Ndukwe leads Speakers to Wafict Congress 2009

Ernest Ndukwe, executive vice chairman, Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) is to lead an intimidating list of experts to fashion out how best to deploy new technologies to sustain the growth in West Africa’s Information and Communications Technology industry at West African ICT Congress.
Engr Ndukwe will be delivering the keynote address at the congress, taking place alongside the ninth edition of the West African International Telecommunications and Information Communications Technology exhibition (W.Afri.Tel) in Lagos.
Ndukwe’s profile as a key and prime mover in Africa and global telecom arena has since soared to an all-time high beginning from 2001, when, as Executive Vice Chairman of the Nigerian Communications Commission, he organized the most transparent auction exercise yet in Africa, which was also internationally applauded.
That singular step immediately put Nigeria on the world map; and ever since the attendant introduction of GSM in Blackman’s most populous country, the growth in mobile telephony as well as telecom generally, has continued to beat all known expert projections, with high promises of the growth curve remaining positive for many years more to come.
Ndukwe has gained recognitions both nationally and internationally. He has been Man of Year on at least two occasions at the highly respected Nigerian Information Technology and Telecom Awards, and has been honoured with the Member of the Order of the Niger (MON), and was recently crowned Africa’s Best Telecom Regulator in far away Johannesburg, South Africa, a feat he first achieved last year.
But for the unassuming Engr. Ndukwe, Wafict Congress 2009 will be an opportunity to explore more opportunities and technologies that help in pushing the benefits of the telecom revolution in the sub-region to not just more people, but more places, especially the rural areas.
Other speakers for the congress also include Mr. Mohamed Jameel, the group chief operating officer of Globacom. In his capacity as group COO, Mr. Jameel oversees Nigeria’s Second National Operator’s activities across Africa. It is on record that Globacom has since become an exporter of both services and knowledge from Nigeria. To date, Globacom has operations in the Republic of Benin while its operation in Ghana, which it already has a licence, is scheduled to commence any time soon.
Indeed, Globacom, which is the platinum sponsor for Wafict Congress 2009, has an ambitious vision of building Africa’s biggest and best telecommunications network. The company is working to achieve this vision, through various products and services, as well as an aggressive rollout programme across Nigeria and Africa. Its undersea fibre cable, the Glo One, for instance, is at an advanced stage nearing landing in vital countries of the sub-region.
More so, Wale Goodluck, corporate services executive of MTN Nigeria; MTN Nigeria, which is the gold sponsor for Wafict Congress 2009, is the country’s leading mobile phone operator, a position it has held since commencing operations in 2001. MTN Nigeria has since become the leading subsidiary in the MTN Group’s operations across Africa and the Middle East.
Another key speaker is Thami Msimango, a man with double responsibilities: he is the managing director of Multi-Links Telkom as well as the MD of Telkom International Business Unit. Msimango, who took over the affairs at Multi-Links a couple of months ago, is bubbling with ideas and the plans that his company has lined up for the Nigerian telecom industry. He will be sharing these ideas during the three-day event, which Multi-Links Telkom is sponsoring also as silver sponsor.
 “We are assembling the best brains from across the world so that they can bring to West Africa what the sub-region needs to continue to be on the front burner of global telecom growth,” says Mkpe Abang, editor-in-chief of IT & Telecom Digest, adding that the list of speakers given so far is not exhaustive, as there are many more others that will be lending their expertise and experience to participants at the Wafict Congress 2009.