In a statement released by the Commission’s Director of Public Affairs, Reuben Muoka, on Wednesday, the NCC boss informed the senior management team that he intends to reorient the Commission’s regulatory priorities to support President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s Renewed Hope agenda, which is aimed at advancing the country’s digital transformation efforts.
Maida noted that the NCC under his leadership would ensure “effective broadband infrastructure diffusion across the length and breadth of Nigeria.”
He expressed his appreciation for the noteworthy contributions of past Chief Executives of the Commission in strengthening the telecommunications industry.
Maida also emphasised that among his key objectives, he intends to prioritise enhancing service quality on telecom networks and aligning with the Federal Government’s and the Ministry of Communications, Innovations, and Digital Economy’s vision.
While stressing the necessity to build more telecom infrastructure across the nation, the NCC boss said “Considering the fact that many people are going more digital and virtual in everything they do, the telecom infrastructure is now under much stress.
“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,” he said.
“As such, we would align with this aspiration to increase broadband penetration to 70% and to cover 90% 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, and ensuring the security of our telecom infrastructure, among others. Efforts must be made to significantly improve service delivery by ensuring the NCC is performance-driven.”
Speaking on Tinubu’s agenda, Maida said, “The two major areas are job creation and enabling the digital economy. Where we are going in a nutshell is; that everything that we do in this Commission has to align directly with the Strategic Plan of the Hon. Minister of Communications, Innovations and Digital Economy, Dr Bosun Tijani, and ultimately to the Renewed Hope agenda of His Excellency, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu. We would not deviate from that.
“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’s 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 went on to mention that the Minister’s Strategic Plan includes a goal of equipping three million Nigerians with digital skills and entrepreneurship capabilities. He also highlighted the importance of the Commission supporting the Digital Bridge Institute (DBI) as a digital training institution to effectively contribute to the government’s youth empowerment initiative.
In a recent restructuring affecting three agencies within the Ministry of Communications, Innovation, and Digital Economy, Tinubu appointed Maida as the new EVC/CEO of NCC.
This change marked the departure of Prof Umar Danbatta, who had held the position since August 2015.
