Prof. Umar Danbatta
Away from the wild and vicious political ecosystem, there are pleasant tales emerging from the nation’s telecom space. The statistics are as cheering as they are goodly. Stakeholders in this sector deserve oysters. And more deserving is Umar Garba Danbatta, a professor of electrical cum electronics engineering and Executive Vice Chairman, EVC, of the Nigerian Communications Commission, NCC.
The stats are staggering and they make the heart merry. For a sector once badly run and seared by corruption and inefficiency in the harrowing years of NITEL, the tales coming from telecom these days should be seen for what they really are: petals of hope adorning the national psyche in a season of general despair.
How about this: telecom has attracted a hefty $77 billion since the roll out of GSM and other concomitant services and infrastructure especially in the broadband genre where Nigeria has imprinted her footprints in the hearts of international and local investors.
Danbatta, recently in Kano, gave a breakdown of the landmarks and investment toppings that have hallmarked the sector in recent years. In what appeared a presentation of his report card as the regulator of the sector in the past 8 years, Danbatta not only confirmed that telecom investment inflow has ratchetted up to $77 billion, he stressed that $39 billion out of the $77 billion was added in the last eight years under his watch. The sector has also contributed 16 per cent to the nation’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) within the period, based on statistics from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).
He said: “From about eight per cent contribution to GDP in 2015, when I came on board as the EVC of NCC, quarterly GDP has increased significantly to reach its current threshold of 16 per cent.”
In telecom, that amounts to a quantum leap and attests to the increasing market demand for telecom services in various sectors of the economy, from agriculture to commerce and education.
Within the past eight years, the industry has surmounted various challenges including the global hit from Covid-19 and its attendant shutdown of various socio-economic activities. By design rather by default, telecom sector stayed bullish during the pandemic and even far much more during the double recessions that afflicted the Nigerian economy, first in 2016.
Danbatta, not one to be self-conceited, attributes the elasticity shown by the telecom sector these past eight years to “thorough sustained regulatory excellence and operational efficiency by the Commission.”
Without a doubt, telecom is the one outstanding sector where Nigeria manifested a huge improvement in local content before the Federal Government began to apply the local content rule in other sectors, particularly the oil and gas sector. Nigeria telecom has witnessed explosive growth, improved regulatory standard, digital innovation, human capital development and skills acquisition among the youth, most of them upskilling to the level that they have now attained global competitiveness to the admiration and recognition of multinationals as well as international agencies.
In business and in any economy, cash is king. Telecom has continued to make its cash contribution to the national till. NBS report puts the financial value contribution of telecom and information services to the nation’s gross domestic product (GDP), at a hefty N2.508 trillion in the first quarter of 2023, representing 14.13 per cent.
Part of the strategies for the transitioning of telecom sector to a full digital economy is Nigeria’s embrace of 5G, making her one of the early birds to welcome the latest rave in the global digital economy. Danbatta was daring enough to take Nigeria into the 5G club at a time when you could count the number of countries with 5G status on your fingers. As at last month, a good 89 countries have adopted the 5G technology after the initial scepticism that 5G was synonymous with death. That derring-do paid off with the generation of the sum of $820.8 million for the federal government from 5G spectrum licence fees paid by three winning operators, MTN, MAFAB and Airtel.
Add to this bouquet of accomplishments, the launch of Starlinks broadband services, a satellite-based wireless broadband service with potential nationwide coverage. This followed the issuance of licence to Elon Musk-owned SpaceX by the NCC. The services are currently available in different parts of the country.
Danbatta and his team have pushed the number of telephone users in Nigeria to 218.9 million, internet subscribers to 159.5 million, and broadband users to 88.7 million within the past eight years. If you factor the economies of scale, number of jobs, direct and auxiliary, created within the period when some other sectors were shrinking, then you will appreciate why Nigeria has continued to earn the respect of the International Telecommunication Union, ITU, and other such multinational agencies.
Within the limits and permit of the law, Danbatta has in the past eight years engraved Nigeria’s name on the boulders of key multinationals and global ICT regulators. He has proven a fit and well-heeled workman adept at his job and endowed with the visionary leadership acuity to lead the telecom sector of the world’s most populous Black nation.
The growth curve of telecom under Danbatta has been a steady shot upwards indicating growth both in value addition, revenue to the national purse, job and wealth creation, and profound advancement of the entertainment, banking, agriculture, e-commerce and primary sector frontiers among others.
The steady rise in the quarterly contribution of telecom to the GDP, now at a phenomenal 16 percent, means it has been able to insulate itself from the socio-economic cum political vagaries that stymied growth in other sectors. How Danbatta and other stakeholders in the telecom agora achieved this deserves deeper study and inquisition. The questions must be asked: How did telecom rev from kilobytes to terabytes in growth, market size and innovativeness in an environment where electricity supply is horrendously epileptic; how did telecom overawe the mundane pedants of ethnicity and religious affinity that have afflicted the nation’s public space and rendered it ineffective?
Swimming against a coalition of tides including the knotty issue of Right of Way (RoW), fibre cuts, high capital requirement for deployment, multiple taxations and regulations, infrastructure vandalism, among other frustrations, the telecom sector has raised a banner of hope for the nation. And it’s all down to the unwavering commitment of Danbatta to innovate solutions and actively engage stakeholders for the good of the sector and the larger economy.
Nigeria needs such iron-cast commitment in other sectors. If the vision is to leapfrog Nigeria to the exclusive club of top 20 economies in the world, then the federal government must replicate in other sectors the summer success recorded in telecom.
First published in Sunday Sun
