26th January, 2023
By Jessica Dogo
The Federal Government has no plans to strip the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) of its powers, the Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Prof. Isa Pantami, has said.
Pantami said this on Thursday in his presentation at the 19th edition of President Muhammadu Buhari’s Scorecard for 2015 to 2023 in Abuja.
The event was organised by the Ministry of Information, Arts and Culture.
Pantami said there was no iota of truth in insinuations that the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), was designed to take over the powers of the NCC.
He said that both the NCC Act 2003 and NITDA Act 2007 were obsolete and long overdue for review due to the imperatives of new technologies.
According to him, old Acts did not address the fourth industrial revolution and emerging technologies.
Pantami said: “We are talking about Fourth Generation (4G) Technology and Fifth Generation (5G) Technology today as well as digital economy.
“The NITDA Act was specifically on Information and Communication Technology (ICT) sector, while the NCC Act dwells more on telecommunications.
“I had a meeting with the Executive Vice-Chairman of NCC and the Director-General of NITDA and I directed them to work together.
“And there was an agreement that both Acts needed to be amended.”
(NAN)