How Juwah can succeed as EVC

On July 22, 2010, the name of Dr. Eugene Ikemefuna Juwah, administrator and telecommunications expert, was read on the floor of the Nigerian Senate as the President’s nominee for the position of Executive Vice Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of the Nigerian Communications Commission. The seat had become vacant following the departure on April 3, 2010 of the erstwhile substantive EVC, Engr. Ernest C.A. Ndukwe, at the completion of his second tenure of five years in office.

The President forwarded Dr. Juwah’s name, along with those of Peter Egbe Igoh, a retired permanent secretary from the North Central, to serve as chairman of the NCC, while Mohammed Bintube (from North East) as commissioner and a former deputy governor of Enugu State, Okechukwu Itanyi, is to serve as executive commissioner. The Senate confirmed them on July 29.

At the completion of his tenure, Engr. Ndukwe left along with the respected erstwhile Chairman of the Commission, Alhaji Ahmed Joda, himself a retired ‘super-perm-sec’, as well as Engr. Patrick Kentebe. Consequently, besides the absence of a most critical substantive EVC, the remaining six members of the commission did not fulfil the constitutional requirement of nine for a full inauguration of another board.

With the nominations of the trio however, comes both relief and anxiety. Relief in the sense that finally, the officials who had held the office in acting capacity, first, Engr. Stephen Bello, an executive commissioner, who, sooner than he took over had to proceed on terminal leave, while Dr. Bashir Gwandu, who has been acting since then would now be able to face his main task as executive commissioner, engineering and standards. Anxiety, because the weighty question now is, will Juwah take Nigeria’s telecom further or will he not?

As Dr. Juwah and his new colleagues join their other older colleagues – Dr. Michael Ebie Onyia, Engr. Muktari Ibrahim Zimit, Mr. Bayo Atoyebi, Engr. Olawale Ige, and Dr. Gwandu – on the NCC board they all begin to settle in to the very demanding job of regulating the equally demanding even if dynamic telecom industry in Nigeria, we are obliged to point the way forward to Dr. Juwah, on whose shoulders rests the responsibility of success or failure going forward.

One key attribute that Dr. Juwah must hold as sacrosanct and which he must never joke with is his independence of decision and action. While he will – indeed, must – listen to lots of opinions and pieces of advice (and you bet there will be tons and tons of such from possible and impossible quarters) when offered, Dr. Juwah must realise from the onset that the final credit will go only to him if he succeeds; if he fails however, it is he alone also that will stand condemned – not those who may offer him advice, paid for or at no cost.

This also brings to the fore, the important role of the chairman of the commission. It is worthy of note that Engr. Ndukwe often gave credit for his overall success during his tenure largely to his chairman, Alhaji Ahmed Joda, whom Ndukwe describes as being very principled, knowledgeable, frank, fearless, and much more – all in glowing terms.
What all this boils down to, is that between the chairman of the commission and the EVC, there must be that clear understanding of what needs to be done, of the challenges ahead, of the road to tread, of the decisions to take and positions to take stands on irrespective of who is favoured or not favoured.

We recall that the hallmark of the Joda-Ndukwe led NCC was their resoluteness in every decision they took. Once they have taken a far reaching decision based on fair play, transparency, internationally acceptable standards and in the overall interest of the country, no amount of persuasion or sentimental appeals could make them change such positions; were it to happen otherwise, the reverse to the success they achieved would have been the result.

A very testy point came for Ndukwe, for instance, very early on the job: the January 2010 Digital Mobile Licence auction. In June 2000, the NCC announced the appointment of Radio Spectrum International Consulting Limited (RSI) as the Principal Consultant to facilitate the Digital Mobile Licensing auction for Nigeria. The commission said in arriving at the decision the Board considered, among others, the need to proceed quickly to ensure that the licences were issued by December, 2000; the proven independence of the consultancy firm which scored very high in the assessment criteria; that some major consultancy firms were known to have developed strong alliances with major operating companies and manufacturers; the consultancy firm had then had fresh experience in the handling of a high profile auctioning process and the proposal presented by RSI and the timetable proposed for the consultancy was acceptable to the Board.

