By Shina Badaru

ACCRA- Nigeria has urged African regulatory agencies and telecoms administrations to forge an alliance to harmonise telecom laws as a first step towards the vision of a single continental regulator.
Executive Vice Chairman and CEO, Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), Ernest Ndukwe, said in an interview that while growing calls for a single African regulator is commendable, he sees a common and harmonised law as a more practical approach towards realising the vision.
The Commonwealth Telecommunications Organisation (CTO), some other bodies and experts have reiterated at the WSIS Africa Regional Preparatory Conference the need for a continental regulatory agency to harmonise licensing and other regulatory issues across Africa.
Ndukwe who has been reappointed by the Nigerian government to head the NCC after his first term expires in February 2005, says a more realistic approach is to create and encourage the growth of sub-regional regulatory bodies across Africa
"Apart from CTO, many other organisations have been talking about that kind of thing and it is actually for that reason that WATRA (West African Telecommunications Regulatory Association) was established as a sub-regional regulatory organisation that would help fast-track harmonisation of regulatory policies and regulatory environment for the sub-region and by extension Africa”, he says.
He commended CTO’s inputs to the debate for a single African telecoms regulator. This Ndukwe said fits into the vision of setting up regional initiatives like WATRA, the Telecommunications Regulatory Association of Southern Africa (TRASA), among other allied bodies across various African sub-regions.
“But I don’t think we can be talking about an African regulatory agency today. What we can actually talk about is harmonisation of African legal and regulatory framework in order to ensure that whoever the regulator is in any country…” he said, will work within the framework of a harmonised, continental, legal instrument.
Ndukwe said that the creation of a common telecoms regulation for African economies is a practical goal. This, he reckons, fits into the vision of the information society and will go a long way in, “encouraging regional harmonisation for advancements of ICT in Africa”.
According to him, “I think the first thing is to ensure that the sub-regional organisations are successful because we can now all come together as an African regional organisation”.
Great plans for Nigerian backbone
Ndukwe hopes to consolidate telecoms sector reforms by building backbone infrastructure across Nigeria following his reappointment for a second term as head of Nigeria’s telecoms regulator.
When the proposed Nigerian regional backbone is built, it will offer a platform to extend the infrastructure into the West African sub-region and ultimately across the continent.
“During this second term, it’s a period to consolidate the gains of sector reforms in Nigeria. One of my big assignments would be a policy towards ensuring a solid backbone infrastructure for Nigeria
"That is one main thing I would like to see achieved within the next year or two and to ensure solid backbone infrastructure based on pervasive optic fibre infrastructure build-out across the country”, he said.
According to him, “following up from that, we will be extending that to a regional or sub-regional cable infrastructure that will make sure that countries within the west African regions are linked up and improved regional connectivity and by extension ensure regional connectivity for Africa”.
He adds that, “of course I will continue to consolidate the other gains of ensuring that subscribers in Nigeria are getting value for their money and their efforts as well as ensuring we extend telecommunications to the rural areas of this country and also empower our health and educational institutions to ensure they have availability of ICT infrastructure”.