March 16, 2010
Dear Dr Hamadoun Touré: Please permit me to congratulate you on your appointment as the Secretary General of the International Telecommunications Union (ITU). When you were appointed in 2007 you became the first African to be appointed to that exalted position since the organization was established more than a century ago. This is a major honour primarily to your country and to the whole of Africa.
Dear Dr Hamadoun Touré: Please permit me to congratulate you on your appointment as the Secretary General of the International Telecommunications Union (ITU). When you were appointed in 2007 you became the first African to be appointed to that exalted position since the organization was established more than a century ago. This is a major honour primarily to your country and to the whole of Africa.
All Africans therefore wish you an exemplary tenure but some very disturbing developments that could mar your legacies while in office have prompted me to write this letter to you and copy authorities in my home country Nigeria as well as the Secretary General of the United Nations since the ITU is has been a Specialized Organ of the United Nations since 1949.
Please permit me to remind you of the definition of Corruption by the United Nations Convention against Corruption which states “corruption is an insidious plague that has a wide range of corrosive effects on societies. For example, it undermines democracy and the rule of law, leads to violation of human rights and distorted markets”.
I therefore wish to respectfully bring to your attention that the Telecommunications Market in Nigeria that you have not spared any effort to glorify or celebrate is a seriously distorted market as a result of unbridled corruption by the players in the Market especially the Regulator, the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC). The phenomenal growth of Telecommunication Services in Nigeria has been fuelled by all the corrosive effects of corruption as defined by the United Nations. The rule of Law including the law Governing tariff rates as enshrined in Section 108 subsection (4) (e) of The Nigerian Communications Act, 2003 which stipulates that “TARIFF RATES SHALL TAKE ACCOUNT OF THE REGULATIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS OF THE INTERNATIONAL ORGANISATIONS OF WHICH NIGERIA IS A MEMBER” have deliberately and flagrantly been ignored as dictated by bribery and corruption in the system. The human rights of Nigerians to decent livelihood have also been violated with the deliberate aggravation of poverty in Nigeria by extortionist telecommunications tariff established by NCC to satisfy the greed of NCC officials and service providers and a distorted Telecommunication Market where the First National Carrier was used as a source of FREE (Stolen) CAPITAL for other Telecommunications Operators to raise laundered funds through false accounting by a deliberately fraudulent Interconnection Agreement.
All the signposts of the unbridled corruption in the Nigerian telecommunications sector are visible to even undiscerning Nigerians and external observers and it is disturbing that an organ of the United Nations which ITU is and its well respected Secretary General could be unabashed in associating or glorifying the Nigerian Telecommunications Market and the Regulator, NCC that is the main architect of and driver of the unbridled corruption in the Telecommunications sector in Nigeria.
Mr. Secretary General, you do not need to be told that it is only in Nigeria that the Dominant Operator and the Country’s First National Carrier for decades before deregulation, the Nigerian Telecommunications Limited (NITEL), became bankrupt within six years of the licensing of gsm operators. This abnormal situation should have attracted the attention of the ITU because the ITU nurtured NITEL for decades during which period I was a Trainee Fellow of the ITU. The simple truth about NITEL’s financial collapse is that the Regulator introduced deliberately fraudulent Interconnection Agreement which resulted in false accounting and deliberate laundering of NITEL funds and Capital to Private Telecommunications Operators.
By virtue of Section 108 subsection (4) (e) of The Nigerian Communications Act, 2003 NCC is bound to comply with ITU-T D Series Recommendations on General tariff principles and the Blue Book for the Interconnection of different Networks in Nigeria but unbridled greed, bribery and corruption of Mr. Ndukwe led NCC made them abandon ITU-T Recommendations on Tariffs and introduce fraudulent and subjective methods.
The ITU Recommendations also encapsulate the major Roles of the Secretary General of the ITU “These were the economic use of the Union’s resources and of all the administrative and financial aspects of the Union’s activities;” The Federal Government of Nigeria also expects NCC to play a similar role in Nigeria and its economy.
