Daily Independent (Lagos)
Emma Okonji
2 December 2008
Lagos — Nigerians, penultimate week, witnessed another set of awards in the telecom sector, a situation that further heightened their mixed feelings over perceived multiplicity of awards in the telecom sector.
While a majority of Nigerians, especially the awardees, have high regard for the several telecom awards, with a strong belief that it is a moral booster and a call to a further dedication to service in the telecom sector, a handful of people are insisting that those responsible for the awards have made nonsense of it and have dragged its standard to the lowest ebb.
Presently, there are several pockets of telecom awards organized by different bodies at different times of the year for the same set of industry players, the awardees. Some of the organisers include the Nigerian Information Technology and Telecommunications Awards (NITTA), which has been up and running consistently for the past seven years; the Nigerian Telecoms Awards; the Titans of Tech Awards among others.
The awardees to these different set of awards have continued to flaunt their awards believing that the awards were giving out on merit and that they the awardees deserve such award and commendation. Some industry players that clinch several titles from a single award, see it as honour and privilege to stand shoulder-high above other operators, and some beat their chest to it, convinced they are the best among equals in a competitive telecom market in the country.
But Dr. Emmanuel Ekuwem, president of Association of Telecommunication Companies of Nigeria (ATCON), the umbrella body of all telecom operating companies in the country, is one of the few Nigerians that are bold to criticize the standard of Nigerian telecom awards, while agitating for a Pan African telecom award with global standard.
Baring his mind and that of ATCON at a press conference in Lagos, Ekuwem said it is a thing of shame that Nigeria does not have a single national body responsible for telecom awards. According to him, the several pockets of awards do not give credibility to the Nigerian telecom sector that has been adjudged as the fastest growing telecom market in the world, having attained over 55 million subscribers in seven years of operation.
Ekuwen has promised that ATCON will soon come out with a policy statement on telecom awards, geared towards sanitizing telecommunication awards in the country.
His worry is that in a year, several telecom operators emerge as "Best Telecom Company of the Year" from different award bodies, thus dragging the title to the mud. According to him, in the international setting, it becomes extremely difficult to recognize the "Best Telecom Company of the Year" from Nigeria because there are so many of them with such titles, but from different platforms.
An award body, will for instance, confer the title "Telecom Personality of the Year" to a chief operating officer of a telecom company, while another award body will prefer to confer the same title to another chief operating officer in the same year running. The issue then is who becomes the true "Telecom Personality of the Year", and what parameter and key performance indicator did these award bodies used in passing judgment?
It becomes clear that the parameter used in passing judgment as to who wins, is not standardized, but based on individual group assessment.
For this reason, Ekuwem argued that there is need for a single national telecom award body that will be responsible for national telecom awards, irrespective of pockets of award bodies that may be interested in telecom awards.
The single national award body, Ekuwem said, will be made up of industry players, a position that is open to criticism, as critics have questioned the rational behind industry players officiating as an award body. They are of the opinion that bias may set in since it is the same industry players that are beneficiaries of the awards.
President of the Association of Licensed Telecommunication Companies of Nigeria (ALTON), Mr. Gbenga Adebayo who spoke to our correspondent on phone said it is difficult to criticize telecoms award outside the jurisdiction of the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), the industry regulator. According to him, those who give award are independent bodies who have their own parameter for assessment.
NCC, he said, stands a better position to condemn or praise telecom award, since it has authority to do so as industry regulator and that it equally has all data and key performance indicators for accessing credibility of telecoms award.
But interestingly, the NCC is always a beneficiary of the awards from different bodies, and Ndukwe who is at the helm of affairs at NCC cherishes and flaunts his award the same way as others.
If Ndukwe is enjoying such pockets of awards, who then stands a better position to criticize what seems good to NCC and industry players?
NITTA, one of the award bodies, for instance, honoured Ndukwe with the "Pan-African Telecom Regulator of All Time Award," at the just concluded NITTA 2008 Awards.
Other recipients of the NITTA award include Chief Maan Lababidi, Chairman and Founder of Starcomms; Bayo Ligali, Chief Operating Officer of Zain Nigeria, Mike Adenuga, Chairman of Globacom; Jim Ovia, Founder of Visafone. Apart from honoring individuals, NITTA Awards also recognized operators in the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) industry. The operators include United Bank for Africa; Zenith Bank; Direct On PC; Omatek Computers; Zinox Computers among others.
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