The recent revelation by the Vice Chairman/C.E.O. of the Nigerian Communications Commission, NCC, Dr Ernest Ndukwe, that the nation has attracted a whopping N2.7 trillion ($18bn) from direct and foreign investment in the first decade of the telecommunications industry is a welcome development. So far, the country, which is 99.5 per cent wireless, boasts of about 75 million lines, with some 50 million spin-off jobs already created. Similarly, Nigeria is credited as the fastest growing network on the continent and often proudly quoted as a reference point by the International Telecommunications Union, ITU. This is equally heart-warming.

Some pertinent questions arise, however: Can the country honestly claim that it has been able to maximize the benefits of this revolution in its telecoms sector in terms of adding value with regard to local content or indigenous technology? Have we been able to provide most of the human capital to drive this veritable engine of economic growth? What about the critical issues of printing, equipment maintenance, social service delivery, or stemming the attendant massive capital flight? The answers are obvious.

Consider the monumental flop that NITEL, the previous state monopoly, has become, in the very midst of a telecoms boom in the country. As rightly noted by Dr. Ndukwe, the problems that confronted NITEL, dooming its privatization to failure, were glaringly institutional. Said he: "One is consistent government interference in what they (NITEL's managers) do. Over the years, NITEL and M-Tel (its subsidiary) were like milking cows for many people and the managing director was not given a free hand to run the organization." Ndukwe explained further that the head of NITEL never had an approval authority exceeding one million naira (N1m), as against his competitors who controlled over one million dollars ($1m). So what chances did he have to prepare the organization for serious competition? Indeed, 2002 would have been a watershed period for Nigeria's telecoms industry if M-Tel had been excised from NITEL and the latter made independent of the government's crippling bureaucracy.

NITEL was conceptualized and equipped for long distance transmission. Experts believe that if it had been developed along that line it would have become a major player, carrying traffic for other operators. NITEL failed to develop its fixed line network. As fresh efforts are being made to privatize the moribund outfit, the Bureau for Public Enterprises, BPE, must deliberately reinvent itself to get it right this time around.

The nation's Internet connectivity is another significant issue. It is both poor and unusually expensive. At present, connectivity needs to be extended to about 50 per cent of the population at a much higher speed. In fact, it should be totally free as obtains in other countries with a large number of phone subscribers at par with Nigeria. A thorough review of the Communications Act, 2003 has become an imperative. The private sector, especially finance institutions, should be actively involved in breathing life into the process. For instance, those who got the NCC's special exchange operator licences could not raise the needed finance from the banks. One reason for this was of course the country's abnormally high interest rates that simply stifle economic production. The industry also needs to provide for electronic signatures to deal with such sensitive matters as ATM frauds, for these signatures could be used as evidence in a court of law.

Nigeria's long delay in developing its telecoms industry is a great drawback. At the turn of the millennium, when the nation was 40 years into political independence, it could only boast of about 400,000 lines as against the expected 10 million lines. There is need therefore to fast-track the process further and, beyond that, replicate the success story in other vital sectors such as oil and gas, power, non-oil mining, agriculture and the hugely untapped tourism industry.

To do this, the nation's monetary policy should be overhauled. There must be something fundamentally wrong with a monetary system that ensures that the exchange rate, lending rate and unemployment rate are ever on the upswing, and that manufacturing industries collapse, even in periods of foreign exchange windfalls and overflowing external reserves. The Central Bank's monopolistic control of the foreign exchange market has, over the years, had the most devastating consequences for the nation's economy. High cost of borrowing, at 22 per cent, compared to 5 per cent in advanced economies, added to decrepit infrastructure, is counter-productive. All these are disincentives to local and foreign investors.

As we commend the NCC for the giant strides taken in first ten years of its deregulation programme, we call on the government to address the challenges that persist. It should also provide the enabling environment for a similar success story to be written in other viable sectors of the economy. Surely, we can do much better still.