There’s global push for e-ID. Nigeria’s quest to be part of this will open a new vista of opportunity to share from the $500 billion global cloud market. LUCAS AJANAKU reports that dearth of infrastructure could frustrate the gains.
This year, the Federal Government kick-started a quest to replace the plastic identity (ID) cards it issued to citizens from 2013 with a digital identity which it said is more reliable and in line with global best practices.
The digital identity, which will be issued to Nigerians who have attained the age of 16, is expected to save the country some foreign exchange, address homeland security challenges, encourage access to financial services as well as build investors confidence in the country’s recessive economy.
According to Mckinsey, Nigeria is second when compared with six other countries in emerging economies. Digital ID coverage could unlock economic value equivalent to seven per cent of gross domestic product (GDP) in 2030 in the adoption and its usage. This would in turn positively impact the Gross National Product (GNP) which is the value of what Nigerians earn in-country and abroad because there is reliable data to drive economic decisions.
But experts are not losing sight of the failure of the previous national identity card adventure. After nearly four years of enrolling millions of Nigerians, less than 10 per cent of enrolled were actually issued a national ID card. It could happen again, they say.
The transition to digital ID is expected to be concluded by 2022. There are also high expectations that the government is ready to invest massively in enabling technology to drive the project. In that regard, cloud computing may well be the primary infrastructure that it may need to prioritise.
At the basic, digital identity includes attributes such as a unique identity number, social security number, name, place, date of birth, citizenship, biometrics, and more, as defined by national law. The United Nations (UN) and World Bank ID4D initiatives set a goal of providing everyone on the planet with a legal identity by 2030.
So far, numerous new national eID programmes (including card and mobile-based schemes and unrelated to ID2020) have been launched or initiated. Examples of such projects are in Algeria, Belgium (mobile ID), Cameroon, Ecuador, Jordan, Kyrgyzstan, Italy, Japan, Senegal, Thailand, Turkey, Afghanistan, Denmark, the Netherlands, Bulgaria, and the Maldives.
The growing push for digital identities also means that countries are positioning themselves to benefit from investments in cloud computing.
Head, Cloud Advisory at Signal Alliance, Busola Komolafe, underscored the importance of cloud infrastructure to the implementation of a national eID scheme when she said: “Building a national identity architecture that does not depend on cloud technology will not service a modernising nation.” Founded in 1996, Signal Alliance has over two decades of gold partnership status with global cloud services provider, Microsoft.
A report by Canalys released in October showed that the worldwide cloud market grew 33 per cent this quarter to $36.5 billion. AWS has 32 per cent of the market and generated more revenue than the next three largest combined, Azure is at 19 per cent of the market, Google Cloud at seven per cent, Alibaba Cloud close behind at six per cent, and other clouds with 37 per cent.
Also, the IDC projects that worldwide spending on public cloud services and infrastructure will double over the next five years, growing from a $229 billion run rate in 2019 to almost $500 billion by 2023. This is driven by a five-year compound annual rate.
Apart from companies, cloud adoption by countries has picked up in recent times. Countries’ cloud spending rates are projected to rise by 2.8 and 3.2 percentage points from 2019 to 2022, respectively. While the US leads the rest of the world in cloud spending, countries like the UK and the Netherlands are catching up.
Countries in Africa have little or no share in the cloud computing market. The continent’s stake in the cloud market has mostly been driven by private organisations. Although top-line annual cloud services revenue is expected to double in the 2018-20123 period to hit $3.8 billion, currently, only about 30 percent of the revenue generated is through the public cloud, according to a Xalam Analytics “State of Cloud 2019” report on Africa.
Barriers to cloud adoption which could also affect the success of the digital identity system are the poor state of infrastructure such as electricity, fast internet connectivity, backbone networks, etc. Although the country has seen the building of data centres, inadequate electricity is mostly why their number is yet to rise and they are not penetrative across the country most consumers and third-party vendors prefer to partner with data centres outside the country with guaranteed infrastructure than with one within the country or at least have a backup with data centers abroad.
