Dr. Uche Nworah, a renowned media and communication expert, has urged the federal government to declare a state of emergency in Nigeria’s telecom sector to prevent its imminent collapse.
Nworah, who spent six years working in one of the three major telecom companies in Nigeria, agrees that the sector faces numerous challenges, including: Inability to invest in equipment and infrastructure due to high naira-to-dollar rates and stagnant data and voice call rates. Other significant challenges facing the sector include epileptic power supply, which forces telcos to rely on generators with unbearable diesel and petrol costs. Other challenges include staffing issues, brain drain and harassment by local communities and governments, excessive taxes and levies from local, state, and federal governments, and trapped funds for foreign investors as they are unable to repatriate funds due to naira depreciation.
Emphasizing the need for urgent action, Dr. Nworah stated that, “A state of emergency should be declared in the sector. Nigeria is happening to the telecom sector. We should not allow the sector to collapse.”
According to Nworah, “The biggest challenge to me is the inability to invest in equipment and infrastructure or to replace obsolete ones. They are not expanding their network infrastructure. At the current naira to dollar rate, that’s mission impossible, coupled with the fact that data and voice call rates have remained stagnant”.
“This is why Telcos are not able to invest in new equipment and technology. Add the epileptic power issue. Telcos run all their sites and offices with generators. Diesel and petrol costs are unbearable.
“There is also the unfortunate issue of staffing. Their staff are leaving in droves and going abroad. They suffer from equipment vandalism.
“Local communities harass their staff, local governments, state governments, and even the federal government also extract their pounds of flesh by way of taxes and levies. There are many other challenges too. You can’t help but feel for the operators. Even those that are majorly owned by foreign investors suffer from trapped funds. They can’t repatriate funds. By the time CBN remembers them, the value of the naira they hold would have depreciated so much.
” A state of emergency should be declared in the sector. Nigeria is happening to the telecom sector. We should not allow the sector to collapse.”
Concluding, Dr. Nworah said that the subscribers are left holding the wrong end of the stick. “You can see how the crisis in the sector is impacting the market. Subscribers have been experiencing poor and unreliable voice and data services, call drops, and high data costs. Poor network coverage is widespread in the sector. You see people changing positions when they are making calls, and holding their handsets in funny positions in search of network signals. Nigerians now resort to walking around with multiple phones containing every available phone network SIM in the market. Handset manufacturers have now customized dual SIM handsets for the Nigerian market. It’s such a shame. I don’t see any short-term solutions or quick fixes. That’s why I think that government has to step in now. Have a dialogue with the operators as things have already reached a head. You can’t imagine the social and economic consequences if the sector collapses as the banking sector did some years back. Telcos are now even threatening service outages and are proposing load shedding. This shows that the sector is suffocating and in dire straits”.
He is a Technical Assistant to Governor Willie Obiano’s Special Adviser on Legislative Matters, whoonce was a Special Adviser to a former Deputy Speaker of Anambra State House of Assembly. Ebuka is a second class upper division graduate of Political Science from University of Calabar, Calabar Nigeria and holds a Masters Degree in Political Science with specialization in Government and Development Studies, from Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka Nigeria
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