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Gwandu Urges Ethiopia to Learn from Nigeria’s Telecom Deregulation
Dr. Bashir Gwandu, non-executive chair of the Commonwealth ITU Group (CIG) and the former commissioner of the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), has advised Ethiopia to learn from Nigeria as it moves ahead to liberalize its telecommunications industry for private sector investment.
Dr. Gwandu stated this while delivering his lead keynote speech at the opening of the Innovation Africa Digital Summit (IAD) 2019 in Addis Ababa last week graced by telecoms executives and governments from Africa and around the world.
Senior executives from Vodacom Group, MTN Group, Etisalat, Safaricom, France Orange, Vodafone, ZTE, Huawei, Ericsson, Cisco, Airbus, Helios Towers, OneWeb, Mastercard, Intelsat, Thuraya, IBM, IFC, and several others attended the summit which also attracted Ministers from Africa, most especially the West and East Africa sub-regions.
The summit was opened by Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed accompanied by some of his Ministers. It was anchored by Extensia of the UK -co-organiser of the IAD Summit. The period of the conference coincided with the time a proclamation is being tabled before the Ethiopian Parliament for debate and consideration to liberalise the country’s telecom sector.
According to Reuters, Ethiopia’s telecoms market is considered to be ‘the big price’ and the last greenfield site in a push to liberalise, and end a state monopoly as well as open-up one of the world’s last major closed telecoms markets.
In his speech at the conference, Dr. Gwandu dissected the telecoms market privatisation and liberalisation processes breaking the issues logically from the point of producing succinct legal frameworks for both the privatisation, and that of the telecoms regulation, right down to the market design and to the choices available to the government when it comes to competition planning up to the spectrum management and eventually service providers regulation.
He stated the need for strong and good regulatory framework, encompassing sensible set of rules that encourages investment and protects the consumer and requiring, effective, professionally competent and sufficiently empowered as well as sufficiently financed regulatory institution.
He emphasize that “Good enable laws are not just sufficient but government support must be total and not half-hearted, coupled with adequate funding that would attract good manpower to the regulator.”
Dr. Gwandu, a former acting executive vice chairman at NCC opined that government role should be restricted to policy formulation whilst a strong, independent regulatory authority should provide stable, transparent, fair, and non-discriminatory access to telecommunications resources in a timely manner.
He said the legal framework apart from guaranteeing independence of the regulator, must enable flexibility of the regulator whist remaining predictable, efficient, effective and accountable. “It should be the role of the regulator to ensure the existence of competition in all segments of the market devoid of market abuse or the exercise of significant market power by the participants” he said.
Gwandu emphasized that, “Liberalization of telecom market is essential for rapid network growth as experienced by other countries and private sector participation is essential for attracting investment. Innovation and new technologies in the telecoms sector is fast moving, it cannot wait for slow government bureaucracy to be approving investment funding and yet compete effectively.”
Bashir Gwandu stated that in looking holistically at the telecoms market, international segment should be examined where the complimentary options of international optical fibre and satellite links can be made available in a competitive manner.
According to him, international gateway liberalization and national backbone planning should ensure ubiquitous availability, open access, and finally on the last mile the spectrum remains key in view of the lack of sufficient last-mile fixed infrastructure.
He further stated that “Mobile is the largest technology platform in human history and mobile broadband is the most dynamic segment of the last mile market. Spectrum is a critical resource for mobile broadband but is only valuable if it is effectively deployed to enable appropriate networks and services for socio-economic benefits to citizens.”
Gwandu emphasised further that as wired infrastructure is limited in Africa except perhaps in South Africa, it is expensive to install. Wireless technology on the other hand is easier and faster to deploy and remains critical to expanding broadband access, and spectrum access is critical for wireless broadband deployment, and capacity.
“Robust wireless broadband requires various bands and appropriate slots size for assignment, the slot size determines how many towers an operator will need to cover the area, or re-use pattern or indeed how soon break-even will happen, how sustainable or profitable the telco will be etc” he said. He cited the mistake made by Nigeria in providing just over three megahertz (MHz) to Code Division Mobile Access (CDMA) operators and expected them to perform.
At the international level, he encourage Ethiopia to participate actively in the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) and African Telecommunications Union (ATU) activities to enhance regulatory harmonisation, thereby promoting economies of scale and enhancing cooperation on roaming, interoperability, Internet exchange points, and development of backhaul infrastructure.
He posited that Ethiopia should align spectrum release and technology neutrality roadmap to enable flexibility in investment, and in spectrum auction process, he advised the government to set objectives properly and to balance pricing of spectrum with rollout obligations.
“For rapid expansion of networks, Ethiopian government which controls land across the country should streamlined approval for Right of Way (RoW) and site acquisition, and to make the process a simple and one-stop shop activity” he admonished.
He also stated that tax holiday has proven to be useful in some markets but even more importantly, multiplicity of sector specific taxes should be avoided and that the multiplier effect of deferred-taxation will lead to more tax revenue from the sectors that are supported by the telecoms.