Nigeria has an opportunity with its electronic digital identity push to not only scale its adoption of cloud services but also reap immense benefits by creating a policy environment for cloud investments to come into the country. Deepening cloud adoption could also help the government address issues like empowering small businesses with digital technology.
Experts also say a rich environment in the cloud will force an interplay of competition and cooperation in the technology industry, thereby enabling cloud providers to produce services catering to specialised needs.
“National security is a multi-dimensional endeavour, and cloud technology enables the right architecture to build systems that the different security agencies in the country can depend on to secure from internal to external threats,” Busola said.
empowerment, NCC declared 2017 as the Year of the Telecom Consumer, during which it came up with consumer-centric initiatives and programmes aimed at addressing consumer issues and concerns with respect to service delivery in the sector.
He said to strenghten homeland security, the NCC undertakes periodic audit of subscribers’ database to ensure that operators adhere to the provisions of the Telephone Subscribers Registration Regulations 2011.
“The Commission’s effort in this regard was bolstered by the Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Dr. Isa Ali Ibrahim Pantami, who directed in September 2019 that we issue fresh directive to service providers “to block all improperly-registered Subscriber Identification Module (SIM) cards, pending when their owners regularise their registration.”
He recalled that the NCC had reduced the number of improperly-registered SIM cards to 9.2 million but within a week of that directive, a further reduction to 2.2 million was achieved. This 2.2 million have also been deactivated in the second phase of compliance with the directive.
He said improperly-registered SIM cards have implications for security of lives and property, pledging to continue to monitor the networks to ensure it is rid them of improperly-registered SIM cards.
He recalled that in February 2019, the Commission, worried by the recurrent cycle of fraudulent deployment of fake and substandard mobile devices, collaborated with the Office of the National Security Adviser (ONSA) and other relevant government agencies, set up and inaugurated Project Steering and Project Delivery committees to ensure the implementation of Mobile Devices Management Systems (DMS).
“This initiative is designed as a Public-Private Partnership aimed at combating the proliferation of fake, counterfeit, substandard and cloned communication devices in the telecoms industry. This is in line with our mandate, which requires us to type-approve all equipment used in the telecommunications industry. Importantly, we do this because of the connection between quality of devices and quality of service,” he said.
Similarly, in March 2019, in keeping with NCC’s participatory rule-making process and renowned regulatory transparency, we held a Public Inquiry on Regulations for Electronic Waste. We launched that initiative because rapid advances in technology and speed of innovation in telecoms have coupled to make it easier and convenient for consumers to change malfunctioning gadgets rather than to repair them. That reality has caused a rise in tempo and incidents of explosion of e-waste.We are finalising this process to ensure that, as we enjoy the derivable benefits of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, we do so sustainably and in an environmentally-friendly manner. We have brought this to your attention because it connects with our philosophy about the consumer and it connects with the theme of the year’s World Consumer Rights Day celebration – The Sustainable Consumer – which speaks to sustainable consumerism.
While the Commission’s extant Consumer Outreach Programmes – Telecoms Consumer Parliament (TCP), Consumer Outreach Programme (COP), Consumer Town Hall Meetings (CTM) – were sustained with renewed vigour, additional outreach programmes such as the Elite Enlightenment Campaign (EEC), Consumer Conversation and Campus Conversation were added to ensure that the telecom consumer was reached with appropriate and timely messages he or she requires to take informed decisions.
The Commission has issued a number of directions to service providers in order to ensure consumers are not ripped off. One of such is the Direction to Service Providers on Data Roll-Over, which enables consumers to roll over unused data for a period, ranging from 1 day to 7 days, depending on the data plan. We also issued a Direction to Service Providers on forceful subscription of data services and value-added services (VAS), directing service providers to desist from forceful/automatic renewal of data services without prior consent of their subscribers.