The ingredients of ITU-T Recommendations on General tariff principles especially Recommendation D5 (1988, 1993) COSTS AND VALUE OF SERVICES RENDERED AS FACTORS IN THE FIXING OF RATES were the guiding parameters in arriving at the 1997 Interconnection Agreement approved by the then Head of state of Nigeria, Late General Sani Abacha, through the then Hon. Minister of Communications, Rtd. General Olanrewaju. The same Mr. Ndukwe as the then President of the Association of Telecommunications Companies of Nigeria (ATCON) was not however happy with this agreement as he did all he could then to make Private Telecommunications Companies use NITEL networks free of charge.
While the ITU Copyright condition of use will not permit me to quote Recommendation D5 in the absence of a written permission from ITU, the recommendation stipulates that the revenue from the services provided by a telecommunication organization should cover all the costs incurred by that organization, such as operating expenses; interest on capital; depreciation of equipment; capital investment etc.
Fast forward to year 2000, the corrupt Nigerian system ensured that Mr. Ernest Ndukwe became the Executive Vice Chairman (EVC) and CEO of NCC. The propriety of Mr. Ndukwe who was a principal officer in a company that executed a major questionable and controversial contract with Nigeria’s First National carrier NITEL becoming a regulator of the same National Carrier was ignored as expected in a corrupt system.
The first action of Mr. Ndukwe led team at the NCC was to unilaterally discard the 1997 Interconnection Agreement which complied with ITU-T Recommendations on General tariff principles in telecommunications without reverting to the Federal Government which approved the Agreement Mr. Ndukwe led NCC while in year 2000 did not have the legal powers to initiate or compel Interconnection Agreements still masterminded in conspiracy with similarly corrupt senior executives of NITEL and succeeded on or about July 2000 to get the acting Managing Director of NITEL Mr. G. Adegbuji to sign a new and fraudulent Interconnection Agreement based on TELEPHONE CALL TERMINATION ONLY. This places all the Interconnection cost on the access network (local loop) cost only and TOTALLY IGNORES the conveyance (core) network costs and operational overheads which ONLY the First National Carrier NITEL had on ground. Mr Ndukwe deliberately and fraudulently ignored the fact that billions of telephone calls being conveyed by the only core network which was then available in Nigeria, NITEL were transiting to other networks and not terminated on NITEL local access and made NITEL lose ALL REVENUES on such calls. The effect of this is to deny NITEL the first National Carrier revenues from the CORE NETWORK COSTS which a FORENSIC FINANCIAL AUDIT will put at not less than a loss of 500 billion Naira to NITEL and could even be more than One trillion Naira. It is this staggering amount that constituted the major part of Capital flight from Nigeria between 20001 and 2007. As at 2003 the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) was already apprehensive of the repatriation of millions of dollars by the GSM operators but the CBN was not in a position to know that the huge sums being repatriated were funds that should have been paid to NITEL for the use of its CORE networks.
From the foregoing you will agree that the claim of 12.5 billion US Dollars investment in the Nigerian Telecommunications Sector by the NCC which you do not hesitate to celebrate is grossly misleading, self serving and Fraudulent. A Forensic Financial Audit will show that 35% to 45% of foreign investment is actually recycled NITEL funds because the Fraudulent Interconnection Agreement masterminded by Ernest Ndukwe of the NCC allowed the GSM and other Private telecommunications operators in Nigeria to use NTEL Core Networks (Both switched and leased circuits) FREE OF CHARGE.
While the Interconnection fraud was perpetrated without due process between July 2001 and 2003 attempt by Mr. Ernest Ndukwe to give it a legal cover by the NCC in late 2003 confirmed beyond all reasonable doubt that the fraud was deliberately perpetrated.
In the Fraudulent Interconnection Rate Determination paper which Ernest Ndukwe issued on 2nd December 2003, he examined three telephony cost centers which by his own nomenclatures are Local, Single Tandem and Double Tandem cost centers in the handling of Telephony Traffic. It is the local cost center which is the local access that is responsible for the Termination of Telephone calls. Single Tandem and Double Tandem Cost Centers are Core Networks for the Conveyance or Transit of telephone calls. But instead of concluding with cost for each of the Cost Centers Ndukwe deliberately and fraudulently arrived at only Interconnect Rate for Termination. The deliberate and fraudulent intention of Mr. Ernest Ndukwe was further exposed by the fact that in his analysis in that same paper he admitted that single tandem and double tandem cost centers should attract 75% and 96% of telephony call cost respectively. With this Ndukwe deliberately and fraudulently SURPRESSED the cost for single tandem and double tandem cost centers which NITEL was for many years SOLEY responsible for from 1997 when the first Interconnection Agreement was signed.