Furthermore, Gwandu stated that competition planning should be examined carefully so that resulting companies should remain sustainable –and in selling spectrum, the regulator should ensure appropriate sizes, and also not to sell out all available spectrum at once, which will reduce chances of corrective measures in respect of future competition corrective-intervention.
The Ethiopian government thought it wise to invite telecoms experts from around the world, potential Investors and other market players to partake in the unique forum that examined the best practices that the country can learn from, in its quest to restructure and open its telecoms market for foreign participation.
Chief Judges drawn from countries across the African continent have resolved to collaborate and support measures aimed at ensuring the success of the Africa Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) through an efficient, reliable and predictable dispute resolution system.
They agreed to explore ways to harmonize disputes resolution mechanisms in the continent with a view to making it easier and faster to resolve commercial disputes.
The resolutions formed part of the decisions taken at the third Africa Chief Justices’ Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) Summit held in Nairobi, Kenya between June 18 and 19.
According to a statement by the Special Assistant on Media to the Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN), Justice Kudirat Kekere-Ekun, Mr. Tobi Soniyi, the African judicial leaders were of the view that commercial confidence depends largely on legal certainty.
They emphasised how structured Alternative Disputes Resolution could enhance commercial justice, protect the business environment and support the AfCFTA.
In her contribution, the Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN), Justice Kudirat Kekere-Ekun urged called on African judiciaries to proactively prepare for emerging challenges to disputes resolution in the continent.
Justice Kekere-Ekun, who served as Co-Chair of the session on “Financial sector disputes, tax certainty and ADR: Building commercial confidence in Africa, noted that AfCFTA represents one of the most ambitious economic integration projects in modern history.
The CJN, who stressed the importance of a proactive Judiciary to the success of AfCFTA, warned that its success would depend, not only on trade protocols, tariff reductions and economic policies, but also on the strength and reliability of the institutions that support commerce.
Justice Kekere-Ekun urged her colleagues to examine how judiciaries in the continent, central banks, tax administrations and ADR institutions could work together to reduce uncertainty, prevent disputes, strengthen investor confidence and support the realization of AfCFTA’s objectives.
She envisaged the growth of intra-African trade to inevitably generate cross-border tax disputes; foreign exchange disputes; banking and payment system disputes; digital commerce disputes; enforcement of arbitral awards; recognition of foreign judgments; and disputes arising from regional supply chains.
The CJN, who said “African Judiciaries must proactively prepare for these emerging realities,” challenged African judicial leaders on the importance of disputes prevention mechanism.
She stated that modern commercial justice must move beyond the traditional focus on disputes resolution after conflicts arise.
“The most successful commercial systems are not those that generate the highest volumes of litigation but those that reduce the need for litigation,” she added.
Justice Kekere-Ekun, who stressed the importance of ADR, cautioned against seeing ADR as merely an alternative procedure.
She said ADR should rather be considered as a strategic tool for reducing transaction costs, preserving commercial relationships, enhancing investor confidence, reducing court congestion, improving ease of doing business and strengthening commercial certainty.
Sharing the Nigerian experiences, Justice Kekere-Ekun cited the recent decision by the Nigerian Supreme Court in the case of EMTS v. AFDIN Ventures Ltd. & Ors. (2026), which reaffirmed important principles of commercial certainty, including respect for arbitration agreements; recognition that consent may be inferred from conduct; judicial restraint from re-litigating arbitral disputes on the merits; and the importance of finality in arbitral awards.
According to her, the decision reinforced Nigeria’s position as an arbitration-supportive jurisdiction.
She identified timely resolution of tax disputes as an important factor in ensuring certainty and recommended Nigerian tax disputes resolution mechanism which she said “offers useful example of institutional reforms that support commercial certainty.”
Justice Kekere-Ekun recommended the Nigeria’s Tax Appeal Tribunal model, which she described as one of Nigeria’s most significant innovations.
According to Mr. Soniyi, Justice Kekere-Ekun’s message to his brother justices is clear: building an African commercial environment in which investors, businesses, regulators and citizens can transact across borders with confidence, secure in the knowledge that their rights will be protected and their obligations fairly enforced.
The summit advanced the goals of the African Chief Justices Alternative Dispute Resolution Forum (ACJADRF) to harmonize jurisprudence and establish common enforcement standards across the continent.
The CJN was, on the last day of the summit, nominated by the Chief Justice of Kenya as the Vice Chairperson of the Africa Chief Justice ADR Forum with effect from August 1, 2026. The nomination was ratified by the forum.
Twenty-one former Almajiri learners and street children are set to graduate as certified technology technicians under the Almajiri-to-Tech Initiative, a programme designed to equip vulnerable children with digital and entrepreneurial skills while addressing youth unemployment, poverty and insecurity.
The pioneer graduation ceremony is scheduled to hold on July 29 in Abuja, where the graduates will demonstrate practical skills, including assembling computers and drones, before government officials, development partners, members of the diplomatic community and the media.
