By Shina Badaru

EVC, NCC, Ernest Ndukwe

Abuja. January 28, 2010. The Board of Commissioners of Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) may have recommended the names of a former top shot of privately owned phone company, MTS First Wireless, Eugene Juwa and two other top officials of the influential telecoms regulatory agency to succeed its incumbent Executive Vice Chairman/ Chief Executive, Ernest Ndukwe.

Technology Times checks reveals exclusively today that the Board, chaired by Ahmed Joda, may have forwarded the three names for consideration by the Presidency through the Minister of State for Communications, Ikra Bilbis, who oversees the agency following new guidelines last year from the Presidency.

The Board’s recommendation may surprise industry stakeholders who have wagered have said that other NCC insiders and industry outsiders were in the race for the top job as possible candidates for appointment to head the influential telecoms regulator for the next five years.

According to reliable Technology Times sources close to the inner circles of decision making in government, Juwa, an NCC ‘outsider’ and a former Senior Vice President of MTS First Wireless, a private telephone operator (PTO), tops the list of three names recommended by the NCC Board of Commissioners at a crucial meeting held this week in Abuja, the seat of government.

Second on the list is another indirect NCC ‘insider’ and Vice President (Academics & Student Affairs) in Kano, Digital Bridge Institute (DBI), Umar Garba Danbatta, a professor at the institution set up by NCC. NCC had in May 2004 established DBI to foster human capacity development in the telecoms sector to foster rapid growth and development in the telecoms marketplace in Nigeria.

Third on the list is another NCC ‘insider’ and current Executive Commissioner, Stakeholder Management, Stephen Adedayo Bello. Hitherto, Bello, who was appointed Director of Engineering of NCC in 2000 and Executive Commissioner, Engineering and Standards, in 2005 was the Executive Commissioner,  Licensing and Consumer Affairs.

Spokesman, NCC, Dave Imoko, in a phone interview with Technology Times this morning confirmed that the NCC Board met this week but said he was unaware of the shortlist of candidates for consideration for the Commission’s top job as well as details of the meeting.

“I am not aware. I am not a member of the Board and they don’t discuss such things with us”, he added.

The Board decision is also a crucial crescendo for the race into the influential telecoms regulator as the National Communications Act 2003, the enabling laws of NCC grants it the power to recommend appointment of the agency’s chief to the President.

“The Board shall make recommendations to the President on suitably qualified persons for appointment as the Commission’s Chief Executive and Executive Commissioners and the President shall take the Commission’s recommendations into consideration for the appointment”, according to the provisions of the law.

The law also saddles the Agency’s chief executive with the primary responsibility of “the execution of the policies and decisions of the Board and for the day-to-day management and supervision of the activities of the Commission.”