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In an effort to
ensure that Nigerian telecommunications consumers get value for the
money spent for services, the federal government has directed the
Nigerian Communications Commission, NCC to develop an action plan for
improving quality of service before July 9, 2010.

Dora Akunyili,
Minister of Information and Communications, gave this directive last
week in Abuja during an interactive session with investors in the
communications sector.

This, according to
her, is essential considering that most Nigerians have been asking
questions and expressing displeasure over the services provided by
mobile telecommunications industry.

“We all know there
is a problem,” she said. “Poor quality of service has become a
recurring decimal and the government is deeply concerned about this
seemingly intractable problem. We shall tackle this head-on and hereby
direct the management of NCC to submit to my office within two weeks a
comprehensive plan of action on how to improve quality of service.”

Ignored complaints

The minister also
said that in spite of the repeated calls by the government to operators
and regulators to address the problems related to service quality,
nothing tangible has been done. “Drop calls remain a problem despite
our constant appeals for you to improve on it. Poor voice signal
quality and reception is becoming peculiar to Nigeria. It is not only
wasting our money and wasting our time but also creating a very bad
image. It is creating a terrible culture of Nigerians shouting on the
phone instead of talking. The lack of inadequate inter connectivity
remains an area of concern,” Mrs. Akunyili added noting that it is
worrying that although these concerns are correctable, yet they persist.

According to the
Minister, the Nigerian telecoms market is experiencing a boom and
government intends to ensure that this growth profile is sustainable
through sound policies and a proper regulatory framework.

Huge success

The telecoms
industry has continued to deliver superior returns on investment
despite the global economic meltdown. This is evident in the huge
turnovers being made by the network operators as well as the market’s
ability to steadily attract international telecoms companies.

For Mrs Akunyili,
despite the perceived operational challenges that telecom operators
face, Nigeria’s subscriber base currently stands at about 78 million.
“We are not unmindful that the huge success recorded so far is not
without its fair share of responsibilities such as ensuring good
quality of service, affordable tariffs among other. The ministry is
interested in addressing the issues and finding lasting solutions.”

“I understand that
the big operators are making it big. If we sanitise the environment you
will grow faster. The small ones are not growing as they should because
the environment is not sanitised enough for them to grow.

“As long as the
regulation is not strong, the big will remain bigger while the small
will be so suppressed that eventually they will fizzle out and we do
not want it to happen because the more people we have as operators, the
more the operators and the better for the consumers,” she said.

Responding to the Minister, Bashir Gwandu, the Acting Executive Vice
Chairman of NCC there said that the commission will deliver on the
mandate within the time frame given. “The document will be ready in the
next few weeks. We will be consulting with the industry to see how we
can finalise the document in accordance with the law establishing the
NCC,” he said.

Cyber crime and scam mails have done a
lot of damage to Nigeria’s image. Therefore, the Nigeria Communications
Commission, NCC, is partnering with the government of the United States
to take steps towards improving Nigeria’s monitoring and investigations
skills, so as to minimise the impact of such cyber misuse. The
partnership is also expected to address network and data insecurity.

Bashir Gwandu, the acting executive
vice chairman of the NCC, said this after a meeting held last week with
Perry Ball, the Counsellor for Economic Affairs of the United State
Embassy.

Mr. Gwandu said that many fraud cases
have been committed using scam mails, which emanate from unknown
persons and disguised sources claiming to be from Nigerian institutions
such as Central Bank of Nigeria, Nigerian National Petroleum
Corporation (NNPC), and some other top commercial banks.

“This has significantly damaged
Nigeria’s image abroad and we can’t allow it to continue,” Mr. Gwandu
said, adding that the FBI and other US top security agencies have
leading expertise in tracing the origins of computer viruses, scam
mails, and in identifying the physical locations of servers used to
host terrorists’ web sites.

“This wealth of experience, if acquired
by Nigerians, will go a long way in reducing the impact of cyber crime
committed in the name of Nigerians.”

Not made in Nigeria

According to Mr. Gwandu, “many of the
scam mails purporting to be from Nigerians originate from sources
outside Nigeria, and are often hatched thousands of miles away but the
scammers usually claim to be Nigerians.”

