In the August 23rd edition of the Imo Trumpeta Newspapers published on page 9, I did interpret NITEL, the Nigerian Telecommunications Limited as Nigeria Is The Eventual Loser. At that time all my efforts and attention, were focused on the huge revenue that was and is still accruing to telecommunications network carriers, in Nigeria numbering well over 10 chiefly led by the MTN, GLO, AIRTEL and ETISALAT.
There are others but that is not the subject of this write up. I did lament the death of our own dear NITEL, the one and only telephone operator in Nigeria in the time past. By this time in question mobile telephone services were in operation in many parts of the world some how adventurers felt that the Nigeria market with its large population needed to be explored. Then Econet and MTN came and our own Globacom followed them on the heals and Nigeria was captured.
NITEL did not keep quiet and not wanting the foreign operators to seize the market, they floated M-tel and people like me out of patriotism went head long for M-tel. it was a hell to secure a line. It is not a hidden fact that the staff of M-tel through their conduct and shoddy deals with touts worked assiduously to see to the demise of M-tel. The proverbial sheep that urinated where it will lie.
Unfortunately the Nigerian government finding relief on the fact that Econet, MTN and Globacom were succeeding in providing Nigeria with affordable telecommunications services did not border with all the mess going on in M-tel.
If this is true, why did they also allow the NITEL provision of Landlines to die even faster?
I hate to join in the school of thought which says that the leaders of Nigeria were and would be making more personal gains from their share holdings in the foreign network whether directly or through surrogates which more often is the case.
Today both NITEL and M-tel lay silent in the grave unfortunately refusing to go the way of all dead objects. I mean to decay and be forgotten. In all, the local governments in Nigeria where NITEL operated carry very visible evidence of decaying NITEL infrastructure. The same goes for all the state capitals and the fate of all their staff is unthinkable.
Worst hit is the Nitel headquarters in Lagos which is now a shadow of its old self. Lets leave that for now. In the so called very advanced countries or is it civilizations. Landlines are still operative and also offer their citizenry much cheaper and affordable telecommunications services. Nigeria abandoned both her landline and the citizenry.
I hate to remember that somebody very highly placed in the scheme of things in the Senate once said that the telephone services are not for everybody.
That was why I asked why the Nigerians who are in high places today who really enjoyed the services of NITEL when it was the only telephone service provider in Nigeria keeping quiet and are happy patronizing other carriers or are they not among the Nigerian who are the eventual losers?
Each passing day justifies my choice of the acronym Nigeria is the eventual loser for NITEL.
Today a careful analysis show that with the death of both NITEL and M-tel more than 200,000 job opportunities from both direct and indirect sources went with them.
Need we talk about the revenue loss. Each time I recharge my phone, I multiply the figure with at least 30 millions just to have glimpse into what the foreign network carriers are carrying home away from Nigeria. Can any one see why all these at the central bank and their policies can never save our economy?
All they are doing there is theory and academic exercise because to go into the real cause of our woes, some people may be offended.
But the truth must be told that the so called liberalization policy which killed NITEL and M-tel is not a Nigerian word and so must have been in operation in the countries from where they came and those countries have both mobile phones services and land lines.
It has become more obvious now that what really killed the NITEL was not the failure by its management to take advantage of the monopoly they hitherto enjoyed but those forces deliberately aimed at killing the establishments.
In the first part of this write up I prophetically compared NITEL facilities with the Imo MODERN POULTRY FARM in Avutu Obowo LGA.
The poultry complex was established to produce about two million eggs daily to service the protein needs of Imo State and neighbours. Unfortunately as soon as Chief Mbakwe, the founder left office, his successors descended on the poultry farm and ate up both layers and growers and the farm died.
Imo state later faced the insult of the Israeli farm Dizengolf who priced the poultry farm the sum of One Naira. Their reason being that it would require more than one billion naira to dismantle and cart away the obsolete machinery left behind in the farm.
A similar fate had eventually befallen NITEL. For now Nigeria does not know what to do with all NITEL’s abandoned infrastructure. Their disengaged staff who could not be adequately settled, most have died and those alive are impoverished living from hand to mouth.
And every day those abandoned infrastructure stand on our soil, the decay becons.
Just a couple of days ago the multi billion naira NITEL headquarters under construction in the central business district of Abuja, a building that has gulped billions of naira was demolished with dynamites. The contractors who carried out the demolition were paid and congratulated for doing a very nice work. I watched the televised scenario where Nigerian, the eventual losers were watching and clapping for the expertise employed in the demolition.
Well Abuja is still under construction and I heard it was demolished to make way for a modern conference and events international centre.
The question is what of the finished buildings in the state and local government exchanges.
Are leaders waiting for the decay to advance to a level when it will be priced one naira and they will turn round to buy?
As the Abuja building came down amidst ovation by observers and the cacophony of interviewers commentaries my mind reminded me of my fathers story of the monkey that saw the forest on fire and was amused at the site of the conflagration. Unknown to it its house was going and the monkey would be the eventual loser.
Granted that MTN and Econnet or Airtel took Nigeria unawares, what of yesterdays Etisalat that is talking and making waves and each of them began by living facilities from the moribund NITEL.
Questions have often been asked and no one wants to provide any answers on what really happened. For if they all took off with NITEL facilities, have they returned all that were hired and in what state. it is really necessary to know how NITEL died.
The call on the National Assembly to probe and find out how much NITEL made from the hiring only their facilities and the present state of those facilities has not been heeded. And as the waiting game goes on the installed machinery gets more obsolete.
Today it is the uncompleted Abuja building brought down with more money that would be needed to complete the building.
It had to give way for a international conference centre as if the land of the Federal Capital territory that spannet from Zuba to Abuja a distance of our 80kms had finished necessitating the huge loss incurred in that demolition exercise.
As with NITEL so is other Federal Government establishments in Lagos that are rotting away. Why NITEL evokes so much pain is because were it to be alive, nearly half if not more of our unemployed job seekers would have been gainfully employed.
Yes Nigeria has lost, is continuing to lose but could someone please do something to half the loss instead of ensuring the complete erasure or obliteration of this once the pride of Nigeria.