The Commission observed in early 2017 that consumers were receiving international calls on their phones as local numbers. In the industry parlance, we call this scenarios call masking/refiling and SIM boxing. The practice is fraudulent and anti-competitive. It also comes with high economic exploitative tendency and serious national security implications. The NCC immediately swung into action by working with necessary stakeholders to not only curb the menace of call masking but also stamp out this trend.
Given the centrality of robust broadband to Quality of Service for telecoms consumers, the Commission has licensed six infrastructure companies (InfraCos) across the country to deploy and cascade fibre optic cable infrastructure to all the 774 Local Government Areas (LGAs) of the country. The seventh licence for the North-Central geopolitical zone is being processed by the Commission.
In keeping with global embrace of the digital public communication culture, and the reigning paradigm in corporate communications and complaints management, the Commission, in 2015,set up an Online Media desk to handle media management aspects of its Website, being its major online media asset. The desk also set social media assets. From three social media handles (Facebook, Twitter and YouTube) in 2015, NCC now operates five functional social media accounts on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn and YouTube. Through these channels, the Commission receives feedback on service delivery and other issues raised by the consumers. These online and social media channels have also become Commission’s major channels of disseminating information geared towards protecting, informing and educating telecoms consumer and other industry stakeholders. The statistics below indicates that the followership on those platforms is growing in leaps and bounds.
o Facebook – 170, 136 followers
o Twitter – 97, 900 followers
o LinkedIn – 93, 343 followers
o Instagram – 21, 400 followers
Importantly, through these platforms, the Commission has responded to enquiries and complaints of telecom consumers and other stakeholders. Besides, the NCC Consumer Portal, which can be accessed via www.ncc.gov.ng/consumer, serves as an alternative online channel for lodging complaints and making enquiries, and it is available round the clock. As a corollary to the above, another twitter account, @consumersncc, was created by the Commission and solely devoted to disseminating information to consumers and managing their complaints. The Twitter account, which currently has numerous followers,also features information about current and topical issues of interest to consumers.
Also closely connected to the issue of consumer engagement and protection is the Quality of Service (QoS). The import of Commission’s commitment to improving the QoS finds expression as the second item on the 8-Point Agenda. The vision is to promote the availability of reliable, interoperable, rapidly- restorable critical ICT infrastructures that are supportive of all required services. Part of the strategy put in place to realise the vision was the inauguration of a high-level task force by the Commission to identify all the issues militating against quality of service on the networks.Management of the Commission also strengthened measures for Quality of Service (QoS) regulation, through improved oversight/internal controls and facilitation of active infrastructure sharing amongst telecoms operators in ways that will encourage seamless adoption of next generation technologies and remove all barriers to smooth operations.
Therefore, above and beyond the activities implemented during the declaration of the Year of the Consumer in 2017, the Commission has continued to take several steps aimed at continuously improving quality of service (QoS) both for voice and data services. The following will suffice in explaining NCC’s commitment to improving the QoS as an issue organically connected to the protection of the rights of the consumer.
o Monthly engagement sessions with operators on QoS.
o Quarterly QoS Industry Working Group meetings.
o Engagement with the Nigerian Governors’ Forum (NGF) to align right of way (RoW) charges appropriately in keeping with the resolution of the National Economic Council. This is to bolster the widespread rollout of telecom infrastructure.
o Engagement with individual governors to reduce and eliminate the incidences of site shutdown by state government agencies.
o Instituting benchmarking drive test across the country to measure performance of each operator in a given area and identify coverage gaps with a view to bridging them.
o Establishing new QoS measurement mechanisms for assessing the QoS performance of operators to ensure measured performance more closely aligns with subscriber experiences across all states of the Federation.
o Deployment of QoS measurement systems at the Commission to enable near real-time assessment of QoS across the country right from the Commission’s Head Office.
