Ndukwe hands over NCC leadership to Bello: who is next?

Former Executive Vice Chairman of the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), Dr. Ernest Ndukwe handed over his position to senior executive commissioner Stephen Adedayo Bello.

Bello becomes the new acting Executive Vice Chairman (EVC) of NCC, until the government announces a substantive EVC, this according to Nigeria’s Daily Independent.

The handover ceremony, which took place last week in Abuja, raised some tensions over the next NCC leader who would be appointed by the Federal Government, since Nduke left without the announcement of successor.

Although welcoming the handover to Bello, some telecom stakeholders called urgently on government to expedite action and pronounce the next EVC of NCC, while others blamed the government for the delay.
NCC spokesman, Reuben Muoka, has assured telecom representative and members of NCC that Bello’s appointment would “bring peace and understanding within the NCC”.

For now it is not clear when the government will announce the new EVC. Last month, the NCC Board, forwarded names of three NCC nominees to the Federal Government for consideration. The three were Bello, the current Acting EVC, Eugene Juwa, Senior Vice President, MTS First Wireless and Umar Garba Danbatta, a professor and Vice President (Academics & Student Affairs), Kano Digital Bridge Institute (DBI).

An Engineer by profession, Bello is the senior Executive Commissioner at NCC, in charge of Licensing and Consumer Affairs. He previously joined ITT (Nigeria) Limited as an Engineer-in-Training and other ITT departments in Europe, before returning to ITT Nigeria to assume the position of Senior Project Engineer.

He then worked for GTE Nigeria as a senior engineer and later on was appointed Director of Engineering at the Nigerian Communications Commission in 2000 and Executive Commissioner, Engineering and Standards, in 2005.

Ndukwe was first appointed EVC of NCC in 2000, serving a five year tenure and then being reappointed in 2005 for a second term which ended last week, after another five years.

Under Ndukwe’s leadership, Nigeria implemented more than 30,000 km of fibre optic cable, and mobile services intensified in the country, as operators got more competitive.