New NCC EVC,Maida sets sight on 70% broadband penetration by 2025

Business a.m

Aminu Maida, the new Executive Vice Chairman (EVC) of the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), has reaffirmed the Commission’s commitment to achieve 70 per cent broadband penetration and cover 90 per cent of the population by 2025, in line with the commission’s regulatory focus and President Tinubu’s Renewed Hope agenda for Nigeria’s digital transformation.

In his remarks to the senior management team of the NCC, Maida emphasised the need to ensure affordable and reliable broadband access for all Nigerians, as well as the effective diffusion of broadband infrastructure across the country. He stated that this is in line with the NCC’s mission to promote broadband development and digital transformation.

Maida paid tribute to the former heads of the NCC for their role in building a strong telecoms industry in Nigeria. He added that improving the quality of service on the networks will be a priority under his leadership, along with supporting the vision of the Federal Government and the Ministry of Communications, Innovations and Digital Economy.

The NCC EVC observed that the telecom infrastructure is now under much stress, considering the fact that many people are going more digital and virtual in everything they do.

According to Maida, President Tinubu’s vision emphasises the need to build more robust broadband connectivity that will not only facilitate seamless digital transactions but also serve as the bedrock for e-governance and other socio-economic initiatives.

“As such, we would align with this aspiration to increase broadband penetration to 70 per cent and to cover 90 per cent of the population by 2025. Therefore, we need to build a reliable telecom industry with impressive quality of service (QoS) indicators with quality of experience (QoE) as our watchword and ultimate goal. This also requires us to address a number of issues such as the Right of Way (RoW) challenge, ensuring security of our telecom infrastructure, among others. Efforts must be made to significantly improve service delivery by ensuring the NCC is performance-driven,” he said.

He noted further that the NCC is committed to President Tinubu’s agenda of  job creation and enabling the digital economy.

“We would not entertain anything that deviates from this direction because my key performance indicators (KPIs) are fed into the Minister’s KPIs and the President KPIs come from the electorate that put him into power. The Hon. Minister has said clearly that he is ready to build a robust digital infrastructure and empower three million Nigerians digitally and we have to do our best to support him in this regard,” Maida said.

He stated further that the strategic plan of the minister includes a goal to empower three million Nigerians in digital skills and entrepreneurship, adding that this will require the NCC to support Digital Bridge Institute (DBI) as a digital training institution, to be well positioned in driving the government’s agenda on youth empowerment.

The EVC stressed the importance of effective spectrum management and utilization in supporting the country’s digital connectivity agenda. This, he explained, is critical to the delivery of services to all Nigerians and businesses.