By Adekunle Adekoya

SEVERAL weeks ago, a conflict in regulatory roles erupted between two agencies of government – the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) and the National Environmental Standards Regulatory and Enforcement Agency (NESREA).

NESREA had sealed off a base station belonging to one of the nation’s telecom firms in Abuja, alleging that its siting infringed the 10-metre setback rule from buildings. Pronto, NCC went to the base station and unsealed it, claiming that the siting complied with its own 5-metre setback rule which is in consonance with international regulations. Not to be outdone, NESREA returned and resealed the facility.

Indeed, there are reports of base stations being sealed nationwide not only by NESREA, but by any agency of state or local governments that generates sufficient reason to take such action, irrespective of the position of the law on the matter.

In fact, agencies of local and state governments have shut down base stations after issuing demand notices to the telcos to pay one form of levy or the other. The demand notices have accumulated to such a dizzying figure that the telecoms regulator, NCC had to facilitate the setting up of an industry working group to seek ways out of the problem which it saw was not just threatening quality of service and connection issues, but the entire telecoms industry itself.

The Federal Government waded into the matter, and in the last fortnight, supervising ministers of the two agencies — Mrs Omobola Johnson of Communications technology and Hajiya Hadiza Mailafia of Environment met, at the end of which certaim grundnorms were laid to ensure that further conflicts do not occur. Chief of these aggremos is that no base station can now be sealed by any agency without reverting to both NCC and the Ministry of Environment.

Further, base stations built with the 5-metre setback rule will also not be sealed again, in addition to which base stations to be built in the future must comply with NESREA’s 10-metre setback prescription, until NCC and NESREA regulations are harmonized and the impact of this prescription experienced along the way.

I am not concerned with who was right or wrong in the NCC-NESREA face-off, except to observe that the conflict was needless in the first instance. Needless, yes, to the extent that both bodies belong to the federal government whose ministers and other executives subscribe to the transformation agenda of Mr President.

However, I have a strong feeling that sealing off base stations should be a last resort by any government agency. My take is that the telecoms industry is one sector through which the rest of the world is beginning to respect us now, as achievements therein indicate, and we all owe it a duty to support its continues growth.

Let us not forget that the sector is managing to deliver acceptable services on costly generator power; if PHCN had given us just half of the telecoms sector performance, our industries would breathe easier and our economy much healthier.

That Dana crash…
My heart goes out to all those who lost people — staff, family, friends, and relations in last Sunday’s air crash; I thought that the pre-2005 spectre had finally disappeared. Thank God the Black Box has been retrieved, and please, let the inquest into this calamity give us the truth, and nothing but the truth. Righteousness exalts a nation; isn’t that what the Good Book said?