By Aaron Ukodie
Concerns arising from the behaviour of the minister of communications and digital economy, Sheikh Dr Isa Pantami, during the commissioning of the NCC Mbora multibillion naira building by president Muhammadu Buhari, in which the minister breached protocol and stopped the executive vice chairman of the Nigerian Communications Commission ( NCC), professor Umar Danbatta, from completing his speech, are not going away.
eWorldnews.com can now report that the minister intervened by stopping Danbatta from reading parts of his speech because he did not want the EVC to touch the part of his report which spoke on how the building was conceived and built by the NCC.
Pantami had given the impression to president Buhari that the building, which he has now hijacked as his new office, was built during his tenure as minister.
“The EVC, s Speech was about the complex and how it came into being and the Minister who had earlier evidently impressed it on the President that it was him who built the gigantic project could not allow the EVC to tell the president the truth”, a competent source who did not want to be quoted because of fears of reprisals alleged.
The building was conceived by NCC as DBI Campus by Ernest Ndukwe during President Olusegun Obasanjo era and was almost completed by Eugene Juwah during Goodluck Jonathan presidency in 2014. The new EVC Professor Umar Danbatta management came, finished the building, which had been abandoned and made it habitable.
It was not put to use all these years because the Commission did not expand the DBI to be a degree earning institution as expected, according to an industry official.
The DBI currently has a head office in Utako area of Abuja, and if those who conceived the Mbora project had put it to DBI use, the reason for its conception, as claimed, then the building would have been a master structure for technology training and accommodation.
DBI currently has offices in the six geopolitical zones. They are in Asaba, Enugu, Yola, Kano, Abuja and Lagos. The one in Lagos with hostels is currently being put to effective use.
Engineer, Titi Omo Ettu who recently resigned from the Digital Bridge Institute as Board Chairman in January, because he could not bear with external influences on the Institute, confirms to eWorldnews that as a fact when the building was under construction, the edifice had the sign board of BDI on it.
According to him, BDI had not been allowed an office at Mbora building yet, while he was chairman. The NCC however approved for the Diaspora office headed by Mrs Abike Dabiri to temporarily use a space in the building in 2018.
However, Pantami, since becoming minister took steps to take over the building, as his office, and packaged it and presented it as his project to the president.
The first thing the minister did was to throw out Mrs Dabiri and her Diaspora office workers from the building, then he moved swiftly to relocate his operational base from the secretariat where all other ministries are domiciled to the attractive building.
The takeover of NCC’s Mbora building is being touted by industry watchers as one of the high points of the many things Pantami is doing to destroy the industry and make the NCC, a department of the ministry, contrary to the clear stipulations of the 2003 Telecom Act.
There are also allegations that Pantami recently directed the NCC to approve N1 billion to NITDA for its Digital learning scheme.
eWorldnews sources allege that out of the N1 billion, N300 million has been released to NITDA. It would be recalled that Pantami recently vacated NITDA as Director-General and appointed his Technical Adviser, Inuwa as successor.
In the opinion of Omo-Ettu, if Pantami is not checked he may end up completely destroying the telecom industry which was built, not by government, but by industry stakeholders in the manner he is flagrantly usurping the duties of the NCC.
Omo-Ettu recalled how Ernest Ndukwe, who was NCC EVC, from 2000 to 2010 drew the attention of late Dr Dora Akunyili, when she was communication minister, to the provisions of the 2003 Telecom Act, which clearly and unambiguously defined the relationship between the NCC and the minister.
He said however that it appears that Pantami, with the manner he is giving instructions to the NCC and the industry, either has not read the provisions of the Act, or that even if he had, may not have understood its content and implication.
Omo-Ettu noted however, that it seems to him that Pantami, though has a degree in computer science, and taught Islamic history in Medina, Saudi Arabia, before coming to NITDA as DG, is not technically prepared for the industry, but that his real job could really be “Islamic.’
There are several allegations of ‘unsavoury financial dealings’ that the minister is engaged in that suggest that he could be financially arming himself to take a shot at the governorship post of Gombe state in 2023.
Many claim, though unproven, that the minister’s 2023 governorship bid is reason the minister is currently collecting several estacodes from the parastatals under his ministry and he is giving the impression that he is fighting corruption.
Unfortunately, the CEOs in the parastatals under him are hindered from protesting because of Pantami’s link with Buhari, whom is alleged he provides spiritual guidance, as sheikh.
He gives the presidency and the general public impression that he is fighting on the side of the public by giving illegal orders to industry operators and the NCC, contrary to best telecom and international laid down industry practices.