One of the key challenges associated
with this type of crime is the fact that Internet Service Providers
(ISPs) obtain their Internet Protocol Number blocks from outside
Africa, and in most cases, from Europe and North America, which makes
it cumbersome to use basic techniques of tracing the origin of the
mails and the viruses due to the fact that the ISPs are located outside
Nigeria’s jurisdiction, Mr. Gwandu explained.

There might, therefore, be a need to
mandate Nigerian Internet Service Providers to acquire IP Numbers from
Afrinic – an organisation that assigns IP Blocks in Africa, he said.

The partnership with the Americans, Mr.
Gwandu said, is an attempt to deal with the problems and combat the
challenges these crimes pose.

America’s offer

In his remarks, the head of the US
delegation, Mr. Ball, offered to give assistance to the Nigerian
government in the form of training and capacity building so that the
country becomes equipped to tackle the challenge.

He said the meeting with the NCC has been exceptionally productive
and they will do everything possible to assist Nigeria very soon.

The Nigeria Labour
Congress yesterday added to the criticism against the Federal
Government’s proposed golden jubilee conference in the United Kingdom,
describing it as a“ national disgrace.”

The NLC president,
Abdulwahed Omar, said, in a press statement yesterday, the move
represents a higher degree of “irrationality” than the N10 billion
allegedly set aside for the Independence celebrations.

“While we had
earlier condemned the over N10 billion budget for the celebration, we
are convinced that the London Summit planned by the federal government
is more irrational and totally unnecessary given the huge state
resources that would be used to host it,” the statement said.

“Perhaps other than
to display our linkage to our colonial heritage, we believe that it is
highly illogical for our leaders to take a ceremony of our golden
jubilee independence anniversary to the capital of the country that
forcefully imposed itself on us for well over a century of exploitation
and oppression.”

The two-day
conference, said to be part of Nigeria’s 50th anniversary celebration,
is to be held in London on June 28 and June 29, 2010.

Unconfirmed reports
say Mr. Jonathan is to attend the event with 18 governors and 12
ministers. The ruling People’s Democratic Party new chairman,
Okweselize Nwodo, is also expected to be at the event.

Opposition parties reacted angrily to the news on Sunday, saying it is another waste of public funds.

A senior official
in Mr. Jonathan’s government had denied media reports that the
administration is providing the N10 billion budget for the events
expected to climax on October 1, 2010.

The Minister of
Information, Dora Akunyili, denied that Mr. Jonathan raised the budget
of the celebration from N62 million earmarked by the late President
Umaru Yar’Adua, to N10 billion. She explained that the amount
originated from a committee set up by Mr. Yar’Adua himself.

Oilwatch Africa, an
environmental group, has described ExxonMobil’s poor reaction to calls
on it to mend its ruptured oil pipeline in some communities in Akwa
Ibom State, as worrisome. The group asked the Nigerian government to
immediately impose appropriate sanctions on the oil multinational.

Multiple spills
from a ruptured pipeline laid by Exxon Mobil in 1968 had gone unchecked
for over three weeks, impacting several communities in Ibeno local
government area, spreading to 15 other communities in Esit Eket and
Eket LGAs of Akwa Ibom State.

The current spill
is coming barely two weeks after over 100,000 barrels of crude oil was
spewed into the ecosystem from the same facility.

Like ExxonMobil, like BP

Oilwatch Africa, in
a statement issued in Port Harcourt, said that ExxonMobil’s action is a
clear indication of their disdain not only for the ecosystem, but also
for the livelihoods of communities that have been impacted by the
spills.

The group lamented
that Nigeria leaks as much oil as the current spill in the Gulf of
Mexico every year, and that in over five decades of oil exploitation
over 7000 separate oil spill events have occurred in the country.

It urged the
Nigerian government to immediately set in motion open and transparent
process to compel Exxon Mobil to take immediate action to contain and
curtail the spread of the spill, restore the ecosystem, and compensate
communities whose livelihoods have been impacted upon.

Government’s romance with oil companies

“It is still a
puzzle that the Nigerian government is still entangled in an unholy
wedlock with the oil industry. By now, we expect the Nigerian
government to take a cue from the US government’s response to the Gulf
of Mexico incident by instituting criminal charges against individuals
and businesses that have destroyed local livelihoods and compel them to
pay for what it would cost to restore the ecosystem,” said Nnimmo
Bassey, International Steering Committee member of Oilwatch
International.

Mr. Bassey
described as “disturbing” the fact that it took vigorous protests of
communities for the oil company to grudgingly accept responsibility for
the spill, make a pledge to clamp the leaking oil pipeline, and to make
available relief materials to affected communities.

