Titi Omo-Ettu, telecommunications engineer has more than three decades of active participation in the Nigerian telecommunication development.
The iconic consultant and trainer with focus on developmental processes was recently elected president, Association of Telecommunications Companies of Nigeria (Atcon). The new Atcon boss has been consultant to the Nigerian Communications Commission from its inception in 1993 to date, serving the Commission in the areas of industry studies and research, universal service plans and internet applications. He offers similar services to private sector clients. Omo-Ettu is also managing partner of Telecom Answers Associates, and founder of The Cyberschuul, a Lagos based telecommunications training Institute. He is Council member and Vice-President of the Council for the Regulation of Engineering in Nigerian, (COREN). Omo-Ettu talked about the telecom industry and sundry issues in this interview with ken nwogbo.
Major Focus as your Tenure as New Atcon President
Our consultation process has just commenced and the end of such wide consultation will produce what constitute the major planks of our strategies.
Getting Operators to Improve Quality of Service
We shall communicate more among ourselves within the industry, with the consumers of our products and with the regulator and governments.
With that we shall resolve several areas of clogs in our wheel of development and then develop with less stress. The implication of all that, will include rise in quality of service.
Market Dominance Real or Imaginary?
I am not aware of dominance going by my back ground information as an industry research person. But with the consultation that is afoot one may soon see what is being perceived as dominance if indeed there is no dominance.
Price Cap and Lower Tariff
Price cap is not new and there is not much radical thing about it. The point to make about it is that a line should be drawn between price cap and price control. I trust the regulator to be very adequate in drawing the line.
Reluctance to Share Infrastructure
Really? We did not say that collocation is a magic wand. It is certainly an industry management tool which needs time to mature. You may not be right to say operators are still reluctant to share. I suggest you check your facts. They were. Not any longer.
Improving Access to the internet
With improved communications among all concerned as we hope to make the cornerstone of our strategy, we shall be able to make the Federal Government see telecommunication firms as its 'wards and babies' which need its support at various levels. Such support will be capable to bring down the cost of access ultimately at the end-user level. Give us time.
Merger the NBC and NCC in the Face of Converging World
We favour restructuring that takes full advantage of convergence of technology and management of technology. One fall out of it is the unification of licensing and regulatory regime. I do not like to call it a merger because that phraseology undermines what really the solution proffers.
Reaction to Charges of being Pro-establishment
It has to do with my pedigree. I am trained as an engineer and that equips me to use my brain more than anything else to solve problems. Again I have a record of having consistently intellectual engagement with governments and I must be an ingrate not to admit that to a very large extent my class has influenced the growth and development of our industry in many positive ways. With such a record I cannot imagine me seeing the need for confrontation.
In any case I am a believer in the imperialism of our Institutions. That means I detest anything that berates or undermines our institutions once they are established. Again I have always believed that those who are in government are usually there for such a short period that even where they fall below expectation, we can tolerate them while we prepare our institution to be used properly under the next dispensation.
Activists of my class have seen a turn over of more than 20 Ministers of Communications in my 37 years of active practice in the field. We managed our relationships with them to get to where we are and to get what we think is best for our society. We could have done more but we are just a bunch of human beings who are not infallible.
It is already late in the day for me to even contemplate using any other strategy. I have crossed the 60 years line and whoever I am dealing with in government can only be at best as old as I am. And I regard them is an embodiment of authority. So why should I fight them?
What is more, I am now representing the business class. You don’t dare fight government when your issue is business. You will just destroy other people’s investment before you know it. That is why I had to do this intervention.
And Unfinished Business of Learning
At the NIG-NCC-FUTO ICT for jobs seminar on April this year, I presented a paper on unfinished business of the “Learning to Earn” campaign in Nigeria
The main point I was making was: what we currently have is a halfway house between where we are and where we should be. It will be fairly disingenuous for my fellow ICT advocates and I to claim that governments have not listened to us in the last 15 years. Those who contend so either have an unrealistic expectation of government administration, collective amnesia, or both. There however should be a tacit acknowledgement, on our part, that that we could have presented our cases better. What is palpably true is that our achievements appear to have come up slightly short, given the commendable rapport between us and governments on these matters.
It will be equally impractical for the industry to shoulder the blame for the aforementioned lack of progress. We need all hands on deck – government, industry and the public - if we are to turn the tide of our current education system churning out job seekers instead of active job creators.
