Though plans are already in high gears on the re-selling of the controversial 2.3 Gega Hertz as ordered by President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua recently, it has been revealed that the proposed report on the issue promised by the House of Representatives was a farce.
ITRealms Online recalls that at the heat of the controversy and precisely a month after the controversial cancellation, the Lower house of the National Assembly, the House of Representatives, promised Nigerians and stakeholders in particular that the following week, which began on June 21, that the report from the House committee on Communications on the lingering 2.3 Gega Hertz (GHz) would be made at the floor of the house.
Chairman, House Committee on Communications, Mr. Dave Salako, who gave this indication, while fielding questions from newsmen after leading his team on facility tour of the fifth Global System for Mobile communications (GSM) operator, Etisalat Nigeria’s data centre, at Lekki, Lagos, also denied claims that they were unconcerned over the issue.
According to Salako, the lower house of the National Assembly and his committee, specifically, has not been unmoved on the protracted controversy surrounding 2.3 GHz sale.
He absolved the house from such attitude, but instead said they have taken various steps to ensure that a lasting solution prevailed at the end of the day.
He revealed that the House Committee on Communications had earlier invited all the feuding parties, especially the Minister of Information and Communications, Prof. Dora Akunyili and leadership of the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) under the Executive Vice Chairman, Dr. Ernest Ndukwe.
Reassuring Nigerians on the commitment of his committee, Salako said, that they were not just folding their arms watching the sector or the feud deteriorate, but were actually at the final stage of compiling their reports, which is likely to be presented to the house the following week.
And between the time the pronouncement was made and August 11 when the Presidential directive was made public in support of re-selling of the spectrum, the Committee was nowhere near the presentation of the report or even deemed it fit to apolozise to the populace.
Efforts to find out what the report looked like from the chairman of the committee proved aborted as he pretentiously walked away in the name of making a call when approached by our correspondent and tactically avoided him thereafter.
Concerned over the issue, a top official working closely with the House of Representatives, confided in ITRealms Online under anonymity that there was never a report in the first place, let alone something to present to the entire house.
Equally, a concerned stakeholder told ITRealms Online, weekend, that the attitude of the House Committee on Communications is indicative of how public office holders in the country address public issues.
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