Reuben Muoka takes over from Dr. Ikechukwu Adinde, who has assumed duties as the Director of Special Duties Department of the Commission.

The new NCC’s spokesman was recently promoted a substantive director, alongside Ismail Adedigba, now Director of Research and Development (R&D); and Gwa-Tobi Mohammed, who has also assumed duties as Director/Secretary to the Board of the Commission.

Muoka was in 2021, appointed to head the Special Duties Department, which superintends the International Relations Unit; Emergency Communication Centres Unit; the Public Private Partnership Unit; and the Security Services Unit of the Commission.

He was promoted as Director of the Department before his current redeployment to lead the Public Affairs Department, the arm of the Commission mandated to manage the image and visibility of Nigeria’s telecom regulator and a leading light of the Nigerian public service.

Muoka is expected to bring his rich and versatile experience in both specialized and traditional journalism, public relations, integrated marketing communications (IMC), corporate communication and people management, to bear on the Commission’s vision to expand the frontiers of its public goodwill and the impact of its reputational assets.

A former Deputy Communications Editor of the Vanguard Newspapers, former Deputy General Manager at MTS First Wireless (Nigeria’s first mobile telephone operator), Muoka joined the NCC in 2007 as a Principal Manager, and was deployed to the Public Affairs Department where he headed the Media and Public Relations Unit.

He later rose from the rank of Principal Manager to the position of an Assistant Director in 2010, and by 2015, as a Deputy Director, appointed to head the re-engineered Public Relations Unit of PAD. In 2017, he was redeployed to the Policy, Competition and Economic Analysis Department to head the Economic Analysis unit of department.

Reuben Muoka earned M.Sc. degree in Mass Communication from the University of Lagos, specialising in Public Relations and Advertising, where he had earlier successfully completed a Postgraduate Diploma (PGD) in the same field of Mass Communication. Much earlier, he had obtained a bachelor’s degree in Performing Arts at the University of Ilorin.

As a mark of his distinctive journalism career, Reuben Muoka received a fellowship of the Egyptian Embassy in Nigeria to undertake a Pan-African training and tour of Egypt in 1999, leading to an award of a continental Diploma Certificate in Journalism at the instance of the Egyptian Ministry of Information, and the African Journalists Union (AJU) in Cairo, Egypt.

The focused, innovative and illuminating coverage and analysis of the Information and Communications Technology (ICT) in the pre and immediate post liberalisation period of telecom industry in Nigeria is credited to the insights of visionary journalists like Muoka, whose pioneering initiative led to the establishment and institutionalisation of the Hi-Tech Desk in Vanguard Newspapers in late 1990s.

As the Chairman of the League of Communications Correspondents (LECCO), Muoka led his colleagues to give voice and focus to the advocacy for the liberalisation and deregulation of the telecom industry in Nigeria in the 1990s. 

During his active days in journalism at Vanguard Newspapers, Muoka served concurrently as Africa’s contributing editor to the London-based CommunicationsWeek for four years beginning from 1998, during which he undertook copious reportage of the African telecom landscape.

The London-based magazine shared Muoka’s work to an enthusiastic global audience in a rare showcase of Africa’s promise as a flourishing point for the emergent converging telecommunications industry.

Between 1995 and 2001, Muoka leveraged his expertise to provide part-time public relations consultancy to notable companies and institutions in the telecommunications industry, including the Nigerian Mobile Communications Limited, Abuja; Multi-links Telecommunications Limited, Lagos; Satellite Telecommunications Limited, Lagos; Pulse Marketing Communications Ltd, Lagos; and the Nigerian Communications Commission, Abuja, years before he joined the Commission as a staff.

Reuben Ejike Muoka is a member of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ); a full member of the Nigerian Institute of Public Relations (mnipr); and an associate member of the Registered Practitioners of Advertising (arpa), regulated by the Advertising Practitioners Council of Nigeria (APCON).

On behalf of the Board and Management of the Commission, I heartily congratulate Reuben on his new role and look forward to working closely with him and his team in Public Affairs Department, as key internal stakeholders in the Commission’s re-engineering processes to meet and surpass Federal Government’s expectations for a robust telecommunications sector and a remarkably emergent digital economy.

Muoka, the hitherto Director Special Duties Department, is a veteran ICT journalist and public relations practitioner.

Reuben Muoka who resumed duty on Monday, June 20, 2022, replaced Dr. Ikechukwu Adinde, who has been redeployed to the special duty unit of the Commission.

Muoka, according to this report, is not new to that department. He had worked there as a principal officer for several years under Engineer Ernest Ndukwe and the late Dr. Eugene Juwah.

He was sent to the special duty and economic policy and analysis departments at some point during the first term of Professor Umar Danbatta as EVC.

He was head of media and public relations, from 2009, until 2015, when Danbatta resumed as EVC.

