William Ijeh
William Ijeh represents Nigeria at the International Telecommunication Union (ITU). He is also the country’s sole candidate for the post of Director, Telecommunication Development Bureau (BDT) of the ITU. In this interview with FEMI ADEKOYA, he talks about his plans for the country and the continent, as well as how Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) can be harnessed to connect everyone and achieve sustainable development goals. Excerpts:
Nigeria is currently seeking re-election in the ITU council just as you are seeking an election to the bureau, what does this mean for Nigeria in terms of representations and activities and what it means for the telecommunication industry?
First of all, Nigeria is seeking re-election into the council. Nigeria has been playing very active role in the ITU since independence. Nigeria was the first African country to chair the conference in the 152 years of ITU. So, it is important for Nigeria, the telecommunications and ICT industries. The NCC is very active with the ITU. It also helps us to be able to meet the world standard, exchange views, understand what is happening in other areas and it helps us to negotiate issues like frequencies allocation and utilisation. In terms of my election, this will give Nigeria a better platform to come to the limelight as a decision making body of the ITU. Nigeria at this point in time, with the ICT development and the different sectors ranging from agriculture to schools and aviation, television broadcasting, deserves a place as an important African country. As we all know, our population is quite large, so the use of ICT in Nigeria is extremely important and we need to play an important role in the decision making at the world level.
Considering the fact that in Nigeria, the number of people who have access to mobile phones is on the increase, why does it seem like the frequency challenge is taking long to address, especially as it relates to quality of service?
I think it is an issue that most of the countries are facing. It is also an issue that we need to have an infrastructure development and the operators to improve on the infrastructure they are using. But we must admit the fact that the rate of subscription in Nigeria has been growing. The growth in Nigeria is actually very immense compared to other African countries and there are technical challenges, which the NCC is addressing. The operators would have to carry out substantive investment in terms of the infrastructure they invest in. These issues should be resolved overtime.
How can Nigeria and other countries improve their capacities to address issues of illegal access to information and protection of consumer privacy?
This is an issue where ITU will play an important role because there are several ways of looking at it. One way is from the advanced point of view where we can advise countries on how best to work on it. Respective countries would work on their national security boundaries and control. We should note that this issue is not peculiar to Africa. One of the things that we need to do about privacy is to adopt some of European Union’s provisions about the issue. A lot of countries in different parts of the world are adopting EU’s provisions as benchmark to be able to set their own privacy standards. Africa may have to do the same to be able to catch-up with what is happening. In Nigeria and other African countries, we need to work on the issue of data control but we have to be able to work with the operators to find ways of keeping data and protecting it.
So, our role is to be able to promote partnerships between countries and different ICT stakeholders around the world to be able to ensure maximum security and protection for people’s data. It will be difficult to say you will have 100 per cent security because you all know that as we are working, some people are also working to breach the security but we would do our best to ensure maximum security around the world.
My interest in ITU’s BDT (the development bureau) is to drive the development sector to help developing countries to be able to build their own capacity for growth. We need to get to the grassroots level in terms of capacity to be able to build the critical match. The capacity we are going to build doesn’t mean everyone is going to be an IT expert, but they will be able to understand how to use IT in different ways. Talk about security, health, communications in different schools and the growing influence of artificial intelligence, which is supposed to help in production. What we can do is to see how we can use it for the good of the people by assisting them to be able to build their own cyber security; to improve production and to improve whatever they do. Those are some of the issues the telecommunication development bureau would seek to address.
How do you hope to bring your experience to bear on the bureau if elected?
What I am bringing to the table in terms of repositioning the telecommunication development bureau is to be able to work in partnerships with countries to understand their requirements or their priorities so as to tailor and address their respective issues. I am bringing partnership to the table. I want to ensure that the resources of the telecommunication development bureau are been used efficiently and effectively to address issues in a transparent manner and thirdly, to ensure that we partner with all ICT stakeholders around the world to promote public-private partnerships for growth in developing countries and to ensure that technologies serve the need of the people. We also want to ensure that the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the United Nations are met. ICT are enablers, they facilitate all aspect of the SDGs. So, what we are trying to do is to assure people that we will promote this and ensure that it is being used adequately in the different areas of the SDGs by United Nations.
A lot of development countries would be looking up to you when issues of broadband penetration across Africa is brought to the fore, how will countries like Nigeria and other developing countries benefit from your representation?
Well, one of the things that I will work on, considering my background in investment banking. It is to set up a structure that will address some of those issues. This is because some of the projects that we had or what most countries produced today are un-bankable.
So, I will like to set up a system that will address and revise those issues to make the projects more bankable and then we can now be in a position to approach more investment institutions, private investment organs and possibly donors who will like to assist countries in providing them access to ICT. Like I said, broadband is one of the key areas that I will like to promote in order to make it more affordable for people to have access and probably work on getting that into their local languages so that people will understand. If you look at the case of Africa and some other countries, the level of education is to some degree segmented. You have people with little or no education, basic education and people at advanced level. So if we have local content that encourages people to work on kind of a set up in their local languages that allow them to understand better how to use technology on a day-to-day level, it will deepen broadband penetration.
Looking at the gap and the opportunities in the industry when it comes to broadband penetration, why is it difficult to get investors to come into the sector?
The issue borders on lack of confidence. Nigeria has great potential and I think NCC is working on that. The issue is that you find most operators focusing on urban centres, basically the cities. This is one of the issues that are being addressed by switching to UI telephony. We need to work harder to be able to get there. To improve broadband penetration, we could also use or apply a mix of technology. Satellite operators are now becoming more affordable in terms of covering wider space while new technologies are also being tested. Firms like Google, Facebook are exploring how systems app can complement and be able to provide greater access to different countries. If these systems are proven to be effective, we now have to look at other issues that countries are looking for in terms of data security among others.
What is your vision for the global telecommunications industry?
My vision is to be able to provide access to every world citizen and this is why I will like to promote broadband beyond where it is today in order to allow everybody, every living citizen in the world to have access to ICT.
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