Finally, I am delighted that the anti- corruption wind finally
blew away Emeka Mba, former DG of the Nigerian Broadcasting Commission
(NBC) who was shown the exit as President Buhari’s broom strives to cleanse our
system.
This brings me to this question, was the NBC sale of the
700MHz spectrum licence to MTN legal and transparent? The sale of the licence
was one of the most clandestine sale of a national asset of such strategic
value.
Apparently the sale process was not advertised publicly, neither
was it auctioned through bidding and unlike NCC, the NBC is not a telecoms
regulator so one wonders how the broadcast regulator could determine what a
fair price would be for a spectrum meant for the telecoms industry.
Isn’t it questionable for NBC, which is clearly struggling with
its mandate to meet the target set for the Digital Transfer, to then sell the
same 700MHz spectrum it was mandated to free up to MTN despite the fact that
the rest of the telecoms industry has been standing by and waiting for NBC to
switch to digital broadcasting and release the very scarce spectrum to the NCC?
Following the outcry on the illegality of this deal, the EFCC
swooped on the DG of NBC, EmekaMba, for allegedly operating a secret
account into which about N17 billion funds belonging to the commission were
lodged.
Truth be told, Mr Mba has staggered from one allegation to the
other. For example, a petition against him by some contractors and broadcast
license losers alleged that the process of awarding contracts and issuance of
licenses by the Commission were not transparent and also breached due process.
They had written to the EFCC to complain about underhand dealings in award of
licenses and contracts.
Need I say more? The whole thing is a fetid, sordid mess. I
hope the EFCC get to the bottom of it.
Jude Chukwudi ,a Public Analyst sent this article from
Lagos
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