Taking care of the telecoms poor, by Okoh Aihe
The holy book tells us that the poor will always live with us in our societies. It means you can never wish away the poor even if you are offended by their existence. No magic wand will obliterate the presence of the poor, except concerted efforts to change their status. Apart from individual efforts, nations and […]
Little role for space tech in nation’s security architecture
People are getting exhausted under punishing surreal anomie, and with no help coming their way, it is a frightening time of holding on to straws, hoping that help would come miraculously
Frightening auguries for a country’s DSO
By Okoh Aihe If some miracles don’t happen very soon around the corner, the euphoria over the launch of the second phase of the Digital Switchover, DSO, which began in Lagos penultimate week, could as well be an ephemeral little bubble which doesn’t need the sharp accuracy of a needle to deflate. Pity that some […]
Olusegun Ogunsanya: A telecoms luminary gets a big continental call
By Okoh Aihe GOOD news is almost a rarity in the land; so, when it comes, we almost have to stand on the rooftop to celebrate it with big megaphones in our hands. The other day we celebrated Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala for clinching the top job as the Director General of the World Trade Organisation, […]
For DSO, a new life in a season of expectations
By Okoh Aihe THE thing about the future is that it steals on you like a thief at night and you are hardly prepared. The launch of the second phase of the Digital Switchover, DSO, which looked very far away, is beginning tomorrow from Lagos. Whether it is the National Broadcasting Commission, NBC, who should […]
With Twitter, indignation most uncalled for
Life in Nigeria would have continued its new normal last week, not the new normal imposed by COVID-19, but the bizarre reality of waking up to stories of deaths and attacks and threats of war – yes – that is the new normal, only if Twitter did not decide, in a flash of corporate affront and effrontery to Nigeria, to take its African headquarters to Ghana
With Twitter, an indignation most uncalled for
By Okoh Aihe LIFE in Nigeria would have continued its new normal last week, not the new normal imposed by COVID-19, but the bizarre reality of waking up to stories of deaths and attacks and threats of war – yes – that is the new normal, only if Twitter did not decide, in a flash […]
Broadcasting in search of patriot to clean up its failures
By Okoh Aihe THIS is Monday morning. At about the time of writing this material, the Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, is organising a broadcast industry stakeholders meeting in Lagos to discuss the readiness of the Lagos zone to welcome the launch of the Digital Switchover, DSO. There is a reason Lagos […]
Double jeopardy for the broadcast and telecoms industry
By Okoh Aihe THE broadacast and the telecommunications industries are going through terrible patches in the hands of those who are supposed to be keepers of the temple. At separate fora last week appointees of government spoke about the sectors in a manifest display of how very ignorant they are about the sectors they should […]
And the USSD load returns to the subscriber
By Okoh Aihe WHEN a significant matter of interest nearly boiled over in the telecommunications industry the other day, the stakeholders came together on a round table, perhaps minus one party, and at the end arrived on an ingenious solution which returned the load to the subscriber. How very unfortunate! They say in my part […]
Finally, timeline comes for Digital Switchover, DSO
By Okoh Aihe THERE is the street language of “money talks”. Translated in street value, it means that money has so much power that it can virtually do anything for the owner, command authority and bend people into oxymoronic genuflection or sustained obsequiousness. Money talks. Perhaps, this is why in 1969, the British author, James […]
USSD: What happens to anarchy deferred?
By Okoh Aihe On this bright Monday morning, as I put my materials together for this Wednesday column, the Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Dr Isa Pantami, is holding a crisis meeting with the various stakeholders of the telecommunications industry in trying to ward off a USSD misunderstanding that is threatening to obscure most […]
USSD CODE, CBN, Banks, Telcos and the coming of anarchy
By Okoh Aihe I DO not like the word, anarchy. The word serves a full dose of what is happening in our land, a chaotic state of disorderliness where nobody seems to be in charge, where everybody seems to smell imminent perdition and yet unable to do something about it. Where students disappear at school […]
A needed DSO and protruding questions
By Okoh Aihe ONE young lady from a radio station in Lagos searched me out. She had read a couple of my materials on broadcasting and needed to ask some questions on Digital Switchover, DSO, by way of getting some more understanding that she, in turn, could extend to her audience. This is a job […]
For Telecoms, a place in the sun for alarmists
By Okoh Aihe THERE was suppressed excitement across the land last week. The country’s economy dealt a massive blow into depression by COVID-19 suddenly witnessed a renaissance, a stirring out of that dazed stupor into someplace under the sun, making some of us learn how to smile again. The news was so sudden that some […]
For Telecoms, a place in the sun for alarmists
By Okoh Aihe There was suppressed excitement across the land last week. The country’s economy dealt a massive blow into depression by COVID-19 suddenly witnessed a renaissance, a stirring out of that dazed stupor into someplace under the sun, making some of us learn how to smile again. The news was so sudden that some […]
