Daily Independent (Lagos)
Promise Dokubo
8 July 2009
opinion
Lagos — To my mind, the pertinent questions are:
(1) Had the process of acquiring the spectrum in question from the Nigerian Broadcasting Corporation and handing same over to the Nigerian Communications Commission been completed before the NCC went ahead to sell the spectrum?
(2) Does the NCC have a right to sell what, at the time she did sell it, she did not own?
(3) Did the higher governmental authority instruct the leadership of the NCC to halt the process before it, when it was midstream. and specifically before payment was made by any interested companies?
(4) What did the NCC do with that instruction?
(5) Why did the NCC choose to fix the price of that spectrum sale indoors and give the companies five working days to raise N1.3bn at that point in time in our economy when the banks had a great lending crisis?
(6) Was this a deliberate design to favour predetermined companies who may have been given information much earlier by insiders, and shut out others?
(7) Why was the process limited to only those companies whose applications were said to be outstanding with the commission for two years? Is it not possible that there are companies who are equally interested in that spectrum but who did not file applications with the NCC because they knew the spectrum was not available? Was it fair to shut them out of the process?
(8) Why was public auction, which had been the cherished system that produced serious minded bidders who rolled out service in the past, jettisoned in this process? Was it designed to be a send off package for those on the NCC board whose tenures are due to expire without a renewal option early next year? What was the motive for changing a winning system and/or style?
(9) How do we know that the Government did not lose money through this price fixing?
(10) Was it right for the management of the NCC to take newspaper adverts to misinform the public on a strictly official matter instead of relating to the supervising ministry to find ways of repairing the damage and embarrassment they had brought to the nation?
(11) Finally, which office has superior authority - the office of the Executive Vice Chairman of the Nigerian Communications Commission or that of the Honourable Minister for Information and Communications?
I may not have all the information about this matter but looking at those that have come to the public domain, I, as a retired public servant, versed in government procedures and processes, will tell you without hesitation that the NCC management must purge itself irrespective of whatever cheer leaders it can amass from the public through mis-information. If you have been following the developments on this matter closely, you will have known that the Chairman of the NCC, Alhaji Ahmed Joda, a seasoned and respected public servant and technocrat, was quoted as having exonerated the position of the Ministry of Information and Communications by declaring publicly that he had realized that the NCC did not follow due process in the sale of the 2.3 GHz spectrum.
I do not see this matter as a personal matter between Prof. Akunyili and Mr. Ndukwe as Mr. Soyombo has unsuccessfully tried to paint it. It is a matter of the employer saying 'this is the way I want it done' and his employee saying 'I will do it the other way' and goes ahead to do it that way. I suppose the position you have taken is your own way of trivializing an otherwise important issue. But since you feel it is a matter between the Minister and the EVC of the NCC, (on an official level, I suppose) Ndukwe is better advised to go back to his management books and review the chapter on "Managing your Boss."
Finally, with this matter now before the EFCC, apparently to look at any likelihood of economic or financial crimes having been committed in the process, let us all be patient and wait for the outcome. My prayer is that Mr. Ndukwe comes out clean so that he can ease out of his exalted office from where he has made all of us proud with his head high. I cannot wish him anything less!
Concluded
Dokubo, a telecom engineer, writes from Port Harcourt, Rivers State.
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