of broadband including what can be gained by adopting broadband access.

For some years now, Glo-1, MainOne and others in the offing have been assuring the country of a robust Internet. But all these promises have not translated to reality as their services are yet to reach the last mile.

In its drive to boost the broadband penetration, NCC succeeded in auctioning the 2.3GHz license which was clinched by Bitflux. The exercise was rated by stakeholders as being very transparent. Prior to the 2.3GHz frequency spectrum auction, NCC pledged transparency in the process.

Under Juwah’s watch also, NITEL was successfully sold to Natcom.

In his wisdom to curb the high incident of poor quality of service, Juwah launched the Mobile Number Portability (MNP) which to a great extent can serves a self regulator among the telecom operators who naturally would not want to lose their respective subscribers to other networks.

The impact of NCC on the banking sector through telecom activities is quite remarkable. The GSM technology has availed customers the opportunity to monitor and carry out transactions on the move through their mobile phones. Automated Teller Machines (ATM) deployed by banks work with the help of GSM General Package Radio Service (GPRS) deployed by operators. No doubt, GSM has contributed and still contributing immensely to the economy of Nigeria.

Ranked as the largest and fastest growing in Africa and among the 10 fastest growing telecom markets in the world, there is an indication of its robustness to return on investments.

According to the former NCC Executive Vice Chairman, “More than N300 billion has been contributed to the coffers of the Federal Government through Frequency Spectrum sales.”

Juwah is indeed a force to be reckoned with as a silent smooth operator. It is to his credit that almost every sector of the economy is having a great feel of telecom services.

With the appointment of Prof. Umaru Garba Danbatta, as the new Executive Vice Chairman, it is hoped that the laudable initiatives NCC put in place would be sustained while new ones will also be expected under the leadership of Danbatta.