It is doubtful whether Ernest Ndukwe got the approval of the NCC Board before issuing the fraudulent decree which “legalized” the Fraudulent Interconnection Agreement. If the paper was passed to the NCC Board for approval, the Board would have observed the contradictions in the body of the paper and the conclusion as there are telecommunications Engineers on the Board of NCC My protest to the Hon Minister of Communications vide my letter of 5th January 2004 made Ndukwe cover the fraud with more confusion of near end or far end handshaking which still left NITEL with NO REWARD WHATSOEVER for the only CORE network then in Nigeria which ALL the Telecommunications Operators were using. The only time Ndukwe has ever telephoned me was to phone me in retirement in 2004 with subtle threats because of my letter to the Minister of Communications analyzing his fraudulent paper on Interconnect Rate Determination. I was surprised when Ndukwe told me that NCC Board Approved the paper and I made it plain to him that no responsible Board will approve a paper where the prayer to the Board is in conflict with the analysis, observations and comments therein. I have been contacted on the phone by a self confessed assassin who claims that he has been contracted to kill me by only God knows who. Please note that late Mr. Alaba Joseph who was the CEO of a private telecom company and who once threatened to expose the corruption in the Nigerian telecom market was brutally murdered just before he would have been forced to disclose the reasons for major cash disbursements by his company to a court appointed Receiver when the company could no longer meet is obligation to its bankers.
The other method of the deliberate diversion of NITEL funds to Private telecommunications Operators in Nigeria is the settlement of billions of Naira Invoices that NITEL could not VERIFY because Ernest Ndukwe of NCC insisted that NITEL MUST connect Private Operators at any Point in the Network deliberately intended to bypass the Victoria Island, Lagos Interconnection Exchange which NITEL sank so much money into to be able to monitor Interconnection traffic entering or leaving NITEL network. Mr. Ernest Ndukwe then followed up with a decree that telecommunications operators must settle billing invoices that they cannot verify against all known financial and commercial laws. Please note that many of the invoices that NITEL could not verify but was forced to settle by NCC decree or directives could be nothing more than COMPUTER GENERATED INVOICES as a rookie computer programmer can easily generate such invoices. It is therefore worrisome when the Secretary General mounts podia which in many cases are sponsored by the same NCC to celebrate the unprecedented growth of telecommunications services in Nigeria funded substantially by funds due to NITEL but illegally and criminally diverted.
From the information now at your disposal, I hope that the Secretary General of the ITU will realize and appreciate that the phenomenon growth of GSM in Nigeria has its roots in the greatest corporate heist ever conceived and executed. The Secretary General of the ITU, your good self therefore has the moral burden of ensuring that the wanton criminality and unimaginable capital flight inherent in the celebrated rapid growth of telecommunication services in Nigeria is reversed and the monies that NITEL lost to the Organized crime is computed with the assistance of your office and appropriate compensation made to NITEL. Failure to do this will imply that a specialized organ of the United Nations has been celebrating the mockery of United Nations efforts to minimize corruption globally.
Mr. Secretary General Sir, I wish to assure you that I have taken up these issues with the relevant authorities in Nigeria. Your association with NCC and especially Mr. Ndukwe has not helped matters. The authorities investigating the serious allegations against Mr. Ndukwe of deliberately destroying a National asset and the first National carrier that Nigeria had for decades unfortunately regard your frequent photo opportunities with Mr. Ndukwe as a sign that all is well in the Nigerian Telecommunications sector. You assumed duty as the Secretary General of the ITU just two years ago and you have personally visited Nigeria at least twice in spite of the very heavy schedule of your office. Not only that, your second visit was purportedly as a guest of the NCC sponsored Africa Telecom Development Summit which opened in Abuja on September 9, 2009. This visit in my opinion was diplomatically unwise as it was at a time the Hon Minister of Communications was forced to call Mr. Ndukwe a saboteur publicly for refusing to cooperate with her in getting substantial reduction in the very high gsm tariff in Nigeria which the World Bank and IMF have also declared as one of the highest in the world having no bearing to the economy or the salary of Nigerians thus aggravating poverty in the land. It is however noteworthy that since after your second visit, the Hon Minister of communications Prof. Akunyili who was spitting fire before your visit appears to have lost steam. It is also noteworthy that your visit to Nigeria was not published on Secretary General’s Twitter which chronicles your important engagements. These therefore leave Nigerians to ponder on the real intention for your visit to Nigeria.
