After a
painstaking appraisal of the Nigerian socio-economic performance, and the
individuals whose contributions positively affected most lives in the year 2007,
institutions and the society, the editorial team of National Daily, has arrived
at the Executive Vice Chairman of the Nigerian Communications Commission as Man
of the Year, 2007.
A Statement issued yesterday by the Executive Editor of National Daily, Mr.
Sylvester Ebhodaghe, said “Engr. Ndukwe’s stewardship and achievements at the
NCC could best be appreciated when it is realized that by far the greatest and
incontrovertible success story of the Obasanjo administration is the revolution
in the telecoms sector over which the engineer presided”.
“We see Ernest Ndukwe as an extra-ordinary Nigerian who belongs to the
endangered species of men, whose understanding and mastery of their terrain is
beyond comprehension”, the statement said.
The newspaper listed some of strides that compelled its editorial management to
arrive at ‘Mr. Telecom’ as the recipient of the award, said “thanks to the
expertise of, the inimitable commitment, the unexampled single-mindedness and
astuteness of Engr. Ernest Ndukwe, the story of telecoms in Nigeria has changed
and irreversibly too”.
The publishers said once upon a time before 2000, the easiest way to bring to
the fore the hopeless state of basic infrastructure in Nigeria was to reminded
whoever cared to listen that in Ghana, taxi drivers owned phones. And to rub it
in even deeper Nigerians were informed that a stroll across the Benin-Nigeria
border, at Seme, in Benin Republic will jolt Nigerians into the reality of the
momentous telecoms revolutions going on in Africa except Nigeria.”
The statement said the fact that African countries are now coming into Nigeria
to learn the model of telecoms regulation that has catapulted the nation to the
position of the fastest growing telecoms market in the world.
Tracing the history of telecommunication in Nigeria to 1886 by the colonial
administration to 1999 when telededensity was a dismal .04% to the present day
when it has grown to 29.6% in just six years, the NCC under Engr. Ndukwe has
ensured that some more than 40 Million Nigerians have access to phones today.
The newspaper said in spite of the challenged posed by quality of service today,
the Commission under Engr. Ndukwe had intuitively introduced many consumer
oriented programmes like the Consumer Parliament, which is recognized even by
the International Telecommunications Union, ITU, which is another expression of
his foresight in innovative telecoms regulation.
The newspaper was delighted that the NCC under Engr. Ndukwe has gone beyond just
telephones to improve human capacity, technology exploitation and transfer
through development and home based internationally acclaimed telecoms training
institutes as exemplified in the setting of the Digital Bridge Institute, DBI.
It said the appointment of Engr. Ndukwe to preside over the difficult telecoms
terrain which has now become a success story has been adjudged one of the most
strategic and soundest decisions of government.
“With a vision to engender an information-rich environment, comparable to the
global telecoms standard regulated by a responsive world class organization, the
NCC under Engr. Ndukwe, could rightly be said to have lived up to its billings
It is for these among so many others, that Engr. Ernest Ndukwe, an accomplished
technocrat, a patriot par excellence, a devoted and conscientious public
officer, a good manager of people, a recipient of several industry and civic
awards, an Officer of the Federal Republic, OFR, is for the forgoing reasons,
our MAN OF THE YEAR.
|