Before joining NCC some 19 years ago, Muoka worked with the Vanguard, where he and Okoh Aihe, who recently retired from the NCC, ran the paper Hi-Tech pages and reported ICT for several years.

He left Vanguard to work at MTS First Mobile, a pioneer company in mobile communication in Nigeria, as Corporate Affairs Manager.

Reuben Muoka has first and second degrees in Mass Communication. He was once chairman of the League of Communications Correspondence, a beat association created in 1988 to help ICT journalists become professional ICT reporters.

The NEMSAS was established as a programme implementation unit in the Office of the Honourable Minister of Health.

The project aims to establish an Information and Communication Technology-enabled emergency medical service that is effective, efficient, timely and in partnership with the private operators in the health sector.

The objective of this new project is to increase access to healthcare, and to reduce mortality and morbidity rates in order to improve health care outcomes to all Nigerians.

By integrating disparate Emergency Medical Services (EMS) resources available in Nigeria, the scheme will coordinate the national roll-out of EMS, enabling services to be provided through relationship with other entities and organisations.

In essence, NEMSAS will rely on many organizational partners to perform its EMS service delivery functions and the NCC’s 112 Emergency Number is going to drive the communication element of the project.

It suffices to reiterate that the overarching vision of MEMSAS is to ensure availability of an emergency medical service and ambulance system that provides quality, prompt, effective and accessible transport and treatment services at no cost at the point of care across the country.

Speaking at the public signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on the NEMSAS project between the Federal Ministry of Health, other relevant agencies and development partners, at the Shehu Umar Musa Yar’Adua Centre in Abuja recently, the Executive Vice Chairman of NCC, Prof. Umar Garba Danbatta, said the Commission was delighted to provide the technology platform that will link the NEMSAS partners with those who require emergency health services.

Danbatta, who was represented at the forum by the Director, Public Affairs, NCC, Dr. Ikechukwu Adinde, said the “as the national telecoms regulator, the NCC is providing the communication ingredient for the initiative through its 112 Emergency Number, thereby allowing those in health-related emergencies to be able to reach out to stakeholders that are involved in the NEMSAS project”.

“The NCC has been at the forefront of deploying ICT to drive the implementation of various government projects and initiatives. The 112 number is at the heart of this initiative to provide a national number to Nigerians who are in need of health-related emergencies to be able to call Emergency Response Agencies (ERAs) or organisations in life-threatening situations”, Danbatta stated.

The CEO of NCC also expressed the “unwavering commitment of NCC to supporting NEMSAS’ implementation as well as similar governmental initiatives as part of the strategic programmes of improving Nigeria’s digital culture through policies instituted by our supervising Ministry, the Federal Ministry of Communications and Digital Economy”.

Danbatta commended the Minister of Health, Dr. Osagie Ehanire, other government agencies such as the Federal Road Safety Commission (FRSC), various private sector partners and international development partners involved in the project, for giving priority to EMS in order to progress toward providing universal health coverage (UHC) to all Nigerians regardless of their locations and circumstances through the NEMSAS’ initiative.

Over the years, Nigerians in distress and life-threatening situations have used 112 emergency numbers to get succour from ERAs to ensure safety of lives and property.

The role played by 112 Emergency Number particularly at the peak and vortex of Covid-19 pandemic in Nigeria has been adjudged phenomenal.

Currently, there are 24 Emergency Communication Centres (ECCs) in Nigeria that are operational across different states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).

The ECCs are built and operated through partnerships, by the NCC as points where distressed calls by citizens terminate, from where they are routed to the appropriated emergency response and security agencies that manage such incidents.

Prof. Umar Danbatta, the executive vice chairman and Chief Executive Officer (EVC/CEO), also received the Public Officer of the Decade Award.

According to Dr. Ikechukwu Adinde, director, Public Affairs at NCC, the combined awards to the Commission and Prof. Danbatta, issued on the heels of a public lecture, titled, Public Sector Financing: The Oil Revenue, Challenges, Solutions and Prospects, eloquently expressed the significance of telecom sector’s contribution to Nigeria’s economy.

Noteworthy is telecoms’ 12.45 per cent contribution to the nation’s GDP in 2020, which was central and pivotal in taking the nation out of recession.

The awards by Nigerian NewsDirect were presented just two days ago at an impressive event at the Federal Palace Hotel, Lagos, organised by the firm to commemorate its 11th Anniversary.

As indicated, the presentation of the awards was preceded by the Nigerian NewsDirect anniversary public lecture, Delivered by Dapo Okubadejo, Ogun State Commissioner for Finance and Chief Economic Adviser to the Governor.

Okubadejo’s paper reflects essentially on the increasing challenges of the nation’s dependence on oil revenues for public sector financing.

