WAFICT Congress 2009 a hit success; described as solution to West Africa's ICT growth challenges

Ernest Ndukwe crowned Pillar of Telecom in Africa as IT & Telecom Digest institutes African Telecom Hall of Fame

ICT Leads the Change

Where telecommunications comes, enlightenment enters. To put it more succinctly, from the backwaters of an industry in ferment a sub-region has risen through commitment and perseverance, to prominence. Emergence from relative obscurity to global centre stage seems apt to sum up the ascendancy of West Africa as a world telecommunications leader. By DENNIS ONWUEGBU

Democracy consolidated

In 2006, in a major work that essentially celebrated South Africa’s

liberal-democratic achievements since 1994, land expert, Prof. Lungisile Ntsebeza, nonetheless lamented the relative absence of democratic robustness in the country’s rural hinterland, where patriarchal authority systems still held sway. Ntsebeza titled his work Democracy Compromised.

A key focus of the book was the lack of transformation in the character of traditional institutions, their new-found visibility and influence in the post-1994 dispensation (thanks to recognition and support from the ruling ANC) and their vice-grip on land within their jurisdictions. These, ironically, were the same institutions whose roles under apartheid were not particularly enviable, Ntsebeza argued.

Well, South Africa has recently demonstrated that even in the face of such criticisms, its democracy and institutional capacity had reached enviable levels in terms of maturity. The smooth conduct and widely accepted outcome of the April 22, 2009 general elections have shown that countries that invest heavily in institutional capacity-building stand to reap huge dividends – not least in the confidence they enjoy from the world community.

With a new president (Jacob Zuma), a fairly enlarged national cabinet, provincial premiers and members of provincial executive councils all sworn in (five of the country’s nine premiers are women), analysts are turning attention to mundane permutations about how the new administration will perform vis-à-vis the rising expectations of the populace, and how the democratic and developmental gains made since 1994 will be deepened.

“Nigeria has finally made it to the Promised Land! I am happy it happened in my lifetime. Sometimes I

Mkpe Abang

wonder what it was like in those days; just two years ago, when this miracle took place. But it appears like a century already. Ah! What a sweet relief!”

“But you knew it was going to be so; or did you not? Because I knew it was going to be so, that is why it does not surprise me.”

“Before I ask you how you knew it would be so, let me just recall what it was like. Do you remember those days before I went abroad, when getting diesel to fuel all those giant industrial generators was like getting blood into your veins? Look at how industries are booming today; all thanks to electricity. Small scale businesses, the small shop by the street corner, hotels, in fact, which sector has not been touched by this electricity miracle?”

“I agree with you; you can also see that all that talk in those days about forcefully crashing phone tariffs was not well thought through. Look at how the tariffs have found their level naturally, and no one is

Hakeem Belo-Osagie

that make all the difference in the business world. And only a few men have these qualities in good dose. In the last decade, two sectors in the Nigerian economy have brought drama and global standard performance into hitherto uneventful areas of national life. The transformation and what is sometimes described as revolution in both the banking and telecommunications sectors in the last few years remain subjects of immense academic studies.

From sectors that once represented everything that is disdainful and unprogressive, indeed despicable in the case of the financial sector a system that discouraged most Nigerians from savings and having anything to do with banking. In the last 10 or so years, these two sectors have experienced a drastic turn around such that they today rank among the very best in the world.

And this has been made possible by the sheer effort and commitment to vision of a few men and women. They dared where others jittered, took risks that most of their peers could hardly give a thought to; and in the end, they won all the money, the glory and the fame.

One of such few men who took

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