“It is even more
disheartening that in addressing this ecological disaster, our own
government decided to hide behind closed doors and allowed itself to
take the unprecedented step of barring the press from being part of the
resolution of an issue which affects us all.” Mr. Bassey said that it
is appropriate to remind the Nigerian government about the steps taken
by the U.S government as the spill in the Gulf of Mexico evolved,
especially the mobilisation of over 20,000 people and 1,300 vessels to
join in the efforts to stop the oil from reaching ecologically
sensitive wetlands and to participate in the immediate process of
remediation of the ecosystem.

“Will the mouthpieces of the oil industry in our government claim
ignorance of US government insistence that BP sucks its spill and
pledge $20 billion as an initial step to deal with the immediate,
medium term, and long term impact of the spill? For true and lasting
peace in the Niger Delta, the Nigerian government must actively pursue
an economic diversification agenda that reduces dependence on oil as a
single major revenue earner, because present global realities is a
world moving towards non-fossil based development,” Mr. Bassey said.

The Speaker of the
House of Representatives, Dimeji Bankole, on Monday, disclosed that the
country’s lower chambers of the National Assembly will today (Tuesday)
pass the 2010 supplementary budget.

Mr. Bankole, while
fielding questions from aviation correspondents at the presidential
wing of the Murtala Mohammed Airport (MMA), Lagos, disclosed that the
House is operating with the executive arm of government to ensure that
the budget is passed in order to move the country forward.

“As far as the 2010
budget is concerned, we are working with the executive arm of
government to make sure that tomorrow, in the House of Representatives,
we pass it (the supplementary budget),” he said.

It would be
recalled that early this month, President Goodluck Jonathan, while
presenting a supplementary budget of N638.8 billion to the National
Assembly, asked the legislators to re-examine the economic structure of
the 2010 budget, and to revise downwards the budget from N4.48 trillion.

According to Mr.
Jonathan, the development is not unconnected with the drop in crude oil
revenue, as he noted that the implications may have adverse connotation
on the country’s financial level.

“I wish to bring to
your attention, certain challenges posed by the serious shortfall in
the projected revenue and the adverse implications it poses for
financing the level of aggregate expenditure appropriated,” he said.

“Specifically,
recent revenue developments indicate significant shortfalls in both oil
and non-oil revenue, which may well continue for the rest of the fiscal
year, with adverse implications for the financing of the budget,” he
said.

Effect of oil revenue drop

Admitting that
there is significant drop in the country’s oil revenue, Mr. Bankole
disclosed that the designated team in the National Assembly, together
with the Ministry of Finance, will see to the effect of the shortfall.

“I’m sure there is
a reduction, but those things would be worked out between the
appropriation committee of the National Assembly and the Finance
Ministry,” he said.

Foremost democracy
monitoring group, the Transition Monitoring Group (TMG) has asked the
new chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC),
Attahiru Jega, to flush out all officers of the commission who worked
with his predecessor, Maurice Iwu in order to ensure credible elections
are held next year.

The group also
asked Mr Jega to commence the review of the voters’ register,
especially with a view to removing names of none existent people from
the from the document. TMG, which hailed the appointment of the new
chairman and the subsequent confirmation, said in a statement signed by
its national coordinator, Mashood Erubami, and publicity secretary,
Auwal Rasfanjani, on Monday, that the country is dangerously transiting
towards the 2011 elections, adding that it is appropriate for him to
take definite steps so that future elections will not fail.

The group said the
removal of those that worked with Mr Iwu and the review of the voters’
register have become necessary if the nation is to hold a credible
election. “In the first instance, most of the people that worked with
Prof. Maurice Iwu are by the current imperatives for fair elections
unnecessary land mines that must be removed from the path of
progressive advancement of the election administration umpire,” stated
the group. “Secondly, the fundamental review of the current fraudulent
and non- transparent and verifiable collated Voters Register is a
desirable step that must be swiftly taken as a good measure to divest
the register of its content of Ghosts and foreign names which have
undermined the register from being an essential ingredient for
conducting free and fair elections.”