If you really have been a close watcher of the Nigeria Telecommunications sector you should have discovered that Licenses issued by the Nigerian Communications Commission are not designed or issued to meet the telecommunications and ICT needs of the country or provide market competition as often stated in the propaganda of the NCC but to mainly satisfy the greed of some Principal officers of the Organization.
In conclusion please permit me to repeat that you owe Nigerians the moral obligation of ensuring that the hundreds of billions of Naira stolen from NITEL, a public asset, in complete disregard of the law mandating tariff to comply with International Regulations or recommendations and the ITU-T recommendations on General tariff principles are recovered for the Nigerian taxpayers who own NITEL.
Wishing you and your family the joys and blessings of the festive season
Yours faithfully,
Solomon O. Ogundele
To: Dr Hamadoun Touré
Secretary-General of ITU
International Telecommunication Union (ITU)
Place des Nations
1211 Geneva 20
Switzerland (c/o [email protected] )
Ban Ki-moon
Secretary-General
United Nations
New York NY 10017
Copy:
President Umoru Yar A’dua,( c/o [email protected] )
Vice President, Jonathan Goodluck (c/o [email protected] )
Hon David Mark, President of the Senate, (c/o [email protected] )
Hon Dimeji Bankole, Speaker of the House of Representative (c/o [email protected] )
Hon. Michael Kaase Aondokaa, (SAN) Attorney-General & Minister of Justice
Hon Prof. D. Akunyili, Minister of Information & Communications ([email protected]
Hon. Alh Ikra Bilbis, Minister of State, Information and Communications (c/o [email protected] ; [email protected] )
The Secretary to the Federal Government, Alh Yayale Ahmed
Mrs. Farida Waziri, Chairman, Economic and Financial Crimes Commission
Chairman, NITEL Technical board (c/o [email protected] )
All Africans therefore wish you an exemplary tenure but some very disturbing developments that could mar your legacies while in office have prompted me to write this letter to you and copy authorities in my home country Nigeria as well as the Secretary General of the United Nations since the ITU is has been a Specialized Organ of the United Nations since 1949.
Please permit me to remind you of the definition of Corruption by the United Nations Convention against Corruption which states “corruption is an insidious plague that has a wide range of corrosive effects on societies. For example, it undermines democracy and the rule of law, leads to violation of human rights and distorted markets”.
I therefore wish to respectfully bring to your attention that the Telecommunications Market in Nigeria that you have not spared any effort to glorify or celebrate is a seriously distorted market as a result of unbridled corruption by the players in the Market especially the Regulator, the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC). The phenomenal growth of Telecommunication Services in Nigeria has been fuelled by all the corrosive effects of corruption as defined by the United Nations. The rule of Law including the law Governing tariff rates as enshrined in Section 108 subsection (4) (e) of The Nigerian Communications Act, 2003 which stipulates that “TARIFF RATES SHALL TAKE ACCOUNT OF THE REGULATIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS OF THE INTERNATIONAL ORGANISATIONS OF WHICH NIGERIA IS A MEMBER” have deliberately and flagrantly been ignored as dictated by bribery and corruption in the system. The human rights of Nigerians to decent livelihood have also been violated with the deliberate aggravation of poverty in Nigeria by extortionist telecommunications tariff established by NCC to satisfy the greed of NCC officials and service providers and a distorted Telecommunication Market where the First National Carrier was used as a source of FREE (Stolen) CAPITAL for other Telecommunications Operators to raise laundered funds through false accounting by a deliberately fraudulent Interconnection Agreement.
