President Bola Tinubu on Wednesday made some new appointments in an industry-wide shakeup that saw the exits of three executives of parastatals under the Ministry of Communications, Innovation and Digital Economy.
Quite prominent among these appointments is the naming of Aminu Maida as the new Executive Vice Chairman of the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC).
Maida, until his latest appointment was the Executive Director, Technology and Operations at Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement System Plc (NIBSS), the country’s central switch company owned by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and all licensed Deposit Money Banks (DMBs) in Nigeria.
Career record
He is a seasoned technical professional with over 15 years of multi-functional and international experience in FinTech, Telecoms, and Enterprise Technology.
Prior to his appointment at NIBSS, Aminu was CTO at the Nigerian-based FinTech Arca Payments Network and Senior Manager at Cisco Systems UK.
Earlier, between 2010 and 2014, Maida had worked as a Network Design Consultant at EE, EE, part of BT Group, and one of the largest mobile communications companies in the UK.
He was also at some point (2006-2010) a System Engineer at Ubiquisys, a leading company in intelligent 3G and LTE small cells, which is now part of Cisco.
Academic qualifications
Maida graduated from the Imperial College London in 2002, where he obtained an MEng in Information Systems Engineering. In 2006, he bagged a PhD in Electrical & Electronic Engineering from the University of Bath UK.
Between 2018 and 2019, Maida completed a Post Graduate Diploma in Entrepreneurship (FinTech Pathway) program at the Cambridge Judge Business School.
What is being said about him
In a LinkedIn recommendation of the new NCC boss, a former work colleague, Jon Webb-Peploe, has these to say about Maida:
- “We worked together at Cisco for 2 years, during which time Aminu was a key member of the team that succeeded in building a significant new business in the Carrier/ Service Provider market in the UK, in this short window. Aminu is laser-focused on the user, agile to turn tasks around quickly, and ultimately does the right thing.
- “He cares. He is very strong technically. Since we worked together he has been to business school in Cambridge and co-founded and run a business. He is now a leader in his field. Technically strong. Commercially aware. He has a broad range of experience. I wish him all the best with his next challenge and hope to have the opportunity to work with him again sometime.”
Maida, appointed from outside the Nigerian telecom industry but with experience in telecom operations, will be inheriting a number of unfinished projects by the Danbatta-led NCC. Chief among these is the implementation of the Nigeria National Broadband Plan (NNBP 2020-2025), which has now become more challenging as penetration has been declining in the last few months.
With a target of 70% broadband penetration by 2025 and penetration currently at 45.57%, all eyes will be on Maida to deliver on this target and address other burning telecom issues such as poor quality of service, and declining investments in telecom, among others.
A tad LIGHTWEIGHT for the NCC position…