The Executive Vice Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), Dr. Aminu Maida, has called on telecommunications regulators across Africa to adopt a more structured and deliberate approach to sharing experiences to strengthen regulatory institutions and improve service delivery.
Maida made the call on Tuesday at the Heads of Regulators Roundtable held as part of the ongoing 7th Ordinary Session of the Conference Preparatory Committee (CPC-26) in Abuja. The session was themed “Building Africa’s Network Intelligence Ecosystem for Evidence-Based Regulation.”
He noted that while African regulators operate under different legal frameworks and national priorities, they face similar challenges in areas such as infrastructure development, cybersecurity, satellite services, affordability, artificial intelligence, and emerging technologies.
According to him, the common nature of these challenges underscores the importance of collaboration, adding that regulators should leverage one another’s experiences instead of addressing similar issues independently.
Maida said the roundtable provides an opportunity for regulators to discuss how data, market intelligence, and evidence-based approaches can improve regulatory decisions while promoting stronger cooperation across the continent.
He urged participants to engage in open discussions on successful regulatory initiatives, lessons from failed approaches, and areas where collaboration could help achieve better outcomes.
Also speaking, the NCC’s Executive Commissioner for Stakeholder Management, Rimini Makama, said Africa’s telecommunications sector is evolving rapidly with the expansion of broadband, satellite services, artificial intelligence, cloud computing, and digital public infrastructure, making traditional regulatory frameworks inadequate.
Makama stressed that regulators must rely on credible data and market intelligence to make smarter, more transparent, and consumer-focused decisions rather than reacting to emerging challenges.
She observed that although regulators now have access to vast amounts of technical, market, and consumer data, the key challenge remains converting that information into effective policy decisions.
She added that the roundtable provides an avenue for regulators to exchange best practices, identify common challenges, and strengthen collaboration among member states of the African Telecommunications Union (ATU).
Makama further explained that the NCC’s regulatory intelligence platform integrates quality of service and quality of experience data, consumer complaints, compliance analytics, and market intelligence to support evidence-based regulatory decision-making.