While battling to get a firmer grip of telecommunications operations, Nigeria’s fifth mobile operator, Ntel, has won the tested hands of a retired general, Theophilus Yakubu Danjuma, whose experience in military battle as well as business stratagem are exemplary, to help it steer the ship over troubled waters, as chairman.
General Danjuma’s announcement in Lagos, July 27, 2016, as chairman of NatCom Development & Investment Limited, or NatCom for short, which is trading as Ntel, came at a time the Nigerian market is growing weary waiting for Ntel to make a major entry and impact in the market that already has four other mobile operators who have jointly over 140 million subscriptions.
In announcing what it called a “key addition to its board” Ntel said General Danjuma has made “significant investment” into the company, and with his coming on board erstwhile Chairman of the company, Tunde Ayeni becomes vice chairman.
The NatCom board also has other members such as Captain Idahosa Okunbo, Abiola Ayeni, Kasheem Shettima, Philip Chukwu, Kola Adesina, John Darlington, Dan Kunle, Babatunde Omotoba and Kamar Abass, who is the chief executive officer.
According to a statement issued by the company through its Director, External Affairs, Mr. Osondu Nwokoro and Head of Corporate Communications, Mr. Toni Kan Onwordi, “General Danjuma has interests in oil and gas, banking and shipping. A respected environmentalist and philanthropist, he was Chairman of Abuja Green Society and through his own Danjuma Foundation, established in 2009, passionately supports poverty alleviation, education and medical aid initiatives across Nigeria.”
The statement added that General Danjuma brings to the Ntel board robust commercial experience covering some three decades in the public and private sectors, following a successful career in the army from where he retired as a three-star General and Chief of Army Staff in 1980. He also served as Minister of Defence in the first term of the civilian administration of President Olusegun Obasanjo.
Commenting on this key addition to Ntel’s board, Mr. Abass, the CEO, remarked: “we are delighted to have a man of General T.Y. Danjuma’s standing join us. As our new chairman, and as a shareholder, we welcome his support as we add momentum to our growth and development in Nigeria’s telecoms industry. We expect to benefit enormously from General Danjuma’s sterling leadership credentials and, in this way, to build on the excellent work of our immediate past chairman, Dr. Tunde Ayeni, who positioned ntel to deliver the leading Broadband experiences already evidenced in Lagos and Abuja.”
Ntel commenced commercial operations of its 4G/LTE-Advanced network by rolling out services in Lagos and Abuja in Q2, specifically on April 4, while network services in Port Harcourt are scheduled to commence early in Q4. NatCom projects making investments totalling more than $1billion by 2020.
Ntel prides itself as having Nigeria’s most advanced mobile 4G/LTE network offering “superfast Internet Access that enables high-definition voice, data and video services. ntel’s network is built on the 900/1800 Mhz frequency bands which are the best propagation frequencies for the deployment of 4G/LTE technology.”
The company made its first on-net test data call in Lagos on Monday, January 18, 2016 and followed this with its first on-net Voice-over-LTE (VoLTE) call in Lagos on Thursday, February 25, 2016. Commercial operations commenced on Friday April 8, 2016.