All the signposts of the unbridled corruption in the Nigerian telecommunications sector are visible to even undiscerning Nigerians and external observers and it is disturbing that an organ of the United Nations which ITU is and its well respected Secretary General could be unabashed in associating or glorifying the Nigerian Telecommunications Market and the Regulator, NCC that is the main architect of and driver of the unbridled corruption in the Telecommunications sector in Nigeria.
Mr. Secretary General, you do not need to be told that it is only in Nigeria that the Dominant Operator and the Country’s First National Carrier for decades before deregulation, the Nigerian Telecommunications Limited (NITEL), became bankrupt within six years of the licensing of gsm operators. This abnormal situation should have attracted the attention of the ITU because the ITU nurtured NITEL for decades during which period I was a Trainee Fellow of the ITU. The simple truth about NITEL’s financial collapse is that the Regulator introduced deliberately fraudulent Interconnection Agreement which resulted in false accounting and deliberate laundering of NITEL funds and Capital to Private Telecommunications Operators.
By virtue of Section 108 subsection (4) (e) of The Nigerian Communications Act, 2003 NCC is bound to comply with ITU-T D Series Recommendations on General tariff principles and the Blue Book for the Interconnection of different Networks in Nigeria but unbridled greed, bribery and corruption of Mr. Ndukwe led NCC made them abandon ITU-T Recommendations on Tariffs and introduce fraudulent and subjective methods.
The ITU Recommendations also encapsulate the major Roles of the Secretary General of the ITU “These were the economic use of the Union’s resources and of all the administrative and financial aspects of the Union’s activities;” The Federal Government of Nigeria also expects NCC to play a similar role in Nigeria and its economy.
The ingredients of ITU-T Recommendations on General tariff principles especially Recommendation D5 (1988, 1993) COSTS AND VALUE OF SERVICES RENDERED AS FACTORS IN THE FIXING OF RATES were the guiding parameters in arriving at the 1997 Interconnection Agreement approved by the then Head of state of Nigeria, Late General Sani Abacha, through the then Hon. Minister of Communications, Rtd. General Olanrewaju. The same Mr. Ndukwe as the then President of the Association of Telecommunications Companies of Nigeria (ATCON) was not however happy with this agreement as he did all he could then to make Private Telecommunications Companies use NITEL networks free of charge.
While the ITU Copyright condition of use will not permit me to quote Recommendation D5 in the absence of a written permission from ITU, the recommendation stipulates that the revenue from the services provided by a telecommunication organization should cover all the costs incurred by that organization, such as operating expenses; interest on capital; depreciation of equipment; capital investment etc.
Fast forward to year 2000, the corrupt Nigerian system ensured that Mr. Ernest Ndukwe became the Executive Vice Chairman (EVC) and CEO of NCC. The propriety of Mr. Ndukwe who was a principal officer in a company that executed a major questionable and controversial contract with Nigeria’s First National carrier NITEL becoming a regulator of the same National Carrier was ignored as expected in a corrupt system.
The first action of Mr. Ndukwe led team at the NCC was to unilaterally discard the 1997 Interconnection Agreement which complied with ITU-T Recommendations on General tariff principles in telecommunications without reverting to the Federal Government which approved the Agreement Mr. Ndukwe led NCC while in year 2000 did not have the legal powers to initiate or compel Interconnection Agreements still masterminded in conspiracy with similarly corrupt senior executives of NITEL and succeeded on or about July 2000 to get the acting Managing Director of NITEL Mr. G. Adegbuji to sign a new and fraudulent Interconnection Agreement based on TELEPHONE CALL TERMINATION ONLY. This places all the Interconnection cost on the access network (local loop) cost only and TOTALLY IGNORES the conveyance (core) network costs and operational overheads which ONLY the First National Carrier NITEL had on ground. Mr Ndukwe deliberately and fraudulently ignored the fact that billions of telephone calls being conveyed by the only core network which was then available in Nigeria, NITEL were transiting to other networks and not terminated on NITEL local access and made NITEL lose ALL REVENUES on such calls. The effect of this is to deny NITEL the first National Carrier revenues from the CORE NETWORK COSTS which a FORENSIC FINANCIAL AUDIT will put at not less than a loss of 500 billion Naira to NITEL and could even be more than One trillion Naira. It is this staggering amount that constituted the major part of Capital flight from Nigeria between 20001 and 2007. As at 2003 the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) was already apprehensive of the repatriation of millions of dollars by the GSM operators but the CBN was not in a position to know that the huge sums being repatriated were funds that should have been paid to NITEL for the use of its CORE networks.