Meeting the expectations of the electorate

TMG also advised Mr
Jega to ensure that the foundation of the country’s electoral system is
rooted in the constitution and related electoral laws. This way,
according to the group, the expectations of Nigeria electorate in 2011
will not be doomed. The group also urged the new INEC boss to make
inclusiveness, transparency and accountability, the prerequisites for
peaceful, participative and credible elections in Nigeria. “To this
extent, INEC must be seen to be properly constituted by non partisan
elements from the society and must not be seen to be demonstrating
allegiance to head of state, the ruling party, or show it has political
allies, so as to build confidence in the electorate and build
confidence of the people in the elections it will conduct.

The attitude
of winners take all by any political party, using extraneous means that
are foreign to the electoral laws must not be permitted at anytime, so
as not to worsen the current ethnic tensions and religious bigotry in
the country,” the TMG said.
Reactions to Mr. Jega‘s selection as the umpire for the 2011 general
elections has been mostly positive, but fears have been expressed about
his ability to do the job if systemic problems are not addressed.

The House of
Representatives has ordered the immediate stoppage of another federal
aviation contract over allegations of over-bidding and breach of
procurement regulations.

The House Public
Procurement committee yesterday directed the Ministry of Aviation to
suspend a €17 million (N3.0 Billion) contract for the installation of
Aeronautical Information System (AIS) in airports, after lawmakers
questioned officials over the poor handling of the transaction. “I wish
to state here that the Minister of Aviation and the Director General of
the Nigerian Airspace Management Agency (NAMA) should suspend all
actions on the contract until they appear before us to clarify the
issues being raised by the contractor,” announced Yusuf Tuggar, the
house committee chairman on Monday.

Members accused the
officials of the aviation ministry, Nigerian Airspace Management
Agency, and the Bureau of Public Procurement, of flouting basic rules
and granting the contract to a company that tendered at the highest
cost for the execution of the project.

Inflated

The Minister of
Aviation, Fidelia Njeze, is expected to explain the ministry’s decision
in awarding the deal to a company that bid almost twice what was quoted
by another company.

Basic federal
public procurement rules state that contracts be awarded to companies
with lower quotations, except in special cases and even then clearance
for the award is supposed to be obtained.

In the AIS contract, Mocom/Skynet won the bid despite bidding €17.9 million, against the €9.5 million, bid by Avsatel GMBH.

The job is to set
up an AIS detection system-surveillance equipment in all airports
across the country. Further details and terms of the contract were not
made available, but the House committee chairman, said the contract
will be suspended pending the outcome of the investigation.

Contract flaws

This is the third
time in four months that a committee in the House of Representatives
has reported major flaws in a contract awarded for a major project in
the country.

A contract for the
construction of a new runway for the Abuja airport, was earlier
suspended by the House over allegations of over-costing. Lawmakers also
ordered inquiry into the costing of the expansion project of the Abuja
airport expressways.

In all three cases,
the lawmakers faulted the Bureau of Public Procurement for failing to
detect the over rated amounts, and approving the contract for execution.

For the AIS contract, the bureau spokesperson, NNebolisa Odizie,
said the decision was taken because of an “inadequate” technical and
financial evaluation submitted by Avsatel. He said the bureau abided
“strictly” by the advice of expert consultants in awarding the contract.

Ahead of Saturday’s
visit by Jonathan Goodluck to Oghara, the hometown of James Ibori,
embattled former governor of Delta State, the Urhobo ethnic group wing
of the Delta Elders and Stakeholders Forum has described as hypocrisy
the planned commissioning of the Nigeria Navy logistic base and the
Delta State teaching hospital by the president.

The elders said
most of the projects are not priority projects, as they are not
necessarily essential to the people of the state, and that the state
government squandered tax-payers money on the projects.

Addressing a press
conference in Warri, Delta State, yesterday, the elders, led by their
Chairman, Patrick Ideh; Deputy Chairman, Godwin Ogbetuo; and Sam Kowho,
said it amounted to great hypocrisy for a state government to build a
logistics command for a federal government parastatal when the people
are dying of hunger.

“The federal
government is richer and stronger to bear the weight of expenses than
Delta State,” they said. “Yet, at the expense of Delta State which is
lacking in almost everything, the administration undertakes the
exercise of investing on the Nigeria navy logistic command which is
being handed over to the richer federal government.” The elders also
expressed displeasure aboutthe siting of the teaching hospital in
Oghara, despite the expert advice from the Nigeria Medical Association
(NMA) which warned of the long distance students have to travel between
the university campus in Abraka to Oghara.

