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Over the weekend, the Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Dr Isa Ali Ibrahim Pantami, was honoured with the prestigious award: “Digital Leader Of The Year 2020″ at the 4th edition of the Nigeria Tech Innovation and Telecoms Awards (NTITA) in affirmation of his visionary leadership since mounting the saddle to lead Nigeria’s digital agenda.
The award is a resounding of Pantami’s studied strides as a minister of the federal republic and a public officer with a mission in a country where commitment to goals are often lost in the frenzy vanity of the office.
The NTITA 2020 jury spotlighted technocrats and political leaders leveraging the required willpower to advance the cause of ICT. Pantami’s robust profile as a leading light in technology policy drive and a pathfinder for Nigeria’s steady push in digital economy was not lost on the jury.
As Nigeria’s most prized IT and Telecom event, NTITA celebrates technology innovations, projects; entrepreneurship; and leadership able to foster right environment for ICT to flourish. The 2020 edition held as part of the commemorative events in the tech industry to celebrate Nigeria’s Diamond Jubilee.
Since making his mark as an IT regulator at the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), Pantami would leave the agency as a Director General that strengthened all the frontiers of IT regulation for which the NITDA is statutorily empowered.
Notably is the pursuit of IT procurement across all ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs) of the federal government. No NITDA’s director general had dared to proclaim or even enforce that mandate. Pantami did! When he would leave the NITDA for a higher national assignment as a federal minister, he had turned a once docile agency around to become a regulatory bulldog, whose IT watchdog role was no longer in doubt. NITDA had become effectively visible, impactful and approachable. It has Pantami to thank.
One of the major signifiers of where the Ministry of Communication was headed was the name change it got approval for within months of Pantami taking charge as minister.
The IT regulator, now a minister, got the presidential nod for a re-christening of the ministry to become the Ministry of Communications and Digital Economy. It has been no mere paper name-change.
Many critics share the persuasions that at no time has the ministry experienced such fundamental array of activities engineered at strengthening the oversight role of the ministry over the regulatory institutions under it; and building an enabling synergy to get everyone on board to achieve the core objectives of the ministry including ‘Digital Nigeria.’
Pantami not a sedentary minister
It was clear Pantami will not be a sedentary minister. He was not a sitting-duck regulator at NITDA. In 12 months, he has mobilised ministerial willpower to get all agencies under him targeting specific goals; and has made the ministry active to its mandate, particularly the agenda for digital economy across all spectrums of national life. The minister and his team have remained committed to the pursuit of massive digital skill building, steady digitisation of government processes, embracing of new technologies and innovations from AI, Big Data to Robotics; and deeper broadband penetration among others. Today, national broadband penetration has hit an unprecedented 43.30% and over 120,000 Nigerians have already been empowered with digital skills in line with the paradigm shift championed by Pantami who has emphasised skills over mere certificates.
With nearly 60 projects launched under 12 months to accelerate Nigeria’s transition into the digital economy, NTITA 2020 is a testimonial to Pantami’s visionary leadership and hard work.
One case of this visionary leadership is the minister’s forceful drive at resolving the Right of Way (RoW) dilemma and the positive outcome across the states. For nearly two decades, the RoW has worked against operators’ ability to rollout network into the states and has undermined ICT infrastructure development. RoW issue will be one of the first thorny battles Pantami will fight through dialogues with state players. After series of engagement with state governors, the result was positively unprecedented. States agreed to crash RoW fees, in some cases, in excess of 1500%.
Testimonials and rising credential
You could tagged Pantami as the ‘Star Boy’ in President Muhammadu Buhari’s cabinet and he has received numerous commendations from Mr. President for building robust synergy in the digital sector worthy of emulation.
No doubt, the NTITA 2020 award will further cement Pantami’s rising credential as Nigeria’s most outstanding minster and he has already got several endorsements to that effect from state governors including Governor Hope Uzodinma of Imo State, Governor Babagana Umara Zulum of Borno State and Governor Nasir el-Rufai of Kaduna State.
Hear Uzodinma: “On Wednesday 21st August 2019, when he was sworn in as the minister to oversee the Ministry of Communications, some of us who followed his activities as the Director General, National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) were convinced that he was going to lift the ministry from where it was to the next level. Knowing him as a thinker, an individual full of innovative ideas, and a man under whose leadership NITDA came up prominently to the fore,”
This is Zulum’s attestation: “Honestly speaking not because the Minister of Communications and Digital Economy is here with us, the activities of the Ministry of Communications was not well known to many Nigerians before his arrival as the minister of Communications. We have applauded his competency in handling the affairs of the ministry, he gingered the performance in his ministry that makes it possible for him to achieve a lot during his short stay in office.”
For el-Rufai, Pantami offers sterling leadership at a very critical time. His words: “If you will list 2 or 3 performing Ministers in this administration, the Minister, Dr Pantami is at the top. He took a Ministry that was sleeping and upgraded it to a 21st century Ministry.
“In the last one year under his leadership at the ministry, over ten national policies has been developed and more than 50 projects to accelerate the development of Nigeria’s digital economy for a Digital Nigeria have been commissioned despite the global COVID 19 pandemic.”