It is worthy to add that while NCC engaged RSI, a joint venture between the UK Government’s Radiocommunications Agency (which is responsible for the licensing and management of the UK’s civil radio spectrum) and CMG, a major European Consultancy, as main advisors on the DML auction process, further economic and auction design advice was provided in support of RSI by Charles River Associates, an American company which has acted as consultants for a large number of auctions in the United States and Canada. On its part, RSI had at the time, been closely involved in the development of the UK’s auction for third generation mobile spectrum licences. Having taking these far reaching measures into consideration, the decision was then taken to go with the consultants.

Then came decision time: the auction proper. The initial winners included MTN, Econet, Communication Investment and the reserved one for M-Tel. The NCC, relying on clearly professional advice of its consultants, and the commission’s own decision, gave deadline for the payment of the balance of $265m to add to the initial non-refundable deposit of $20m to make the final auction amount of $285 million. Payments were to be channelled through the Central Bank of Nigeria, which would in turn inform the commission that it has received or not received the money by the due date.
According to the commission, CIL failed to meet the payment deadline, and consequently its provisional licence was voided; although CIL had claimed it actually paid, NCC said it never got the money. CIL would go on to lose the $20m non-refundable deposit.

Naturally, there were pressures, real pressures, from all quarters for the revalidation of that licence. Interestingly, from his profile, Dr. Juwah was leading the CIL team of those who fought to see that the licence was revalidated. He therefore knows the quantum of pressure that must have been brought to bear on Ndukwe, Joda and their fellow commissioners on the NCC board. Despite these pressures however, Ndukwe stuck to his guns: there was a clear guideline, not meeting the deadline set simply means the company failed to live up to the auction rules, which were clearly known to all who partook in it. To revalidate that licence, the commission explained, would bring the entire exercise to disrepute, tarnish the image of the commission, the country and the consultants; and drag Nigeria further back to the dark days it was struggling to get away from – as a country that does not play by the rules.

With the benefit of hindsight, that singular act of resoluteness, of independence of decision, of refusing to budge to popular opinion or sentiments, of keeping to the rules of engagement, became the cornerstone and the brightest spot upon which the Ndukwe-led NCC would later derive both its fame and its success. The rest is now history. Of course, the promoters of CIL would later win the Second National Operator Licence, in which was bundled the mobile licence that CIL had lost in the auction. What is instructive is that everything followed due process.

Now back to Dr. Juwah. If he were in the position that Ndukwe found himself in February of 2001, what would he have done regarding the CIL’s voided provisional licence? More of such or similar challenging issues will come up for Dr. Juwah to take a stand. And this readily leads to an issue, which is still hanging in the air: the 2.3GHz licence, whose process for the issuance was concluded in 2009, winners announced, but which was later voided by then and current Information and Communications Minister, Prof. Dora Akunyili.

That action has drawn back Nigeria’s telecom growth, which further jump was predicated on the rollout by winners of the 2.3GHz licences. There were manufacturers, who had started equipment manufacture based upon orders by such licensees. All that was frozen; and the industry has been experiencing a lull since then. Even with that decision of the minister, the Ndukwe-led NCC stood its grounds – that the process went through due diligence and ought to be upheld. One of the winners, Mobitel, which went to court, got judgment earlier this year and got its licence issued to it. However, the uncertainty created by the presence of the very same minister who annulled the process in the first place, still hangs like a heavy cloud over the industry, a situation which still casts uncertainty and doubts thereby creating fear in the minds of investors on what may become of the licence. What will Dr. Juwah and his team, along with his Chairman, Peter Igoh, do when this issue comes up for them to act upon?

How independent they act and how resolute they stand by their decisions will result in success or failure for their tenure. We call on them to be their own men; and not bend on every pressure even when such comes from the Presidency.