No meaningful project

“Since the
beginning of this administration, no meaningful project has been
undertaken in the state. The projects being commissioned by the
president are old projects executed by earlier administrations,” they
said.

The elders also
cited the case of the commissioning of the Olomu and Okpare bridge,
which attracted hostile reactions from the people when the governor and
his deputy were chased away by youth in Out-Jeremi, as one example of a
meaningless exercise.

While pledging to support Mr Jonathan’s reform agenda, the group
called on the president to overhaul the current electoral system in
order to forestall electoral fraud and guarantee free and fair
elections; with one man, one vote.

The Institute of
Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) yesterday blamed the poor
standard of Nigeria’s technology on its government and the nation’s
institutions of higher education.

Speaking at the
First International Conference of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
held in Abuja, Tunde Salihu, the IEEE chairman, Nigeria Section, said
Nigerians do not need to travel abroad to find solutions to the
nation’s technological problems, as there are experienced technologists
in the country.

“The problems start
from the policy-makers and also the training institutions, I mean the
universities, polytechnics and the technical institutions. The
governments are not funding them enough,” Mr Salihu said.

“In a country like
America, NASA and agencies of government receive the largest vote and
most of the money that goes to defence goes to research, so it’s high
time we consider doing something in this country. That is why we are
having this conference.” Mr Salihu assured that there are a lot of
cheap solutions to our country’s technology problems.

“We know we are in
a developing nation and our income is quite low. We do not need to buy
big technologies that are existing; we can look for small systems,
small principles, and small technologies.”

Indigenous engineers

Stephen Bello, the
acting executive vice chairman of the Nigeria Communications Commission
said it was the desire of the commission to promote activities like the
conference, as telecom engineers have a pivotal role to play in the
country’s technology.

“Nigeria is solely dependant on expatriate workers. If Nigerian
engineers are given the opportunity, they can perform better. However,
we have a lack of adequate skill in our graduate engineers. Most
engineers lack the necessary skill for employment.”

The former vice chancellor of the
University of Lagos, Oyewusi Ibidapo-Obe, has suggested the
reintroduction of handiworks in schools to reduce unemployment.

The don, who is also the chairperson,
Board of Trustees for VolunteerCorps, disclosed this on Thursday,
during a courtesy call the non-governmental organisation paid to NEXT
office.

Mr. Ibidapo-Obe, who led the team on
the visit, proposed an all-round education system that would put
emphasis on problem-solving, rather certificates as the only means of
qualification.

Making school curriculum work

“When we were in school, they didn’t
just teach us arithmetic, composition; they taught us civics, history
of the world; they taught us other skills like how to weave baskets,
how to make tools like a carpenter… All these things have
disappeared; all what we do is to teach our children to pass the
entrance examination…,” he lamented.

Mr. Ibidapo-Obe said creativity must
have a place in the school curriculum, as it is integral to the
creation of jobs and the economy.

“We need to incorporate these skills
into the curriculum, so that kids are employable. We need to develop a
university that allows the kids to turn out solutions,” he said.

The don also said science courses
should be made compulsory for all students in the country, as its
products are fast becoming a necessity.

Science and Technology, he said,
“should be for everybody; it is wrong to say ‘it has to be for those
doing mathematics.’ There is nobody now who does not need science and
technology; for instance, if you are not computer literate, you are not
likely to live in this world; you should live in another planet.”

Public schools losing value

He, however, asserted that volunteer
work, as being done by VolunteerCorps, can help support public schools
provide quality education. He also said the number of accomplished
individuals who had public education has continued to thin, adding that
the disparity between public and private education has widened in
recent years.

The team also requested for a
partnership with NEXT in the support and promotion of volunteerism as a
strategy to develop in the country.

“We want to make volunteerism a
conscious effort for people; and we want to join hands with NEXT to
inspire a change in the average Nigerian by influencing the way he or
she thinks, especially in a project ‘The New Tribe of Nigeria Project’,
which will indeed make Nigeria a better place,” said ‘Tuke Kuku, the
executive director of VolunteerCorps.

On behalf of the team, Mr. Ibidapo-Obe
also presented a plaque which says, ‘Certificate of Appreciation
awarded to NEXT for a tremendous media support of our programmes for
the year 2009’, and was received by an Assistant Managing Editor of
NEXT, Kayode Ogunbunmi, on behalf of the company.