The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has received the Regulator of the year award for 2021, as Umar Danbatta, the Executive Vice Chairman of the commission also bagged the Public official of the decade award.
According to NCC, the combined awards was issued by the Nigerians NewsDirect, a multimedia firm, on the heels of a public lecture delivered by Dapo Okubadejo, Ogun State Commissioner for Finance, titled Public Sector Financing: The oil revenue, challenges, solutions, and prospects, eloquently expressed the significance of the telecom sectors contribution to Nigeria’s economy.
The commission noted that the telecoms’ 12.45 percent contribution to the nation’s GDP in 2020, was central and pivotal in taking the nation out of recession.
The commissioner’s paper went deeply on the increasing challenges of the country’s dependency on oil revenue for public sector financing while offering solutions to better public sector financing from refocusing on the opportunities and prospects inherent in the oil sector but particularly in other sectors.
NCC noted that the topics of the lecture were fluent and persuasive of the role of NCC in gearing up and enabling utilization of telecoms and ICT applications for economic recovery and growth. A fact that gives concrete expression to the imperative of diversification of the nation’s economy from oil, which is being vigorously pursued by the Federal Government and which NCC is a key sectoral driver.
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The commission disclosed that its role in enhancing the nation’s growth and development is not lost on its management which was emphasized by Ikechukwu Adinde, Public Affairs Director of NCC, who received the award on behalf of Danbatta.
Adinde, while extending NCC’s gratitude for the award, said the Commission will not rest on its oars but rededicate itself towards demonstrating its worthiness of the public trust and confidence reposed in it as an agency central to diversification of the nation’s economy.
However, the public affair Director noted that the garlands, swelling the repository of the awards would not surprise sensitive watchers of national events, reiterating that In November 2021, the Commission conducted a historic auction of the 3.5GHz spectrum, in preparation for the deployment of 5G services to be activated this year.
According to him, it was not the first time NCC will conduct an auction but it was the first time it had completed an auction with the final bid ending at a price more than 30 percent higher than the initial bid offer. The auction, which started with an initial offer of $197.4 million, closed after 11 rounds at $273.6 million Mafab Communications and MTN Nigeria Plc, won the bid.
Speaking on, he disclosed that a digital training centre facilitated by the Universal Service Provision Fund (USPF), an arm of NCC, was commissioned at Ijesha Muslim Grammar School, Ilesha, Osun state, days after the EVC delivered the convocation lecture of the Fountain University, at Oshogbo where he highlighted the imperative of youth’s embrace and exploration of the opportunities the ICT revolution has offered them to contribute to the growth and development of the nation.
Meanwhile, NCC stated that the above achievements show the commission’s commitment to expanding the nation’s frontiers of growth and development within the context of its mandate.
Many others include Tony Elumelu, Chairman of Elumelu Foundation, Ken Nnamani, President of ATCON, corporate organizations including Ecobank, Chevron, Polaris Bank, and State Government which includes Ogun and Benue also received various categories of awards.
