THE Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) gets a Board at last. That is good news. There have been tons of materials written on the need for President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to set up a Board for the regulatory agency which has its functions cast in the Act of the Commission to initiate policies that can shape the day-to-day administration of the agency.
With nearly a two-year hiatus, a wait that raised more questions than understanding, the President, in one fell swoop, announced a Board each for the Commission and its other embedded body, the Universal Service Provision Fund (USPF)
The statement released by Bayo Onanuga, Special Adviser to the President, Information and Strategy, said President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has constituted the Boards of the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) and the Universal Service Fund (USPF), both agencies under the supervision of the Ministry of Communications, Innovation and Digital Economy.
Idris Olorunnimbe, who previously served on the Lagos State Employment Trust Fund (LSETF) Board, was appointed chairman; others being: Hajia Maryam Bayi, a former Director, Human Capital & Administration at NCC, Col Abdulwahab Lawal (Rtd), Senator Lekan Mustafa, Chris Okorie, Oforitsenere Emiko, and Secretary of the Board, who is from the Commission.
Dr Aminu Maida who was appointed in October 2023, with Senate confirmation in November 15, 2023, retained his position as Executive Vice Chairman (EVC), while Engr Abraham Oshadami and Rimini Makama, who were appointed by the President on February 23, 2024, with Senate confirmation on May 21, 2024, will continue to serve in their positions as Executive Director, Technical Services and Executive Director, Stakeholder Management, respectively.
Finally, things are taking shape at the NCC, but it will be instructive to observe that for nearly two years, the regulatory agency, which is responsible for a sector as vital as telecommunications, operated without a Board, and was run by only three Executive Commissioners with a substantive head.
This was in clear breach of Section 5 (3) of the Nigerian Communications Act (NCA) 2003, which says that “Notwithstanding any other provision of this Act, the President shall ensure at all times that there is a duly constituted Board of Commissioners and that there are a minimum of 6 serving Commissioners on the Board at any and at all times.”
For nearly two years, there were only three Executive Commissioners. How could this ever be? Within this period, so much water went under the bridge, as the cliche would have it.
However, it’s not for the sake of these three Executive Commissioners that things went south at the Commission; they were appointed into an agency that was tearing at the seams because of a previously flawed Board and Management that promoted ego above competence in dealing with an industry that called for technical understanding and agile management. They ran the system into absolute discontent, leaving it to boil from the inside.
But there is no need to cry over spilt milk, as they say; that is for those who can still afford milk in their homes. Data in the phone has even become more popular and much cheaper than milk! This is the reason that telecommunications must work; it features more on the menu than real food.
For the sector to work, the Board has a crucial role to play. Thankfully, the President has given the Commission a Board, hopefully not like the type the Creator gave to the stubborn set of people in the holy books, who pressured Him into giving them a king, although they were fully informed of the type of leader that was coming to them.
The Board is charged with the administration of the affairs of the Commission, and acts of the Board shall be deemed to be acts of the Commission. The Board works with the Management to provide a general direction for the Commission.
No doubt, there is a long list of expectations in the basket of the Board awaiting clearance from the Senate. And this is expected, as the sector has fallen out of its golden status to a level that is difficult to understand but very annoying. The quality of network experience is very poor, buildout is below expectations and operators adduce sundry reasons, some very ludicrous; there is discontent within the Commission, and for the very first time since 2000, the Commission is finding it difficult to meet wage bills. Even the very simple matter of staff promotion has become the stuff of social media, and even some quasi-serious media, which do not understand how staff promotion works in an establishment.
On another serious note, the Commission has nearly lost its regulatory independence consequent upon a troubling inheritance from the previous administration, and stakeholders are expecting this Board to rescue the soul of the agency from those who hold it hostage.
Reacting to an article titled: For telecoms, quality of service remains stubborn, published July 23, 2025, in this column, a reader wrote: “Why won’t there be quality of service issues when it is now desktop regulation that is happening? When staff visit to check the MNOs’ activities is considered frivolous trips? Self-regulation in a country without a regulatory infrastructure to detect service lapses from the office is funny.”
The foregoing is very serious communication, but it obviously adds some perilous edge to some of the issues the new Board will have to sort immediately.
While it is important to begin to set an agenda for the coming Board, let me observe three names on the list that are particularly striking for different reasons. They are: Idris Olorunnimbe, Hajia Maryam Bayi and Chris Okorie.
My take-off point is Bayi. Her appointment has received loud acclaim from her former colleagues, not for selfish reasons but because they know her capacity as a human capital development expert. Once she had the opportunity to head the Human Capital and Administration Department, building staff capacity occupied the front seat. She could smell out training programmes anywhere in the world that could benefit staff of the Commission. She was highly trusted by both staff and management and that offered her salubrious opportunities to resolve frictions and suspicions.
Plus, congratulations, her former colleagues have been offering a bucketful of advice on what to do to reignite the passion that was at the Commission. The one from Dr Steven Andzenge, a former Director at the Commission, was particularly instructive. I have his permission to reproduce it here.
“My Sincere congratulations to our amiable Maryam Bayi on her appointment to the Board of the Commission. She will come to the Board as a former management staff member with deep insight into the workings of the Commission, how it was and where it should be going as a Regulatory Commission.
She will be an effective guide to the other Commissioners, and with her wealth of management experience, deep knowledge of Human capital, she will ensure both internal and external operations of the Commission will be met. A special commendation for this well-deserved appointment, and our prayers are with her.
“May the Government also continue to identify and equally pick other Former management staff to be of service to the nation in various other Executive or non-executive roles as NCC has produced deeply knowledgeable, versatile management staff who can add value to various other sectors,” he wrote incisively.
In Bayi, President Tinubu has made the right pick as she brings a rich pedigree to the Board.
But the same cannot be said of Chris Okorie, an innocent man, whose inclusion smells of malevolent infusion. One can see the efforts of the President to ensure some gender presence on the Board, which easily explains the choice of Princess Emiko from the South South.
Who is Chris Okorie?
Okorie, from the information available to me, is also from the South South, but obviously chosen because he could well be taken as coming from the South East, denied representative on the Board.
Yet the Act in Section 8(1), under Appointment and Tenure of Commissioners, states very clearly, that Commissioners shall be appointed by the President in accordance with Section 7 of this Act, from the 6 geopolitical zones of Nigeria, subject to the confirmation of the Senate. Those who made that pick have thrown us into a season of onomastics!
The question is, who hoodwinked the President into breaking the law which he swore to keep, except you are saying the Nigerian President is above the law, which has been a sustained tragedy of a nation that has not really risen beyond expectations and optimism.
There is copious evidence that Okorie once tried to seek a ticket to the Akwa Ibom State House of Assembly from Etim Ekpo – Ika Constituency in 2019. This may not just be a social media smear. Check the congratulatory messages. Again, this may just be an innocent man being drawn to the inexorable vortex of needless controversy.
But provenance, dear friend, cannot be a secret. It carries with it legacy bloodline relationships that can never be hidden from social media or even the sentry eyes of people genuinely concerned about fairness and equal representation. The President needs to take a second look at the list. The South East needs a voice on the Board of the NCC.