OpEd: So, what happens to regulation now?

FOR the first time since I started writing my column, Simply Tech, in 2020, my pen failed me. My fingers were too numb to command the computer keys and the brain simply just refused to function coherently, having been so shocked out of rhythm by the apotheosis of one of the greatest souls that ever walked this earth, High Chief Raymond Aleogho Dokpesi, on May 29, 2023.

This is not a tribute to this meteoric personality yet. That will come shortly but his being apotheosised on such a significant day only deferred, albeit temporarily, the opportunity to point a torch on the cesspit left in the broadcasting and telecommunications industries by a government that left in a puff after allowing individual brigandage in the two ministries to hurt a nation so badly.

Herein lies the assignment for the new President. Does he have the capacity of a rebirth, to dig some of these parastatals out of the tunnel his party has plunged them? To look at some of the activities of his own party and tell Buhari, you did us wrong here?

My question before the swearing in of Senator Bola Ahmed Tinubu last week as the new President of Nigeria is, what happens now? Is this a crystallisation of the fears of the workers of two major parastatals, the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC) and the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) who fear that the future holds no much hope for them in spite of their expertise in industry regulation?

In just eight years, the APC government under President Mohammadu Buhari, dug the nation into a hole especially in the two ministries when two powerful ministers were allowed to seize the levers of the agencies and managed them from the fickleness of their whims. Looking at what happened in the Aviation ministry, where another super minister launched a national carrier in his head, it seems there were reasons some ministers particularly got emboldened to do certain things.

Also before Senator Tinubu, as he was called then, could declare his intention to run for the top position in the nation, there were some people close to him who threatened to deal with anybody at the NBC who stood on the path of their opaque businesses within the system. They were rebuffed with some level of foreboding. Another small paradox. As the owner of TV Continental (TVC), what will now be the relationship between the station and the regulator? Will the NBC have the gravitas to regulate the station and what will the President do? Will he swim in that dangerous water of conflict of interest?

Mohammed declared the Digital Switchover (DSO) a cardinal programme of the Buhari government. Again, he took hold of it and completely ruined the process. He domiciled the management in the ministry and left the curators of the project in the lurch

Permit me to quickly observe here that some people who worked hard to frustrate Tinubu’s emergence as President may not have done so out of mere bile or hatred but out of fear, whether he will have the capacity to climb the moral high ground when it comes to taking hard decisions.

Before swimming myself silly in the pond of pity, let me state the cases as they are. In the last administration, the Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, was a super minister who could do no wrong before the President, no matter how he irritated the nation. Enjoying that level of influence in a nation of over 213m people, Mohammed simply went on a roll. NBC, one of the parastatals under him, became a major victim of power-grab. All the DGs that worked under him were harassed to no end, to do things that could kill one’s joy of returning to the office the following day, while two are still facing litigation, as he maintains a sanctimonious distance.

He wove his way into the system which he controlled through some surrogates, while also taking control of the licensing process and produced so many licenses, some of which were merely ratified by the NBC. The NBC Act 2004 frowns at such blatant power-grab but the Commission was helpless under the last administration and nobody spoke up for them. Ironically, the Act also empowers the minister to do anything, trample on regulatory decisions if he likes. Unfortunately the ordinary people are the ones feeling the ambivalence of such a law.

Mohammed declared the Digital Switchover (DSO) a cardinal programme of the Buhari government. Again, he took hold of it and completely ruined the process. He domiciled the management in the ministry and left the curators of the project in the lurch. What the President Jonathan administration did became past tense and its replacement was a pronounced spoiler. The DSO became a drainpipe from which so many hidden mouths were drinking to stupor without evidence of work done.

If strange things happened at the NBC, it was worse at the NCC where the Minister simply took control of all the parastatals under him with the telecoms regulator as the home ground. The Communications Act 2003 is one of the best laws of this nation, carefully crafted to shield the regulator from politicians like Dr Isa Pantami who, as Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, the digital aspect being a complete baloney to hoodwink the uninitiated, sat on the law and forced the NCC, which used to be one of the most powerful and effective regulators in the world, into a position of impotence.

Bad things happened at the Ministry of Communications and Digital Economy, and worse happened at the NCC. The final act was the NITDA amendment Bill which was intended to enable the little development agency swallow up the NCC

I am not using words for their cheapness. This writer was privileged to visit different parts of the world or attend regional or global programmes with teams of the Commission. The minister was never embedded in those teams. If any was in the team, like at ITU, Mobile World Congress or any other programme in Geneva or in other parts of the world, he was there to represent the government in the area of policy.

Pantami was the real deal. He regulated the NCC from within. He took charge of the commission’s activities by filling the NCC board with surrogates and lackeys and also positioned his men in sensitive positions at the Commission, his own employees, who from all the grumblings within the system, were not working in the national interest.

Bad things happened at the Ministry of Communications and Digital Economy, and worse happened at the NCC. The final act was the NITDA amendment Bill which was intended to enable the little development agency swallow up the NCC. I hear some shameless senators passed that bill but was there time enough for a concurrence from the House?

Under the instigation of a power drunk minister the senate decided to wipe the footprints of the NCC, an agency that should earn praises for single-handedly stimulating the growth of the nation’s economy from year 2001. Where were some of these senators then?

Herein lies the assignment for the new President. Does he have the capacity of a rebirth, to dig some of these parastatals out of the tunnel his party has plunged them? To look at some of the activities of his own party and tell Buhari, you did us wrong here? Some workers in the parastatals I mentioned prayed that the Buhari administration should come to an end, which it has. Can the President give these workers something to hope for, a tomorrow that has meaning where they can simply carry out their regulation? The answers may either give them succour or create another sorry but sustained impasse.

Aihe writes from Abuja| COVER IMAGE: Al Jazeera