From the foregoing you will agree that the claim of 12.5 billion US Dollars investment in the Nigerian Telecommunications Sector by the NCC which you do not hesitate to celebrate is grossly misleading, self serving and Fraudulent. A Forensic Financial Audit will show that 35% to 45% of foreign investment is actually recycled NITEL funds because the Fraudulent Interconnection Agreement masterminded by Ernest Ndukwe of the NCC allowed the GSM and other Private telecommunications operators in Nigeria to use NTEL Core Networks (Both switched and leased circuits) FREE OF CHARGE.
While the Interconnection fraud was perpetrated without due process between July 2001 and 2003 attempt by Mr. Ernest Ndukwe to give it a legal cover by the NCC in late 2003 confirmed beyond all reasonable doubt that the fraud was deliberately perpetrated.
In the Fraudulent Interconnection Rate Determination paper which Ernest Ndukwe issued on 2nd December 2003, he examined three telephony cost centers which by his own nomenclatures are Local, Single Tandem and Double Tandem cost centers in the handling of Telephony Traffic. It is the local cost center which is the local access that is responsible for the Termination of Telephone calls. Single Tandem and Double Tandem Cost Centers are Core Networks for the Conveyance or Transit of telephone calls. But instead of concluding with cost for each of the Cost Centers Ndukwe deliberately and fraudulently arrived at only Interconnect Rate for Termination. The deliberate and fraudulent intention of Mr. Ernest Ndukwe was further exposed by the fact that in his analysis in that same paper he admitted that single tandem and double tandem cost centers should attract 75% and 96% of telephony call cost respectively. With this Ndukwe deliberately and fraudulently SURPRESSED the cost for single tandem and double tandem cost centers which NITEL was for many years SOLEY responsible for from 1997 when the first Interconnection Agreement was signed.
It is doubtful whether Ernest Ndukwe got the approval of the NCC Board before issuing the fraudulent decree which “legalized” the Fraudulent Interconnection Agreement. If the paper was passed to the NCC Board for approval, the Board would have observed the contradictions in the body of the paper and the conclusion as there are telecommunications Engineers on the Board of NCC My protest to the Hon Minister of Communications vide my letter of 5th January 2004 made Ndukwe cover the fraud with more confusion of near end or far end handshaking which still left NITEL with NO REWARD WHATSOEVER for the only CORE network then in Nigeria which ALL the Telecommunications Operators were using. The only time Ndukwe has ever telephoned me was to phone me in retirement in 2004 with subtle threats because of my letter to the Minister of Communications analyzing his fraudulent paper on Interconnect Rate Determination. I was surprised when Ndukwe told me that NCC Board Approved the paper and I made it plain to him that no responsible Board will approve a paper where the prayer to the Board is in conflict with the analysis, observations and comments therein. I have been contacted on the phone by a self confessed assassin who claims that he has been contracted to kill me by only God knows who. Please note that late Mr. Alaba Joseph who was the CEO of a private telecom company and who once threatened to expose the corruption in the Nigerian telecom market was brutally murdered just before he would have been forced to disclose the reasons for major cash disbursements by his company to a court appointed Receiver when the company could no longer meet is obligation to its bankers.
The other method of the deliberate diversion of NITEL funds to Private telecommunications Operators in Nigeria is the settlement of billions of Naira Invoices that NITEL could not VERIFY because Ernest Ndukwe of NCC insisted that NITEL MUST connect Private Operators at any Point in the Network deliberately intended to bypass the Victoria Island, Lagos Interconnection Exchange which NITEL sank so much money into to be able to monitor Interconnection traffic entering or leaving NITEL network. Mr. Ernest Ndukwe then followed up with a decree that telecommunications operators must settle billing invoices that they cannot verify against all known financial and commercial laws. Please note that many of the invoices that NITEL could not verify but was forced to settle by NCC decree or directives could be nothing more than COMPUTER GENERATED INVOICES as a rookie computer programmer can easily generate such invoices. It is therefore worrisome when the Secretary General mounts podia which in many cases are sponsored by the same NCC to celebrate the unprecedented growth of telecommunications services in Nigeria funded substantially by funds due to NITEL but illegally and criminally diverted.
