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| Chief Okechukwu Itanyi Executive Commissioner, Stakeholders Engagement |
The executive commissioner, Stakeholders Engagement in the commission, Chief Okechukwu Itanyi, made the call recently at NCC 2014 Legislator’s workshop with the theme: ICT Infrastructure as Key Driver for Economic Development: What Role for the Legislature, held in Lagos.
Itanyi who represented the executive vice chairman of the commission, Dr. Eugene Juwah, stated that the theme of the forum was apt as ICT has become the foundation for rapid economic development in the world and Nigeria could not afford to be left behind. He said the commission is concerned with the adequacy of telecom infrastructure to drive broadband penetration.
The battle to protect telecoms infrastructure has been an uphill task given that the commission requires legislative backing for laws to be promulgated which could provide security protection including physical observation of telecom offices, masts and base stations. The law in effect is to provide for the police or personnel of the Civil Defence corps or any other relevant security agencies to be deployed to guard telecoms infrastructure wherever they may be located.
It has been a sad reality for telecom service providers having to contend with the vandalisation of their equipment including the pilfering and stealing of cables, metres, fittings, generator parts and accessories, diesel, etc, from their base stations across the nation. Such theft or destruction has been at great cost to the operators who have to reinvest their profits to replace critical facilities in order to continue to serve the public. There is no gainsaying the fact that such unfortunate developments negatively impacts on the cost as well as the quality of service available to subscribers in the long run.
A more traumatic and difficult phase was entered into when telecom masts and base stations became soft targets for terrorists and insurgents who callously set them ablaze as retaliation – on the allegations that the operators were divulging information about them (insurgents) to security agencies. These happenings often threw entire communities in affected areas into service blackouts for appreciable lengths of time. It also affected social and economic activities in manners that went well beyond the mere absence of communication links.
One can therefore understand the NCC’s protracted effort to get the Critical Infrastructure Bill passed against the background that the commission itself had come under direct threat from the dreaded Boko Haram sect. Such a threat must not be taken lightly given that the insurgents demonstrated their capacity to carry out their threats by hitting the police headquarters, the United Nations House, and the office complex of Leaders and Company (publishers of Thisday newspapers), all in Abuja.
At the forum referred to above, the NCC noted that thought the Nigerian Communications Act (2003), had provided a legal framework for successful operation/regulation of the industry, important laws such as those for data protection and cybercrime were still pending in the National Assembly.
Chief Itanyi underpinned the necessity to protect telecoms infrastructure with the following assertion: Nigeria is regarded as one of the fastest growing telecommunications markets in the world; however, internet penetration is less than 32 percent. This level of internet penetration is still inadequate and can be attributed to the dearth of ICT infrastructure.
Taking up the cue, the Director of Public Affairs in the Commission, Mr. Tony Ojobo, said some of the challenges faced by the telecoms industry are issues of vandalisation of infrastructure which could be addressed in appropriate laws were put in place. “Each minute, an infrastructure is being vandalised across the nation, fibre cuts and all of that...and each (act of) vandalism affects the quality of service provided”.
The Critical Infrastructure Bill which will enable government to prescribe telecomm infrastructure as government-owned or public-owned, which means security will be provided and it will be treated like government-owned or something owned by the public so that people cannot toy with them. Presently, such facilities are the property of the telecom companies who require the force of public policy to effectively compliment their efforts to protect their facilities while providing a critical social service.
With the NCC providing the necessary information as to what these critical infrastructures are, articulating their importance in terms of the different categories of the infrastructure and how critical they are to the network; the kind of locations that are more critical than others, the legislature already has its job cut out for it.
As Nigeria looks forward to the broadband era, the need for the seamless flow of information can hardly be overstated. To achieve such, telecoms infrastructure need to be protected the same way as military installations, banks, public buildings, etc. That way, the certainty of effective transmission and reception of data can be guaranteed and this will have a positive effect on all other sectors of the nation’s economy.
As a major stakeholder, the NCC should intensify on lobbying and organise more of such fora in order to drum into the consciousness of the legislature that like the PIB, the FOI and others, this is one more legislation that is overdue for a very critical sector of our economy.
Akubo writes from Onitsha, Anambra State
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