Akaagerger wants GSMA awards revisited

The vice chairman, Senate Committee on Communications, Senator Joseph Akaagerger, has called on the Global System for Mobile Association (GSMA) to revisit its award criteria for 2010.

The award was presented to deserving entities, both corporate and individuals for distinguishing in various spheres within the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) that impacted on the populace.

According to Akaagerger, who was in Spain recently during the GSMA organized Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, though unaware of the criteria, he was expecting that given the development Nigeria has made in the past 10 years, the nation deserves to be recognized in that aspect.

Speaking at the dinner jointly hosted by the Minister of State for Information and Communications, Alhaji Ikra Aliyu Bilbis and Chairman, Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), Alhaji Ahmed Joda, for Nigerian participants at the 2010 Mobile World Congress, noted that after attending series of government focused lectures at the forum as well as the 2010 GSMA awards ceremony, he was taken aback that with all the nation’s achievement in the industry, Nigeria was missing during the award nite.

As said by him, Nigeria should have been in a strong position to win some awards that were announced this year.

While confessing that he had been faced with that question a number of times, the Executive Vice Chairman, NCC, Dr. Ernest Ndukwe in response explained that although he may not be aware of the criteria for such awards by the GSMA, he observed that the awards ceremonies were recent developments which began well after Nigeria had achieved its phenomenal transformation in the sector.

“I don’t know the criteria they applied, but I guess the GSM association had not started giving awards when Nigeria was actually flying; all these awards started about two years ago. So, it is possible that they are recognising new achievers because we had scaled those levels since 2001, 2002, and 2003. But one thing that I’ve also noticed is that we as a nation have not been good at projecting ourselves enough internationally because I see many studies about impact of ICT development in developing countries such as women using phones to improve their income potentials among others,” he explained.

He pointed out that these may be some the things Nigeria had recorded in about five, six years ago where many women were being funded and empowered to do pay phones businesses all over the country.

“But somehow, those initiatives did not get into the world’s notice and now you just hear things about Bangladesh or another thing in Uganda and something else in Kenya and I wonder whether people that conduct these studies come to the West African region at all,” Ndukwe wondered.

He assured however that something was being done to remedy the situation as some reputable organizations are currently conducting studies on the impact of ICT growth in Nigeria.

The information, he promised, will be put on global platform where they could be accessed by anybody who is interested no matter the location and office around the world.

Also speaking, excited chairman, House Committee on Communications, Mr. Dave Saloko pledged on behalf of his colleagues that the National Assembly will work closely with the relevant bodies including the Ministry and NCC to ensure that the Nigerian telecommunications industry continues to witness a very positive growth.

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