Dr Emmanuel Ekuwem is the Chief Executive Officer of Teledom Group. Ekuwem, a former President of the Nigeria Internet Group (NIG) and former National President of the Association of Telecommunications Companies of Nigeria (ATCON), in this interview with BODE ADEWUMI, speaks on industry issues How would you rate the growth recorded in the ICT sector of Nigeria’s economy today?
The Nigerian ICT industry remains the fastest growing ICT market in Africa today and until recently, was also the fastest growing ICT market in the world. It is liberalized, private sector led and driven. It has attracted a lot of Foreign Direct Investments (FDI) into Nigeria. However, I must not forget to add that a good chunk of the much-talked about FDI did not remain in Nigeria because of very poor manufacturing and Nigerian content development infrastructure in the Nigerian economy.
This capital flight, which weakens the Naira and depletes our foreign reserve, is a direct consequence of our import-oriented national economy.
However, let me concentrate on the good news. We witnessed in the telecoms revolution the quantum numerical leap from a paltry four hundred and fifty thousand telephone lines, both landline and mobile, to more than a hundred and twenty million active subscriber lines as I speak to you now. That leap is really quantum! It is phenomenal! It marked a paradigm shift from the era of a monopoly national carrier called NITEL.
What do you think are the hindrances to a more vibrant ICT sector and how can we overcome these?
The greatest hindrance to the growth of the sector is the insufficient and epileptic availability of public electric power supply in Nigeria. ICT, by its very nature is electric! Without electricity, there is no ICT. As I often say, electric power supply is to the national economy what food is to the human body. ICT is to the national economy what the central nervous system is to the human body. So, our national economy in general and ICT in particular are strong and vibrant to the extent of copious availability of electric power.
The second is the tendency toward policy inconsistencies or flip-flops or outright somersaults by governments. No nation can develop on a saw-tooth economic development waveform. That is, every administration formulates its own ICT policy that may drastically modify or reverse outright the direction or thrust of the preceding administration.
It can also happen that different Ministers of Communications Technology, who have served the same administration at different times, may have seen ICT matters completely differently. So, we keep starting from scratch all the time. These tendencies very seriously hinder the steady growth of the sector. The third is the availability of critical expertise to drive growth and developments within the industry. This must include formal training in primary and secondary schools as well as in universities and polytechnics and colleges of education
How would you say your organization has contributed to the development of the ICT sector of the Nigerian economy?
Teledom is a conglomerate of broadband infrastructure companies. Our core competencies are in the design and implementation of networks. These range from simple Local Area Networks of few computers to very complex campus or building or complex-wide, town or city-wide or national networks. We inter-network branches of big companies. We network with cables (copper), wireless like radio and laser, optic fibre and VSAT. We pride ourselves, for good reasons, for being able to connect anywhere to anywhere on the surface of the earth.
What role do you think ICT can play in curbing the rising wave of insecurity in the country and will you say government has recognized ICT as one of the tools to be effectively leveraged to curb crimes?
I am not the kind of person that tackles symptoms and forgets about the causes of a disease. What is the primary cause of insecurity? One of the primary causes is joblessness. Don’t forget the ancient adage that an idle mind is the devil’s workshop! Don’t also forget that a hungry man, they say, is an angry man! So, what do we have today in Nigeria? We have a pool of hungry and therefore angry men who are idle and who therefore are working hard, so to say, in the devil’s workshop. There is a direct link between joblessness/idleness and hunger/anger as well as between idleness/joblessness and violence. Can the unemployed feed himself?
No! So, the question is: can ICT address and fix the problems of unemployment and food insecurity? There are very many Bill Gates and Steve Jobs among Nigerian youths. They roam the streets without good counseling, guidance and mentoring. They feel cheated, uninspired and exploited. So, since they have nothing to give back to the society they hit back at the society. To create jobs in the ICT industry, you have to encourage and stimulate the development of Nigerian content in the industry.
As I said earlier, let us encourage local development of software to automate processes within the Nigerian economy. Use ICT to increase the innovative and creative capacities of Nigerian enterprises. Use ICT to expand their scopes and increase the number of items on their product menu. Manufacture and assemble hardware products. Integrate technologies and systems to deliver solutions that address specific needs of the national economy. Ensure we patronize these made-in-Nigeria ICT goods.
On monitoring crime, I am not convinced that governments are sufficiently leveraging ICT. There are some few steps in the right direction around airports. We see solar-powered wireless CCTV/IP camera-based surveillance systems. We hope that the number of sunshine hours required to keep the batteries of the photo-voltaic systems in the solar power sources that energize the CCTV/IP camera systems will be sufficient at the peak of the rainy season when cloud coverage is persistently high.
As an ICT conglomerate, in what ways can telecom be of help towards helping government in addressing some of the challenges we have in the country, especially in the areas surveillance and security?
