Yetunde Akinluye
At the recently concluded “Colloquium on a Legislative Agenda: The Nigerian Communications Act 2003 with the theme: The Nigeria Communications Act( NCA ) 2003, 22 years After: Challenges, Opportunities and Future Directions for a Digital Nigeria” organized by the House of Representatives Committee on Communications, Yetunde Akinluye, one of the speakers treated the audience to the historical perspectives of the Nigerian Communications, pre-1999-2000.
Giving a run down of the issues she was to discuss, she asked: “What is the landscape after 2000? Then went into the Nigerian Communications Act 2003 itself. What are the salient features of that Act? What has been the impact of that Act? What has been the cross-sectorial impact? And then what are the emerging regulatory requirements or deficiencies of the NCA?
After this, she then delved into what are the next steps? She was expeted to cover all these in 30 minutes.
She started her narratives this way. “In those days, getting a phone required a large dose of prayers, patience, and sometimes you needed to know somebody in Nitel for you to get a phone. And then, as we know phones now, phones are communication tools. But in those days, it was a symbol, a status symbol. That was how bad it was for you to have a phone then. NITEL, as we knew, it was a monopoly.
This has its attendance inefficiencies with monopolies. The cost of acquiring a phone was exorbitant. The service was nothing to write about.”
“Tele-density was 0.04. That meant that 1 in 400 people had a phone in that era. And of course, this infrastructure was inadequate. I remember clearly then, if we had to make international calls, there’s NITEL here just around the corner.
For those of us in Lagos, it was just in a GRA cage here. You get there on a Sunday evening and the queue is massively long. And then there’s no guarantee with your 200 units of the card that you’ll even get through.
That was the situation that was prevailing in 1999-2000. And of course, the government was not happy about that. Most people didn’t have access to services.
It was too expensive, and the service was epileptic. So, what happened? We now had the telecom policy of 2000.”
“In the year 2000, the telecom policy was enacted. That gave rise to the Nigerian Communications Act 2003, which is what we are here to discuss today. Then the act created or established what we know now as the NCC, which is the Nigerian Communications Commission, which regulates that sector.
It created what we know as the USPF, Universal Service Provision Fund, as well as the NFMC, National Frequency Management Council, which manages spectrum for the whole country. So, all sectors, aviation, communication, the military, transport and all the rest of it, they are all part of that council to ensure that there is effective management of spectrum. We also had the auction of the GSM licenses in 2001.”
“That’s also part of the landscape. We had per second billing in 2003, despite being told that it wasn’t possible. Along the line, we have had SIM registration.
We have had mobile number portability in 2013. In 2013, we had this MMP, which allows you to retain your number, but move to another network if you were not happy with the services. So, we had more choices.
The Nigerian Communications Act is made up of 158 sections. It has 10 chapters and it has two schedules.Those two schedules are dedicated to broad matters. These are some of the salient features of the Nigerian Communications Act 2003.”
“Number one, like I said, it established the regulator. If you look at section three of the Act, it created the regulator. If you look at section four, which contains the functions and the mandate of the Commission, it says there should be… I’ll just read out some things for you.
It says the Commission shall have the following functions. Section four, facilitation of investments in and entry to the Nigerian market for the provision and supply of communication services. Prior to this time, there was basically only NITEL.
NITEL was not under any regulatory control. It depended on which minister was in charge and all the rest of it. But when the NCC came into being, NITEL had to be brought under regulatory control.
And what you found was that many more people, many more operators were licensed. So, we had more players in the sector. And of course, with more players, we had more services.”
“So, it wasn’t just phone calls that we were making. Then, of course, we had the establishment of the National Frequency Management Council, which I have spoken about earlier in section 26. We had efficient management of scarce resources, numbers and spectrums.
If you look in section four, section 28, that is dealing with that. We had improved accessibility and affordability. For most of us in this room, when we bought our first SIM card in the year 2000-2001, I’m sure we all paid about $30,000, $31,000.”
“I paid $31,000 for mine. Gen Zs might not relate to this. I see some people shaking their heads.
Gen Zs do not know what we are talking about. They can’t understand what we are talking about. But we bought it $31,000 then.
But now, it’s virtually free. That is the progress that has been made by this Act. We have increased accessibility.