From the information now at your disposal, I hope that the Secretary General of the ITU will realize and appreciate that the phenomenon growth of GSM in Nigeria has its roots in the greatest corporate heist ever conceived and executed. The Secretary General of the ITU, your good self therefore has the moral burden of ensuring that the wanton criminality and unimaginable capital flight inherent in the celebrated rapid growth of telecommunication services in Nigeria is reversed and the monies that NITEL lost to the Organized crime is computed with the assistance of your office and appropriate compensation made to NITEL. Failure to do this will imply that a specialized organ of the United Nations has been celebrating the mockery of United Nations efforts to minimize corruption globally.
Mr. Secretary General Sir, I wish to assure you that I have taken up these issues with the relevant authorities in Nigeria. Your association with NCC and especially Mr. Ndukwe has not helped matters. The authorities investigating the serious allegations against Mr. Ndukwe of deliberately destroying a National asset and the first National carrier that Nigeria had for decades unfortunately regard your frequent photo opportunities with Mr. Ndukwe as a sign that all is well in the Nigerian Telecommunications sector. You assumed duty as the Secretary General of the ITU just two years ago and you have personally visited Nigeria at least twice in spite of the very heavy schedule of your office. Not only that, your second visit was purportedly as a guest of the NCC sponsored Africa Telecom Development Summit which opened in Abuja on September 9, 2009. This visit in my opinion was diplomatically unwise as it was at a time the Hon Minister of Communications was forced to call Mr. Ndukwe a saboteur publicly for refusing to cooperate with her in getting substantial reduction in the very high gsm tariff in Nigeria which the World Bank and IMF have also declared as one of the highest in the world having no bearing to the economy or the salary of Nigerians thus aggravating poverty in the land. It is however noteworthy that since after your second visit, the Hon Minister of communications Prof. Akunyili who was spitting fire before your visit appears to have lost steam. It is also noteworthy that your visit to Nigeria was not published on Secretary General’s Twitter which chronicles your important engagements. These therefore leave Nigerians to ponder on the real intention for your visit to Nigeria.
If you really have been a close watcher of the Nigeria Telecommunications sector you should have discovered that Licenses issued by the Nigerian Communications Commission are not designed or issued to meet the telecommunications and ICT needs of the country or provide market competition as often stated in the propaganda of the NCC but to mainly satisfy the greed of some Principal officers of the Organization.
In conclusion please permit me to repeat that you owe Nigerians the moral obligation of ensuring that the hundreds of billions of Naira stolen from NITEL, a public asset, in complete disregard of the law mandating tariff to comply with International Regulations or recommendations and the ITU-T recommendations on General tariff principles are recovered for the Nigerian taxpayers who own NITEL.
Wishing you and your family the joys and blessings of the festive season
Yours faithfully,
Solomon O. Ogundele
To: Dr Hamadoun Touré
Secretary-General of ITU
International Telecommunication Union (ITU)
Place des Nations
1211 Geneva 20
Switzerland (c/o [email protected] )
Ban Ki-moon
Secretary-General
United Nations
New York NY 10017
Copy:
President Umoru Yar A’dua,( c/o [email protected] )
Vice President, Jonathan Goodluck (c/o [email protected] )
Hon David Mark, President of the Senate, (c/o [email protected] )
Hon Dimeji Bankole, Speaker of the House of Representative (c/o [email protected] )
Hon. Michael Kaase Aondokaa, (SAN) Attorney-General & Minister of Justice
Hon Prof. D. Akunyili, Minister of Information & Communications ([email protected]
Hon. Alh Ikra Bilbis, Minister of State, Information and Communications (c/o [email protected] ; [email protected] )
The Secretary to the Federal Government, Alh Yayale Ahmed
Mrs. Farida Waziri, Chairman, Economic and Financial Crimes Commission
Chairman, NITEL Technical board (c/o [email protected] )
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