Telecom is a very responsible corporate citizen. We are doing our best to inform and enlighten a good number of security and law enforcement agencies on the power of ICT in automating national security operations and law enforcement activities. In fact, we organized at our cost a security summit on The Use of ICT to Boost National Security Operations. The event was scheduled to start at 10: am but by 9: am, the hall was full. We had a keynote speaker from the United States.
It was attended by the Army, Air Force, Navy, Police, Customs, Immigration, SSS, FRSC, NSCDC, NDLEA, PRISONS, etc.
I am sure the attendees had written and submitted their reports to their bosses in their respective institutions. The ball is in their court to automate security monitoring and surveillance in their respective organizations'.
What do you think could be done to make services more robust and thereby bring down tariffs?
What and what determine the price of whatever you sell? Cost of production, simple. So, ensure availability of electric power supply to power base stations, data centers, network devices, etc and you will see prices drop. The extra cost of production is transferred to the consumer. Our business in ICT is not electric power generation or transmission or distribution. Our business is provisioning of ICT services of the highest possible quality.
Second, stop multiple taxations. Imagine federal, state and local government taxes are all heaped on the ICT service provider. Even vigilante groups in remote or rural areas are putting toll tapes/ropes across roads in their communities to tax ICT companies.
Third, provide security nation-wide; let no militants and terrorists vandalize ICT infrastructure.
Losses in revenue thereby can be translated to the consumer. Next, let us minimize excessive charges for right of way.
Fifth, let us develop Nigerian and use same as much as practicable in our network and ICT infrastructure rollout to reduce import-based CAPEX.
Tuesday, 14 July 2015
A case of H7N7 birdflu has been acertained at a poultry farm in Lancashire.
A six-mile (10km) surveillance zone and two-mile (3km) protection zone have been put in place around the farm to stop the "highly pathogenic" case from spreading.
A humane culling of all birds at the farm is taking place, officials from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs have said.
The farm, near Preston, is owned by family firm Staveley's Eggs, which produces and packages eggs.
Chief veterinary officer Nigel Gibbens said: "Final tests results have confirmed a case of avian flu at a farm in Lancashire.
"Restrictions put in place last week will continue and the humane culling of all birds at the site is progressing.
"These actions are part of our tried and tested approach to dealing with previous outbreaks.
"Public Health England has confirmed that the risk to public health from this strain is very low. The Food Standards Agency has said there is no food safety risk for consumers."
H7N7 can harm humans, but it is not the H5N1 strain that has killed hundreds of people worldwide.
The last highly pathogenic case of avian flu was in Yorkshire last November, when an outbreak of H5N8 flu was detected following an outbreak on the continent.
“If You Don’t Kill NNPC it Will Kill Nigeria' Says El-Rufai
Kaduna State governor, Nasir El-Rufai has advised that Nigeria must get rid of Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), or stand the risk of the corporation destroying the country.
According to Pharmovie blog, the governor made the statement on Monday at the 7th Wole Soyinka Centre Media Lecture Series in Abuja, where he was a guest speaker.
“If you don’t kill the NNPC, it will kill Nigeria,” he reportedly stated.
He further stated that “NNPC has become so entrenched in corruption that the only way out for Nigeria is not to attempt to salvage the corporation, but to destroy it and create a new oil company.”
El-Rufai also expressed hope that President Muhammadu Buhari would implement the proposal of getting rid of NNPC.
Here are some excerpts from his speech:
“About N971bn was budgeted for subsidy payments in 2014 alone (more than twice that was eventually paid). You all recall how trillions of naira were paid out as oil subsidy in 2011, when only N254bn was appropriated. No one has been successfully prosecuted for this scam. Huge deficits in gas supply have ensured that the country’s thermal plants cannot produce power at optimal levels…
The long and short of the situation of our oil industry is best exemplified by the parallel government called the NNPC. In 2012, it sold N2.77tn of ‘domestic’ crude oil but paid only N1.66tn to the Federation Account. In 2013, it earned N2.66tn but paid N1.56tn to FAAC; in 2014, (it earned) N2.64tn, but remitted N1.44tn; while between January and May 2015, it earned N733.36bn and remitted only N473.2bn.
That means that the NNPC only remitted about 58 per cent of the monies earned between 2012 and the first half of 2015. A company with the audacity to retain 42 per cent of a country’s money has become a veritable parallel republic.
The NNPC feels entitled to consume more resources than the 36 states, the FCT and the Federal Government combined. How could a country so dependent on oil revenues have been so lax about the proper governance, efficiency and security of its oil industry?
An efficient and productive oil sector, able to create jobs, spur industrialization and earn more revenues requires that we tackle the monster that the NNPC has become. We should replace the NNPC with brand new organizations that are fit for purpose – a commercialized and corporatized national oil company and new industry regulators.
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