The Executive Vice Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), Dr. Aminu Maida, has called on African telecommunications regulators to embrace evidence-based regulation as a critical tool for accelerating broadband penetration across the continent.
Maida made the call on Tuesday while declaring open the Heads of Regulators Roundtable held on the sidelines of the African Telecommunications Union (ATU) Conference Preparatory Meeting in Abuja.
He noted that although African countries operate under different legal frameworks, market sizes and national priorities, regulators across the continent face similar challenges that require coordinated and collaborative solutions.
According to him, discussions among regulators have increasingly expanded beyond traditional regulatory issues to include investment, infrastructure resilience, satellite communications, cybersecurity, affordability, artificial intelligence (AI) and other emerging technologies.
He stressed that these shared challenges make regular engagement among African regulators essential for exchanging practical experiences and strengthening regulatory institutions.
‘Very often, the challenge that one regulator is trying to solve has already been encountered in one form or another by a colleague elsewhere on the continent,’ Maida said.
‘The question is how we make that exchange of experience more deliberate, more systematic and more useful to our institutions.’
Speaking on the theme of the roundtable, ‘Building Africa’s Network Intelligence Ecosystem for Evidence-Based Regulation,’ Maida said the forum offered regulators an opportunity to examine how data, market intelligence and evidence could improve regulatory decision-making.
He urged participants to openly share successful initiatives, lessons from unsuccessful approaches and areas where collaboration could help regulators avoid duplicating efforts while strengthening policy outcomes across Africa.
Also speaking, the NCC’s Executive Commissioner for Stakeholder Management, Ms. Rimini Makama, said Africa’s digital communications ecosystem had become increasingly complex with the rapid expansion of broadband, satellite services, artificial intelligence, cloud computing and digital public infrastructure.
She observed that conventional regulatory approaches were no longer adequate to address the evolving realities of the communications sector.
Makama noted that while regulators now have access to unprecedented volumes of technical, market and consumer data, the real challenge lies in converting such information into effective regulatory actions.
‘The challenge is not collecting data. The challenge is turning it into better decisions,’ she said.
‘As our digital markets become increasingly interconnected, we share common responsibilities in protecting consumers, promoting competition, attracting investment and ensuring resilient communications networks.’
She added that the roundtable would provide a platform for regulators to exchange practical experiences, identify common challenges and deepen collaboration among member states of the African Telecommunications Union.
Makama also disclosed that the NCC would showcase its regulatory intelligence ecosystem, which integrates quality-of-service and quality-of-experience data, consumer complaints, compliance analytics and market intelligence into a unified platform designed to support evidence-based regulatory decisions.