NOSA Igiebor, president of TELL Communications Limited, publishers of Tell newsmagazine and Broad Street Journal, on Thursday, April 27, led a team of top management staff of the organisation on a visit to the Nigerian Communications Commission, NCC, to convey the nomination of Umar Garba Danbatta, executive vice chairman/CEO of NCC, the CEO of The Year 2016.

Igiebor, MD/CEO OF Tell Communications, told Danbatta, that he was greatly pleased to be at the NCC “a public sector organization with an uncommon excellent culture of public service”. “There was a massive response when we called for nominations, the choice narrowed down to the CEOs of NCC, BOI and NNPC but ultimately NCC emerged topmost, though the votes were quite close” Igiebor narrated as his revelation was greeted with a loud applause.

Igiebor stated that TELL had devoted its entire history to publishing, championing issues of freedom and advocating good governance as a springboard to national development, but the TELL AWARDS FOR EXCELLENCE is instituted to celebrate organizations and persons inhabiting “the island of excellence where NCC stood out preeminently in the public service”. In the course of this exercise, Mr. Igiebor said his organization interacted with the public extensively and found that some members of the public sphere did not even realize that NCC is a public sector organization — because of its performance.

He said although public complaints about services rendered by telecoms companies persists, NCC has performed creditably well in reining in the malfeasance through its distinctive regulatory role and continuity of focus and actions by successive leadership of the Commission. “We have the honour on behalf of the Board of TELL Awards for Excellence to convey the decision of the nomination of Professor Danbatta as the CEO of the Year 2016 because he has raised the bar in excellent public service and we pray he sustains the trend and that his successors continue on that path” Igiebor declared.

Responding, Danbatta thanked the TELL team for the visit to NCC and acknowledged the recognition on behalf of Management and staff, describing the honour as historically significant because he had always seen TELL as a highly respected, greatly analytical and not sensational media, adding that TELL is indeed fitting in the category of The Economist, Newsweek and other magazines of that genre.

Danbatta told his visitors that this is the first time the Commission will have no hesitation receiving an award from a media organization because TELL is a reputable medium. “Coming from the academia where we are used to incisive sometimes radical analysis of issues, I particularly appreciate TELL’s courageous analysis” Professor Danbatta said adding that it is that pedigree that has helped him to fit in to a world class organization like NCC where very noble Nigerians had done spectacular foundational work which his predecessors built upon to put NCC on the world map, promising to make NCC better.

Sounding quite conceptual and philosophical Danbatta said there are issues naturally “associated with making things better. This is precisely why we rely on the public to tell us how to make things better and the result is what you find in NCC, the real culture of public service to the people is what we endeavour to do and that attitude explains why people come from different countries around the world to study what we are doing and how we are doing it in order to benchmark with their works in other jurisdictions”.

Danbatta expressed gratitude to TELL for the honour which he said is dedicated to the staff of the Commission who work tirelessly to ensure NCC focus on the accomplishment of its mandate. He stated that he was particularly gratified because the recognition is coming from a leading light of the Fourth Estate of the Realm which aggregates public opinion and speaks for the public describing TELL as “an existing and enduring legacy”.

Danbatta also spoke to the challenges in the telecoms sector. He recalled theft and vandalism of infrastructure among myriads of challenges facing the sector and the collaborative partnership which the Commission has instituted with security agencies and other critical stakeholders to address these and other challenges. He noted that telecommunication technology impacts so much on socioeconomic development of the nation and every stakeholder’s support is needed to consolidate the strides in the telecom sector. This explains why Commission has built several conversations and programmes around the challenges of the consumer as clearly articulated in the ongoing 2017: YEAR OF THE NIGERIAN TELECOMS CONSUMER campaigns. Danbatta said the Commission looks forward to working with TELL magazine to accomplish its enunciated vision for the telecom sector.

The Award will be formally presented to Professor Danbatta at an event in Lagos on June 10, 2017.

— May 8, 2017 @ 01:00 GMT