If you do your findings very well, you will find out that almost all Nigerians have a phone. And they don’t have a bank account. But they have a phone.
Many of us in this room will never leave their home without taking their phone. If you do forget your phone, I see you running back to pick it up. Because your phone is your bank.
Your phone is your diary. Your phone is your clock. You don’t need to wear a watch.
Your phone does practically everything. That is how pervasive it has become. Consumer protection”
“Consumer protection, section 4, section 104, is critical. And the NCC has actually gone ahead to create what we know as the Consumer Affairs Bureau, a whole department dedicated only to consumer protection. We have universal service.
Universal service basically is to ensure that conserved and underserved areas actually get access to service. Section 73 deals with dispute resolution. But for us… I keep saying for us, I keep forgetting I’ve left NCC.
But I’ve left NCC, NCC has not left us. When you’ve worked in a place for 19 years, it’s difficult for you to now say, they have not left us. But when these days I hear, oh, quality of service is bad, Mrs. yetunde, I’m like, I’m no longer there.
I disown them at that point in time. But one of the most important things that the Act did is section 70. It gives the NCC the power to make subsidiary legislation.”
Why do I say it’s important? You can never have a perfect Act, no matter what. You can’t have a perfect Act that envisages everything that you want to do or that industry might want to do. But with section 70, it gives the Commission the powers to make subsidiary legislation.
So once a lacuna, once a gap is found, you use that to cover it. But it is not in all instances that that power is enough. And then, of course, in section 130, we have the technical standards.
So we get to the meat of it now. What has been the impact of the NCA 2003 on the sector?
“We all know that there was a time we had what we call the umbrella people. If you needed to make a call, you didn’t have a phone, just around the corner you would see some people under the umbrella just make your call.
So there was a lot of employment that was created directly and indirectly. There’s more choice for the consumer. So if today you don’t like what operator A is giving you, you have the choice to move to operator B. Not only that, the services have increased.
So before it was only voice and data later on. But now there are so many value-added services that have been added on to it that makes it worth the while. As at 2003-2004, we had less than 500 licensees or operators as it were.
And most of them were non-operational. But as of January this year, there are 1,154 licenses offering different services in the telecommunications sector. Consumer protection is key.
There has been rapid market growth. In fact, there was a time the ITU recognized the Nigerian market as one of the fastest growing markets in the world. As I said earlier on, there has been improved accessibility.
Many people can afford to actually own a phone these days. When I started off, I said in 1999-2000, only 400 people had phones. Today, as of January 2025, there are over 160 million active subscribers.
That is 160 million phone owners. And then, of course, there is increased foreign direct investment. A lot of foreign direct investment has come into the economy as a result of telecoms.
It is the largest mobile market in Africa. There has been sustained contribution to the Consolidated Revenue Fund.
In the Act, every single penny or dollar or naira made from the sale of Spectrum goes directly to the Consolidated Revenue Fund. The NCC is not allowed to touch a penny of it. There has been global visibility.
A lot of times, NCC plays host to a lot of other countries who just want to come and understand how that sector is run by the NCC. The NCC has received several recommendations. There has been increased contribution to the GDP.
It is one of the non-oil sectors that is the highest contributor to the GDP. As of the fourth quarter of 2024, the contribution to the GDP was 14.40%. And, of course, there has been increased density. Now, 78 in 100 people actually have access to food.
“And then, of course, there is the impact on other sectors. So, it is not just about the telecom sector, but there has been cross-sectoral impact. So, the next slide will show us how the telecom sector… So, you have the telecom sector there in the middle, and then you have e-commerce, you have health.
So, e-commerce, I heard the Honorable speak this morning about Jumia, Konga, and all the rest of it. In the area of transportation, you have Bolt, you have Uber. I think there is an homegrown one called eDrive.”
you have a lot of streaming going on, banking and finance, financial inclusion. So, you don’t even need to have a bank account these days.
You can still do a lot of things related to banking. COVID showed us what e-learning was all about, and the telecom sector was to the rescue, ensuring that you still could do your learning at home. Of course, we have telemedicine in the area of health.
We have agriculture. There is virtually no sector that has not been greatly impacted by the telecom sector.