It also bears restating, that one of the major interventions of the NCC instituted in the interest of the telecom consumer, was the introduction of the Do-Not-Disturb (DND) 2442 Short Code. This was created by the Commission to deal with the issue of unsolicited messages. The 2442 is dedicated to enable telecom consumers to manage unsolicited messages they receive on their devices.
Additionally, the 622 Toll-free Number is an interventional action of the Commission. The number was created and dedicated by the Commission as a second-level complaint management mechanism, which gives consumers the opportunities to escalate to the Commission, complaints they had registered with their service providers but which may not have been satisfactorily resolved.
Following reports from telecom consumers that cybercriminals, hackers and other unscrupulous elements are exploiting online platform vulnerabilities to gain illegal access to bank accounts of other citizens, who, through phishing, smishing and other ploys such as fraudulent SIM swaps, bypass authentication security levels, regardless of whether the transactions are conducted via mobile phones, desktop browser, or on point of purchase, the Commission commenced a vigorous educational campaign to heighten awareness about cyber criminality. Realising that many telecom consumers increasingly rely on telecom platforms to carryout financial transactions, the NCC, in November 2019, inaugurated a 26-member multi-sectoral committee to develop a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on financial frauds in order to effectively tackle incidents of electronic financial fraud.
The inauguration of the 26-member Committee, comprising the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (FCCPC), Nigerian Inter-Bank Settlement System (NIBSS), National Identity Management Commission (NIMC), the Association of Licensed Telecom Operators of Nigeria (ALTON), Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Office of the National Security Adviser (ONSA), Nigeria Police Force (NPF), Nigeria Financial Intelligence Unit (NFIU) and the Federal Ministry of Justice, amongst others, again, demonstrates NCC’s unflinching commitment tobolster consumer confidence when using digital platforms to carry out financial transaction, andto forge necessary partnership to protect the consumer.
The Commission has also taken measures to review its Consumer Complaints and Service Level Agreement (CC/SLA). The CSSLA provides complaints categories, the timelines for resolving complaints and prescribes penalties for defaulting operators. This has ensured quantifiable improvements in consumer compliant management process by the operators.
Also, in view of the challenges of security in the country, the Commission has equally sped up the process of completing Emergency Communications Centres (ECCs) across the country. The ECCs are currently functional in 17 states and the Federal Capital Territory and available for all residents in Nigeria to get help in times of emergency. The ECCs for the remaining states in the Federation are at different stages of being completed and commissioned. The ECC implementation is taken taken as a priority by the Commission considering the Federal Government’s commitment to secure the lives and property of citizens who are also telecoms consumers. Consequently, the 112 Emergency Communication Number is a toll-free line that telecoms consumers, who are in distress, can call to draw attention of Emergency Response Agencies (ERAs) and other institutions in the security governance sector to their emergency needs, arising from criminalities, fire outbreak, accidents and other forms of disasters.
Ladies and gentleman, the reason the NCC embarked on the aforementioned initiatives simple: to give assurance to the consumers that their interests are of paramount importance to the Commission because without the telecoms consumers, there will be no telecoms operators and there would be no regulator.
We, therefore, use this opportunity to assure all the over 186 million telecoms consumers across the country that Commission will not rest on its oars until the challenges of telecoms consumer have been reduced to the barest minimum and we seek the occasion of this year’s WCRD to restate our commitment to Protecting, Informing and Educating the telecoms consumer. We call this our PIEMandate to the consumers.
In line with the theme of this year’s WCRD, “The Sustainable Consumer”, therefore, the NCC is irrevocably committed to strengthening all our consumer-centric initiatives and policies in a sustainable manner so that consumers can get consistent and sustainable QoS that meets their needs.
Distinguished ladies and gentlemen, it suffices to say that as the global community celebrates the World Consumer Rights Day (WCRD) 2020, the NCC is aligning with the philosophy of this day to reiterate its commitment towards providing accurate, adequate and timely information and education to enable the consumer to take informed decisions and to feel protected.
Leave a Reply