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The new president of Association of Telecommunication Companies of Nigeria (ATCON), Ike Nnamani, has stressed that he would be leading the umbrella body of over 200 IT and telecom companies through constructive engagement with stakeholders, particularly government.
Nnamani, in a recent chat with IT Edge News in Lagos said ATCON will remain a non-political and non confrontational association focused on building synergy among its members and other critical stakeholders with whom ATCON must work to advance the industry.
His words: “While we interact regularly with the government either directly at the federal, state, or local governments or through any of the government agencies and regulatory bodies, we remain non political. Our engagement is limited to ensure the telecom and ICT space in the country is well served. We will maintain constructive engagement with all arms of government for the growth of the industry.
“Constructive engagement helps to reduce friction”
“We have realized that a constructive engagement with the relevant government agencies helps to reduce friction and ensure that areas of disagreement on any policy or guidelines are resolved in a timely manner.
“Our approach is to engage with the government; have cordial meetings where we point out the social-economic benefits that having a robust telecom and ICT infrastructure in the various states brings to the people of the state. This has made the state government to now see telecom and ICT service providers as partners in the provision of dividends of democracy to the citizens and who should be supported to establish services in the various states. This has been a win-win for all parties involved.”
Nnamani, CEO of Medallion Communications Limited, an interconnect clearinghouse and co-location data service company, took over the baton as ATCON’s president late last year. He comes to the job with loads of experience managing a private telecom entity in Nigeria and navigating the politics of the sector.
“We will modernize the operations of the secretariat”
The new president recently led his EXCO (Executive Council) on a courtesy visit to regulators and policy makers in Abuja, Nigeria’s administrative capital.
He and his team interacted with the Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Dr. Isa Ali Ibrahim Pantami; Director General of the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) Mallam Kashifu Inuwa Abdullah; and the Executive Vice Chairman (EVC) of the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), Prof. Umar Garba Danbatta, as part of the agenda to deepen relationship with Abuja.
“The new EXCO will address three main areas namely: strengthening the secretariat for more efficient service delivery; strengthening the membership for growth; and strengthening the telecom and ICT space for better service delivery to the subscribers,” said Nnamani.
He added: “We will modernize the operations of the secretariat to be in line with present day realities for efficient and cost effective operations. The Covid-19 pandemic has revealed that organizations should be structure for remote operations when it becomes impossible to work in a physical office location.”
