We need courageous leader, not a General – ATCON boss

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
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