In the absence of a Board for over two years, the Commission has largely floundered, not because of management failure but largely due to a basket of challenges inherited from the previous Board and management of the Commission. Without doubt, there is the opportunity to prove that nine heads are better than three
THE Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) said last week that the new Board has been cleared by the Nigerian Senate to commence work at the Commission formally. The development brought a whiff of good news because the organisation has endured life under this administration for over two years without a Board, in defiance of the Nigerian Communications Act 2003, which requires a Board at all times.
The Board appointments were announced on August 12, 2025, via a statement by Bayo Onanuga, Special Adviser to the President on Information and Strategy. It took nearly three months for the Senate to confirm the members so appointed by the President, because members of that Upper House are more often on break than doing the work for which they were elected, which makes it troubling for the people to wait on the Senate to perform certain functions instead of Senators serving the people in the real sense of it.
But it was still a matter of joy when the confirmation finally came. The NCC statement said that, “Following successful screening by its Committee on Communications, the Senate on Tuesday confirmed the appointment of Idris Ibikunle Olorunnimbe (representing South West) as Chairman of the Board of the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC).”
“Adopting the Committee’s report during its plenary session,” the statement continued, “the Senate also confirmed Maryam Bayi (North East), Senator Ramoni Olalekan Mustafa (South West), and Ikechukwu Ugwuegede (South East) as Commissioners of the NCC Board.”
Also confirmed are Princess Oforitsenere Emiko (South South) and Christopher Sandy Okorie, also from the South South.
The Chairman and other Commissioners will now join the Executive Vice Chairman, Dr Aminu Maida (North West), Executive Commissioner – Technical Services, Engineer Abraham Oshadami (North Central) and Executive Commissioner – Stakeholder Management, Rimini H. Makama (North Central), who had previously been confirmed to function as Board members.
We congratulate these Board members. The other good news here is that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has once again demonstrated that he has a tolerable appetite to correct an error once detected. We are happy that the appointees are also being identified with their Senatorial Zones. When the announcement was made in August, there was no one appointed from the South East. On this page, we were outraged.
At the time, we wrote: “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……
“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.”
Our position was anchored on provisions of the Act which state that, “Subject to Subsection (2) of this section, all Commissioners to be appointed after the coming into force of this Act shall be appointed by the President in accordance with section 7 of this Act, from the 6 geo-political zones of Nigeria subject to the confirmation by the Senate.”
It is elevating that the President retraced his steps to ensure that each zone has a voice on the Board. Yes. It is about representation, which some politicians hardly think about. It is about voices speaking for the different parts of the country on the Board. When the regulatory agency didn’t have a Board, a former regulator once asked this writer. Who is speaking for the people on the Board? I couldn’t provide the answer then.
And there is this little matter of qualification, which is explicit in the Act but subtly referenced above. We do not have the right to argue on the qualifications of members except to just remark that this is the season of politics; the politicians have the clairvoyance to pick the right personalities to occupy big offices. However, I will want to observe that I do not need a magnifying glass to observe that I can’t see anybody on the Board in the similitude of Alhaji Ahmed Joda, Engr Ernest Ndukwe, Engr Olawale Ige, Engr Augustine Otiji and Engr Patrick Kentebe, among others. But, as they say, the young shall grow!
No matter the age and experience, the new Board will now have to learn on the go and proceed with measured speed because there is so much to be done. Yes. So much work.
Even the Act expects the Board to work and make the Commission a better place for the various stakeholders. “The Board shall have the capacity to make standing orders for the regulation of its proceedings and meetings, howsoever and acts of the Board shall be deemed to be acts of the Commission,” the Act says. The role of the Board is too important to be understated, even in the day-to-day running of the Commission. Industry issues and staff welfare, including salaries and other emoluments, can be at the instance of the Board, working with the National Salaries and Wages Commission.
In the absence of a Board for over two years, the Commission has largely floundered, not because of management failure but largely due to a basket of challenges inherited from the previous Board and management of the Commission. Without doubt, there is the opportunity to prove that nine heads are better than three.
Yes. The internal and external stakeholders are waiting for a demonstration of that capacity by the Board. There are grumblings and discontent among the staff of the Commission. The Board has to attend to this urgently, but should also note that quite a number of them, especially the young ones, were recruited arbitrarily, without recourse to the rules of the Civil Service. It is the responsibility of the new Board to put an end to such arbitrariness and unconscionable abuse of power. The Board has to start with the NCC staff because without a willing staff, the Board can achieve nothing.
Subscribers will be very interested in the activities of the Board because the industry they patronise is in clear distress. Although some measures are being put in place by the regulator, quality of experience (QoE) remains a nightmare. Immediate intervention of the Board will be needed to correct some of the glaring challenges of the telecommunications industry and then position it for growth.
The telecommunications industry is huge and deep, requiring a lot of knowledge for those who regulate it. Even with the knowledge base of the Ahmed Joda-led Board, they still built a lot of capacity for the members and even for the NCC staff. I expect this young Board to be humble enough to learn and not be seduced by distractions which are legion.
I will encourage the new Board to do a study of the history of the Boards of the Commission from 2020 to find out why some failed and others succeeded. Let me recall a little story here. Under the Muhammadu Buhari administration, the staff of the Commission had little respect for the Board which was headed by Adeolu Akande, a lackey of the former Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Dr Isa Pantami. Sources at the Commission maintain they were transactional and mostly contractors. The failure of that Board has continued to haunt the Commission, subverting nearly all the good intentions of current management. How does the new Board want to be remembered?
Plus the provisions of the Act, the new Board has its functions clearly spelt out: scrub the rot from the past, assuage the hunger and desperation of the workforce, and create a more responsive industry for subscribers and operators. In summary, return the regulator and industry to their glory days.
Does Idris Ibikunle Olorunnimbe have the gravitas to lead the new Board in making bold choices? The answer will determine a place for him and the Board in the annals of the Commission. But for the time being, let the Board get down to work.
- Aihe writes from Abuja