Prologue to the book: The Privatisation of NITEL
Prologue
On January 24, 1983, Lagosians—and indeed Nigerians—watched helplessly as the magnificent edifice called NECOM House (NET), which had taken the glamour off the Independence Building in the Lagos skyline, was engulfed in flames.
The fire service could offer no respite. The nation expected the President, Alhaji Shehu Shagari (1979–1983), to make a categorical statement on the tragedy, but none was forthcoming. His piercing silence and seeming indifference incensed Nigerian students, who took to the streets in protest. Does not a Nigerian proverb say, “No one goes to bed with his house on fire?” Yet, on that very day, President Shagari only cast a brief glance at the burning edifice before proceeding to the airport to jet off to India, even as a key national asset was being consumed by fire. The National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS) cried foul!
Arson was suspected. Like many such incidents that followed, the case was never resolved, nor was the true cause of the fire ever determined. It appeared the perpetrators and their collaborators were intent on ensuring the building was completely razed. The incident also set a troubling trend: fires became a convenient cover for corruption, with more public buildings mysteriously going up in flames after NECOM House. Among them were the Independence Building—popularly called “25 Storeys” by locals—and the Wema Board building, among others.
Thus, when the NPN administration of Alhaji Shehu Shagari was toppled in its second term by a coup d’état in December 1983, it came as no surprise that one of the government departments slated for reform by the Buhari/Idiagbon regime was the Nigeria External Telecommunications (NET), which had been housed in NECOM House. That reform eventually set the stage for the birth of NITEL.
As we promised yesterday, we begin the publication of excerpts of the book: The Privatisation of NITEL, today, by Aaron Ukodie
