Maida @ NCC: When the man meets the mome

The new gaffer at the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), Dr. Aminu Maida, was a 13-year-old lad in 1992 when telecom industry was deregulated in Nigeria by the then military President, Ibrahim Babangida via Decree 75.

Fast-forward to October 2023, the little lad has grown into a 44-year-old man who has just been appointed the Executive Vice Chairman of the NCC, the nation’s telecom regulator.

Appointed NCC boss at 44 makes him the youngest EVC of an institution that has seen five EVCs come and go. He admits that becoming the honcho at NCC was never in his career radar. An introvert, he would rather prefer not to be seen. Obviously, a man of quiet efficiency, but here he is, the foreman superintending a critical sector of the nation’s economy. By the way, the telecom sector remains the best performing sector of the economy since the return of democracy in 1999. And the NCC has been the midwife of this sector that has brought glory to the country and has consistently placed Nigeria on the dais of honour in the international community. And telecom has created jobs, wealth and added value to the nation’s socio-economic ecosystem in the most mind-blowing manner, even to the affirmation of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU).

An encounter with Maida tells of a man who understands the enormity of his brief, the place of the industry he regulates and the impact of such industry on all other sectors. And why not? His antecedents, a rich repository of sound scholarship, experience, expertise and knowhow, lend him to his job. Maida is coming to his duty post equipped with the right skill sets in the diverse fields of telecom, enterprise technology, FinTech and network infrastructure. It’s this amalgam of private sector experience that he brings to the public sector space. And it shows in his purpose-driven, process-moderated approach to leadership. Barely 100 days in office, Maida tells you he has scrutinized and studied the industry and has become acquainted with the challenges facing the multilateral stakeholders.

Listening to Maida reel out his visin for the industry, you get the impression of a team player (he kept saying ‘we’ rather than ‘I’), who has factored all the stakeholders into the mix. In as much as he desires profitability for investors and service providers, he demands the highest quality of service from them to their subscribers. He is worried about the state of infrastructure and is willing to work with investors to ramp up their infrastructure and with the security agencies and the publics to help in protecting these infrastructures.

He makes a strong pitch for the hearts of consumers. Telecom consumers must be treated as ‘king of the market.’ He sees user/consumer experience as the focus of his leadership. Total consumer experience has assumed an international mantra and has become a chief marketing tool for service providers and products sellers globally. You are not in business if consumers of your service or product cannot attest to your quality or speak passionately about how excellent you are in the midst of competition. Maida who has had a successful career both locally and internationally knows this. He says his administration will ensure that service providers give value to consumers because both the service providers and the regulator are in business because of the consumers.

Coming from the private sector especially the enterprise tech and Fintech space where transparency is the tonic that drives processes, Maida hints very strongly at his proclivity to transparency as a sub-culture in his avowal to rev up the engine in the telecom space. He demands transparency from NCC staffers, from service providers and all stakeholders. He believes that NCC cannot stand alone. All the key components of the entire value chain must sync into one huge efficient hub. When one component slacks, the entire hub wobbles. For him, active and regular stakeholder engagement is the effective pulley system that will deliver the right mix of customer satisfaction driven by excellent quality of service on one hand, and profitability for investors on the other.

Without any contestation, Nigerian telecom regulator, the NCC, is regarded globally as one of the best models from emerging markets. The NCC success story is globally viral such that regulators from Africa and other emerging markets have had to come to Nigeria to understudy the NCC model. This owes largely to the foundation laid by past EVCs. Maida was humble to acknowledge this when he paid glowing tributes to his predecessors whom he said have done very well by taking the industry through development phase. Now, he says, is the time to advance to maturity stage. That maturity is embodied in 5G tech, Internet of Things, Artificial Intelligence, cloud computing, Blockchain, Augmented reality, datafication, quantum computing, e-commerce, smart learning, among other dynamics in geekdom. Welcome to the age of possibilities. And telecom is driving these possibilities. Maida is primed for this moment. His vision ties into the Renewed Hope agenda of President Bola Tinubu. It’s hope forged in a blooming digital economy, propped up on the sturdy pedestals of innovation and upskilling of the Nigerian youths.

In Maida, President Tinubu fulfils one of his campaign promises, that is, to birth a stronger Nigeria through the creative force of the Nigerian youths. At 45 this year, Maida is a fitting bridge between the old and the young. He speaks the language of youths, exudes the wisdom of the sagely and is equipped with a rich tool kit spanning the diverse spectrum of technology. A man fit for this moment.

Scion of a revered media guru, Wada Maida of the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) fame and former chief press secretary to then Head of State, General Muhammadu Buhari, young Aminu was sufficiently accustomed to the ways of the media while growing up and could easily have become a journalist, a profession where letters woven into words and knitted into sentences are the currency. Instead, fate swung him to the other extreme of the spectrum. He now crunches numbers and figures and speaks engineering language of armature, delta connection, ampere, capacitor, debugging, etcetera.

But whether crunching numbers or stringing words, Maida is smart. He knows the power of the media. And he openly seeks a strong partnership with the media to get his job done. And surely, he will get the buy-in of the media. The unwritten rule is, if you want to get the support of the media, be friendly with the media. Maida has so far shown friendliness. He has openly endorsed the Nigerian media as a worthy and dependable partner cum collaborator. The media, especially the ICT media fraternity, should oblige him. Maida wants to fly in a viciously dynamic ICT space where product and service transition is per second. He needs the wings of the media to attain a safe altitude.