So, we’ve said all this, but the fact still remains that the NCA has been in operation for 22 years. It’s not in tune with current realities. I was looking at the ad this morning.”
“There was an offence. If you don’t have approval for your equipment, the fine is N100,000. N100,000.?
How many dollars is that? So, it’s not in tune. We have the national broadband plan, we have the digital economic policy, and all these new things that are coming up that the2003 Act is not in tune with. We have technological revolutions, artificial intelligence, IOT, data-driven services.
They are not captured in the Act. You have regulatory overlaps with some other agencies, like the FCCPC, trying to take over some of the exclusive reserves of the telecom sector. And in addition, you have child online protection.
It is not one of those things that is catered for by the NCA. Spectrum fees, secondary spectrum markets are things that the forward-looking Act should be looking at as we speak. Next slide.
Cyber security. I think I heard the honourable member speak about it as well this morning. The NCA does not give the lawyers in the NCC the powers to prosecute.
But you go to agencies like the Nigerian Ports Authority, you go to Federal Inland Revenue Services, and you find out that the lawyers there can actually go to court. They can prosecute their own matters. So, this is the case in NCC.
So, NCC now has to commission lawyers to handle matters for them. But the disadvantage in that is that when you are in the telecom sector, when you are in the regulatory environment, you know it better than having to brief a lawyer outside. So, those are the kind of things that the approved NCA 2003 must be looking at.
Critical national infrastructure. I was speaking to one of the operators, and I heard yesterday that there was a lot of fibre cuts simultaneously across the country, which led to the degradation of the tools. But when we have critical national infrastructure taken care of, it makes it an offence to actually tamper with telecom infrastructure.
Telecom offences need to be spelled out. That is not present currently in the Act. If you go into the financial sector, especially when you are looking at Securities and Exchange Commission, they have a specialised tribunal that handles matters that are related to the securities and exchange sector.”
“Local content. A lot of Nigerians are developing content. We need to actually take care of that in the Act.
Also, we are having cross-sector convergence. As it is now, the lines are blurring between broadcasting, telecoms and all the rest of it. That needs to be taken care of in the approved Act, or the reviewed Act as it were.”
“What are the next steps? We need legislative reforms. I must give it to the Legislature. As of 2020, when the Act came into force, it was the same Legislature that produced this Act.
I am sure that the current Legislature can actually also do a better job. The 2003 Nigerian Communications Act was a really forward-looking Act because it actually did take care of a lot of things.
But, like I would say, as it were, we are regulating smartphones with landline logic. The NCA is overdue for a reboost.”
“ The next step is stakeholders’ engagement.I think this is one of the major stakeholders’ engagements. It delights me to actually see the Legislature in attendance because they are the most vital link in this engagement. We need a holistic review of the NCA.”
Like I said, we cannot be regulating smartphones using landline logic. There are a lot of Acts that have overlapping functions with the NCA. That needs to be reviewed.
And, of course, the telecom policy. I recall, was it 2007 or 2006, when Mrs. Margolla-Johnson was the Minister, I participated in the review of the telecom policy. But I think it is also due for a review now.
Conclusions. The NCA 2003 has had a profound lasting impact on the telecom industry in Nigeria. No one can fault that.
It has been a forward-looking piece of Legislature responsible for the exponential growth that we have seen in the sector. No one can fault that. We also cannot fault the fact that telecoms is no longer about just making phone calls.
It is about powering governance. It’s about powering health. It’s .about financial inclusion. It’s about e-learning, telemedicine, and things like that. Which is why the 2003 Act has a lot of lacuna now
“To sustain the growth and ensure that we arrive at a fully digital Nigeria, we must encourage innovation, protect consumers from new threats, and ensure that the sector continues to be a key driver for other sectors, the NCA needs a review.
We need a law that reflects current realities and is actually future-ready. NCA 2003 was once robust, but now it is struggling to keep up with the digital realities of today. After 22 years and the rapid rate of emerging technological advancement, the NCA is well overdue for a review.
As I said, we cannot be regulating smartphones with landline logic. Laws must grow with the people and be responsive to any given peculiar circumstances. Therefore, Nigerians will be counting on the legislature to review and produce a better version of the NCA just as it did in 2003.”
