[size=14pt]Pressure on FG to cripple Glo, MTN, Zain, others - The ethnic dimension[/size]
Idowu Samuel, Abuja
Saturday, September 13, 2008
IF the secret plot by some Federal Government officials to exploit NigComSat as a tool for launching a mainstream telecommunications service provision in Nigeria is anything to go by, then the happy days of GSM providers would soon be over in the country.


Sunday Tribune can reveal that some managers of NigComSat had concluded plans to do away with the original motives for which the Federal Government launched its own communication satellite and had thus resolved to launch a broad-based telecommunications network to provide voice and data services meant to cripple the operations of all GSM providers in Nigeria.



If the President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua government eventually endorsed the plan by the NigComSat managers, the implication is that it would have rubbished the initiative by the past government of Chief Olusegun Obasanjo in launching GSM services through which providers like Zain, MTN, Glo, Visafone and now Etisalat came on board one after the other.



Meanwhile, the original motive for launching the communication satellite was to enhance national security network of Nigeria, fast-track the process of information gathering for the government and provide comprehensive transmission and application services via digital or analogue system. It is also to engage in transponder leasing services. NIGCOMSAT shall provide comprehensive,



The GSM providers, which started operating in Nigeria since 2001 had exposed the inefficiency of the government-controlled Nigerian Telecommunications (NITEL) which could not provide more than 412,000 telephone lines to Nigerians, whereas the operators of GSM had provided easy communication services for more than 50 million Nigerians within three years of serious business.



The resolve by the government of former president Obasanjo to deregulate the telecommunications industry in Nigeria has, up till date, been credited as the most successful of all the government initiatives ever in Nigeria, following instant relieves derived by Nigerians in their world of communication.



However, Sunday Tribune scooped in Abuja weekend that even with the knowledge of the NigComSat Managing Director, Alhaji Ahmed Rufai, a proposal for the crippling of GSM services had been placed before President Yar’Adua by some officials who are said to be urging him earnestly to approve the proposal. http://odili.net/news/source/2008/sep/13/606.html





However, investigations by Sunday Tribune revealed that the NigComSat officials had gone ahead to forge partnership with a Chinese Company, ZTE, and had proposed to use the company to raise a loan of $500m from an international financial institution, Exim, to implement the project.



It was learnt further that the officials are already parleying with the a bank in Nigeria to serve as a guarantor for the proposed loan. Investigations revealed that the proposal before Yar’Adua on the use of NigComSat for telephone business was packaged with the intention of drafting the Federal Government to once again become involved in telecommunications business in Nigeria the way it got involved with NITEL.



It was learnt also that Yar’Adua is being pressurized to approve the proposal on ethnic ground, more so with the general belief that the entire telecommunications business in Nigeria had been hijacked mainly by the South.



It is in that regard that the involvement of the government in the management of mainstream telecommunications provision being proposed is considered imperative, if only to give the North a sense of belonging.



Sunday Tribune findings revealed that even the president would have to approve the proposal with strong endorsement from relevant authorities including the Ministry of Communications, National Communications Commission (NCC), National Galaxy Backbone Project, National Security Adviser, Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE) and others, while the Federal Executive Council (FEC) would be the final approving authority.



The Nigerian Communication Satellite, or NIGCOMSAT-1, which was launched May 13 2007, by the government of President Obasanjo a super hybrid geo-stationary satellite designed to provide communications services for Nigeria and by extension Africa, parts of the Middle East and southern Europe.



China launched the communications satellite for Nigeria having been contracted by Nigeria, the first of its kind for an African country. The initial contract to build the satellite was signed in 2004.