The paper offers solutions to better public sector financing from the context refocusing on the opportunities and prospects inherent in the oil sector but particularly in other sectors.

By sheer coincidence, or conscious contextual social intervention, the topic of the Lecture and its treatment were not just poignant reflections of the state of the economy, they were fluent and persuasive of the role of NCC in midwifing and enabling the utilisation of telecoms and ICTs applications for economic recovery and growth.

A fact that gives concrete expression to the imperative of diversification of the nation’s economy from oil, which is being vigorously pursued by the Federal Government and which NCC is a key sectoral driver.

Thankfully, the role NCC is mandated to play in enhancing Nigeria’s growth and development is not lost on its Management.

This strategic role and commitment to it, was emphasised by Dr. Ikechukwu Adinde, NCC’s Director Public Affairs, who received the awards on behalf of the Commission and the EVC/CEO.

Adinde, while conveying NCC and Danbatta ‘s gratitude for the award, said the Commission will not rest on its oars but rededicate itself towards demonstrating its worthiness of the public trust and confidence reposed in it as an agency central to rediversification of the nation’s economy.

These garlands, swelling the repository of awards to NCC would not surprise discerning watchers of national events.

In November 2021, the Commission led by Danbatta conducted a historic auction of the 3.5GHz spectrum, in preparation for the deployment of 5G services to be activated this year.

It was not the first time NCC will conduct an auction but it was the first time it had completed an auction with the final bid ending at a price more than 30 percent higher than initial bid offer.

The auction, which started with initial offer of $197.4 million, close after 11 rounds at $273.6 million.

Two companies, Mafab Communications and MTN Nigeria Plc, won the bid.

Besides it routine activities, just a forthnight ago, the EVC delivered the Convocation Lecture of the Fountain University, at Osogbo, where he emphasised the imperative of youth’s embrace and exploration of the opportunities the ICT revolution has offered them to contribute to the nations growth and development.

Similarly, just a day after the Convocation Lecture, a digital training centre, facilitated by the Universal Service Provision Fund (USPF), an arm of NCC, was commissioned at Ijesa Muslim Grammar School, Ilesha, Osun State.

The foregoing shows that the Commission is unwavering in its commitment to expanding the nation’s frontiers of growth and development within the context of its mandate.

Many individuals (including Mr. Tony Elumelu, Chairman of Elumelu Foundation; and Ken Nnamani, President of ATCON); corporate organisations (including Ecobank, Chevron, and Polaris Bank); and State Governments (including Osun, Ogun and Benue) received various categories of awards.

The project is part of government’s efforts to give concrete expression to the underlining principles and fundamental philosophy of the emergent digital culture in Nigeria, particularly Item No. 2 of the eight pillars of the National Digital Economy Policy and Strategy (NDEPS) 2020-2030.

Governor Adegboyega Oyetola of Osun State, is also expected at the event as a Special Guest of Honour.

According to a statement signed by Dr. Ikechukwu Adinde, director, Public Affairs at the Nigerian Communication Commission (NCC), the Digital Nigeria Centre, hitherto known as School Knowledge Centre (SNC), targets students and youths for skills acquisition in order to increase Information and Communication Technology (ICT) literacy among school teachers and students; provide a platform for accessing online educational resources; equip students with ICT skills; facilitate ICT adoption in teaching and learning; and increase pass rate in mathematics, English language and other science subjects.

This project, the first to be commissioned in Osun State since the modification of the project as DNC, is located at the Ijesa Muslim Grammar School, Ilesa.

The four components of the Digital Nigeria Centre include ICT Tool component (made up of 40 desktop computers with embedded operating systems, server, printer, remote-controlled projector, high resolution scanner, and e-learning software). Another component is the Power structure, consisting of an inverter that comes with its charger, solar panels, batteries and automatic changeover.

There is also a Connectivity component, made up of routers, switches, firewall for network protection, modem, fibre/microwave radio or VSAT and bandwidth for internet connectivity. Finally, there is a non-ICT component constitutive of the furniture, cabinet, cooling systems, and allied appliances.

The DNC is a project of the Universal Service Provision Fund (USPF), an arm of the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), established under the Nigerian Communications Act (NCA) 2003 with the overarching objective to carry out the Commission’s statutory mandate of expanding the frontiers of universal access and universal service by ensuring service provision to unserved and under-served areas of the Nigerian economy.

Therefore, as mandated by NCA 2003, the USPF promotes the widespread availability and usage of network and application services throughout Nigeria by encouraging the installation of network facilities and the provision of network services and applications services to institutions, particularly in unserved and underserved areas and for underserved groups within the community.

Since inception in 2006, the USPF under NCC supervision and directive of the Minister, has implemented series of programmes and projects that promote ICT inclusion and adoption to mainstream accessibility to communication services for citizens and position Nigeria for global competitiveness in the emergent digital culture.