By Kingsley I. Ilechukwu, Senior Correspondent Lagos and Angeline Mgbele, Senior Correspondent Abuja

Telecommunications sector referee, the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) and the Lagos Business School of Pan-Atlantic University are contemplating  a partnership that will result in developing customised capacity building interventions and overhauling of existing training courses offered by the LBS to address critical areas of needs of the Commission’s human capital development.

A statement just sighted by Cyber Era NG and penned by the Director of Public Affairs(DPA) at NCC, Dr. Ikechukwu Adinde says the Executive Vice Chairman and Chief Executive Officer (EVC/CEO) of the NCC, Prof. Umar Danbatta, emphasized the imperative of such collaboration during a visit of an LBS delegation led by the School’s Director, Executive Education, Victor Banji, to the Commission’s Head Office in Abuja recently.

Prof. Danbatta spoke through NCC’s Executive Commissioner, Stakeholder Management, Adeleke Adewolu, who received the LBS delegation (alongside other senior management staff of the Commission) on behalf of the Commission.

Addressing the visiting team, Adewolu said NCC constantly engaged in staff training as part its strategy to build managerial and technical skills required to manage the ever-dynamic telecoms regulatory environment in Nigeria.

Adewolu said while LBS, had been a training partner of NCC over the years and currently provided some classes of capacity building to staff of the Commission, it had become necessary to expand the training scope by ensuring that other customized programmes that targeted specific needs of Commission’s human capital were designed by the School in collaboration with NCC team to meet strategic objectives and enhance the relationship between both  organisations.

Among the areas of interest to the Commission are courses on performance appraisal management, policy formulation and execution, risk management, technical report writing, telecoms-related training, tariff and competition management, as well as basic training on policy formulation and implementation, social media training, audio-visual editing, among others.

“I thank the LBS for its collaboration with NCC over the years in the area of human capital development. However, we expect that LBS will work with NCC to see how we can collectively overhaul the existing courses and bring new course to NCC’s attention which we would, in turn, subject to our training need analysis (TNA). This may result in a review of ur existing Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) towards making our relationship much stronger and more mutually beneficial,” Adewolu said.

The  NCC Executive Commissioner also explained that though NCC was a regulatory agency, it had seen the need for indigenous digital skills development in Nigeria, and that explained the creation creation of the Digital Bridge Institute (DBI), by the Commission to meet the human capital needs of the burgeoning telecom, and broadly, the ICT sector.

According to Adewolu, other areas of focus in meeting educational needs of the sector, included indigenous digital skills development, sponsoring of hackathon, provision of research grants to the academia, endowment of professorial chairs in universities, and the acceleration of digital infrastructure deployment across the country to boost digital literacy and skills for Nigeria’s socio-economic development.

Speaking earlier on the purpose of the visit to the Commission, Banji said the LBS wished to serve as a strategic capacity development partner to NCC for its teaming staff; revisit LBS’s existing MoU for necessary enhancements; as well as offer corporate governance, board leadership and management development programmes to enhance corporate effectiveness.

He also commended the NCC for its role in ensuring effective digital transformation in Nigeria. “As the Commission responsible for creating an enabling environment for telecom operators and allied stakeholders in the industry, as well as ensuring the provision of qualitative and efficient telecommunications services throughout the country, NCC has earned a reputation as a foremost Telecom regulatory agency in Africa,” Banji said.

In addition, the LBS Executive stated that while his organisation would continue to play a prominent and leading role in building leaders with integrity for Nigeria, Africa, and the world, it also believed that with effective directors and leaders in the public sector organisation such as the NCC, Nigeria would be managed more efficiently for greater value and sustainable growth. 

“Our conviction at LBS is that telecommunications penetration is one of the critical developments required to transform poverty into prosperity. Our thesis is simple:  the access to and use of mobile telephony contributes to the health of the population and efficiency of the economy. It is equally a lever for poverty reduction as contained in Goal One of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), Banji declared to emphasize the centrality of telecoms as an enabler of development.