Commissioner fingered in NCC crisis

Tongues are wagging in Abuja in the wake of the escalation of what began as personal attacks on the Executive Vice Chairman of the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), Dr. Eugene Juwah. The attacks on Juwah have now shifted to attacks on some top members of the Jonathan administration who have been accused of complicity in the N1bn waiver to MTS. They have also dragged the Ministers of Communications and Finance into the fray.

The arrowhead of the attacks has been fingered as an NCC executive commissioner who lobbied for the EVC position but lost. The commissioner has consequently made the NCC ungovernable for Juwah.

Two weeks ago, the commissioner allegedly sent a petition to the NSA, the EFCC, and the Presidency alleging that the “EVC without due process went ahead to unilaterally assign the same 450Mhz frequency to OpenSkys Limited” and thus making it difficult for the “police to operate its national telecoms network as well as the newly installed security systems in Abuja.”

The NCC has since clarified that the award of the spectrum frequency to OpenSky happened in 2009, a year before Juwah was appointed EVC.

Sources said that once that clarification was made, the commissioner targeted Juwah again, alleging that MTS was granted a waiver because the NCC EVC was a former CEO  who ran MTS down and is now facilitating a waiver to cover his debts.

It was learnt however that Juwah was never the CEO of MTS. The sources said he was appointed in 2001 as a consultant to the MTS and later made an Executive Director. “Juwah was not a part owner of MTS and neither did he run the company down. He resigned in 2005, three years before MTS folded up”, one of the sources stated.