The initiative was founded by technology education advocate, Mr Tim Akano, in partnership with New Horizons Nigeria, an Information and Communication Technology (ICT) training organisation.
According to the organisers, the programme seeks to provide practical solutions to the growing challenge of out-of-school children by combining technology education, entrepreneurship, mentorship and character development.
The organisers said the initiative had transformed children who previously had little or no exposure to technology into technicians capable of repairing laptops, desktop computers, mobile phones, power banks, electric fans, microwave ovens and other electronic devices.
They explained that the participants also received entrepreneurship training, mentorship, transportation support, daily meals, learning materials and professional work tools during the programme.
The organisers added that religious instructors from the participants’ respective faiths regularly visited the trainees to provide moral guidance, describing character development as a critical component of the initiative.
Unlike many vocational interventions that end with the presentation of certificates, the organisers said graduates of the programme would receive start-up support, while outstanding participants would be provided with professional work tools to establish their own businesses.
They also disclosed plans to launch a business directory and customer contact platform that would enable individuals, businesses and organisations to engage the services of the graduates.
Speaking on the initiative, Akano, who is also the Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of New Horizons System Solutions Ltd., said the programme was conceived as a practical response to the challenges of youth unemployment, insecurity, poverty and irregular migration.
“You do not end migration by building higher walls. You do not defeat insecurity by relying only on military force, and you do not end poverty by preaching patriotism.
“You solve these challenges by building hope where hopelessness exists, equipping young people with practical skills, and creating opportunities where they live,” he said.
According to him, the pilot programme has demonstrated that children who have experienced neglect and exclusion can become innovators, entrepreneurs and contributors to national development when provided with quality education and opportunities.
He said one of the trainees, Mohammed, who arrived from the Niger Republic without speaking English, had acquired sufficient language proficiency within months to communicate confidently with customers while carrying out computer and electronics repairs.
Another participant, Fatima, discovered her interest in poetry during the programme and produced a poem celebrating New Horizons Nigeria, reflecting the broader personal development fostered by the initiative.
The organisers said the programme was inspired by concerns over the growing number of out-of-school children in Nigeria, estimated at about 30 million, and the broader global challenge of millions of children without access to education.
They argued that investing in digital skills, entrepreneurship and mentorship for vulnerable children offers a sustainable approach to addressing poverty, insecurity, youth unemployment and violent extremism.
As part of efforts to sustain the programme, the foundation said it had established a fully equipped workshop known as “The Almajiri Republic Workshop” in Wuse II, Abuja.
The workshop, according to the organisers, will serve as a commercial repair centre where graduates can provide computer and electronics repair services while continuing to strengthen their technical expertise.
The foundation called on the Presidency, federal and state governments, Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs), members of the National Assembly, development partners, donor agencies, corporate organisations, civil society groups, religious institutions and other stakeholders to support the expansion of the initiative across Nigeria.
It maintained that scaling up the programme could transform millions of vulnerable children into skilled professionals capable of contributing to economic growth while reducing poverty, unemployment and insecurity.
The organisers said local and international media organisations, including CNN, BBC, Al Jazeera and ARISE News, had been invited to witness the graduation ceremony and the practical demonstrations by the pioneer graduates.
Accelerating artificial intelligence (AI) adoption could increase Africa’s GDP by up to 4% over the next decade, according to the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
In a report released on Tuesday, titled Africa Can Grow Faster With AI—If It Moves Now, economists from the IMF’s Africa Department say current levels of AI adoption and utilisation are expected to contribute just 0.2% to the region’s GDP over the next 10 years.
However, the report says stronger adoption, supported by the right infrastructure and policies, could raise the economic impact to about 4% by extending AI beyond today’s digitally connected firms.
Martin Schindler and other IMF economists say: “AI adoption in sub-Saharan Africa currently lags well behind every other region. If richer economies race ahead while African firms and governments lag, the productivity gap between the region and the rest of the world will only widen.”
Early signs of AI adoption are emerging across Africa, with countries including Zimbabwe, Kenya, Egypt and Nigeria developing AI strategies.
Telecommunications operators, including Vodacom, Econet, Africell and MTN, are also integrating AI into their operations and networks.
Other examples include chatbots supporting teaching and learning in Nigeria and the South African Revenue Service’s use of data analytics for targeted tax audits.
However, the IMF says AI adoption must extend beyond these early use cases to deliver meaningful economic benefits.
“For the region, AI’s main promise is not about replacing office workers, but boosting productivity across the economy—helping informal firms manage inventory, enabling farmers to increase yields, and supporting mid-sized firms to transition to formality and export readiness,” the report reads.
The IMF is urging governments to prioritise investment in reliable electricity, affordable broadband, data infrastructure and digital skills to support wider AI adoption.
Many African countries, including Zimbabwe, Kenya, Ghana, Nigeria and Cameroon, continue to face electricity shortages, while broadband services remain costly and coverage is uneven.
The Fund believes stronger investment in power, connectivity, regional data infrastructure and digital skills would help unlock AI’s economic potential.
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