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| Omo-Ettu, ATCON president |
The president of the Association of Telecommunications Companies of Nigeria (ATCON), Mr. Titi Omo-Ettu has said that what Nigeria needs is essentially a courageous leader.
Omo-Ettu on the state of the nation and consequences of
subsidizing corruption in the country, asked ‘How did we totally lose our way?’
a question he attributed to the chief executive officer of MainOne, Ms Funke
Opeke, during the recent hosting of Engr Victor Haffner’s 92nd birthday last
September, where she wrote thus: ‘Very informative about the history of
accomplishment that previously existed in the telecoms sector in the country.
How did we totally lose the way?’.
He opined that what the nation needs is essentially a leader
with courageous mind to lead the people aright.
“Quite frankly we do not need an Army General to tell us
what has gone wrong or how to solve them, we simply need anyone who works like
a General – essentially a courageous leader,” he asserted, stressing that the
failure to challenge orthodoxy cripples the Nigerian nation.
He noted that over time, it has been realized that for the
best moments come from discomfort and dissatisfaction because in those moments
Nigerians are propelled to step out of what rubbish they may have found
themselves and search for better solutions.
“A lack of aspiration means we are unable to truly judge a
system either by its operations or manifestation,” he said.
It is one articulated by Ms Funke Opeke, CEO of MainOne
Cable Company in a Guests’ Comment Register at the breakfast meeting by CEO
members of ATCON for Engr Victor Haffner’s 92nd birthday last September.
Therein, she wrote:
Omo-Ettu said in a press statement made available to ITRealms
Online on Monday noted that most people of reasonable intellect let alone
someone of such prominence in the industry would be left scratching their heads
how, in a relative short period, things have degenerated so far and so fast.
ITRealms Online recalled that in his address to the
occasion, Omo-Ettu noted that less than 50 years ago, in 1963 precisely, the
first telecom company in Nigeria provided the needed communication resources
for the inaugural satellite launch by the United States-based National
Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) into space from the Lagos Marina,
back to Goddard Space Flight centre in USA; and that some 10 years later, Engr
Haffner and his team of Nigerians who provided the resources also conceived the
NECOM House, the pioneering architectural feat of a rotating restaurant at the
summit of a functional telecom building designed to be 37 levels above the
ground floor.
He said that to pretend to be ignorant of the root causes of
this degeneration is simply burying one’s head in the sand, therefore, the
issue is whether one wants to found solutions or meet the problems with the
customary shrug of despondency.
According to him, the few people who wrote the history
depicted different era by those who have had the misfortune to rule Nigeria,
hence charting the historical path by the ‘Obasanjo’s regime’, ‘Shagari’s
era’, ‘Gowon’s days’, Abacha’s period, Babangida’s time, Obasanjo’s
second time second term to name a few.
The difference between those heady days when Mr. Haffner
worked and today, he said, is was that back then, the states were not going to
Federal Government routinely with a begging bowl to collect dues but rather,
through ingenuous means, they generated revenue and contributed agreed sums to
the central Government.
“This ‘funnel like’ system was effective and its reversal
put the gearstick of progress in reverse. To understand the moment that
precipitated this regression, we need to go back – as far back as 1966,” he
noted.
He warned that a President should not be seen as going
to church routinely to make pronouncements on affairs of state and give more
impression of hopelessness than hope.
Stressing that to imagine that those young ‘brilliant
economists’ which Mr. President surrounded himself with should not be allowed
to impress on him that economic indices are more important and more respectable
than the wishes and true feelings of Nigerians.
“And that our economy regarding fuel consumption is
being threatened by small countries who share border with us and whose total
population, consumption, and corruption quotient are only very insignificant
fraction of Nigeria’s,” he said.
Remmy Nweke
ITREALMS Online ... delivering news for ICT4D
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