When President Muhammadu Buhari ascended power, he was clear in reiterating that his administration is placing corruption eradication as the focal point of its transformation agenda. In fact one of his first acts in office was to declare that the all national revenue be kept in a Treasury Single Account (TSA) for effective oversight.
Following after that, the senate began probing Remita, and later on terminated their contract on what was allegedly an abuse and mismanagement of the TSA by the company responsible for managing the Remita platform for the TSA.
While it’s unclear who is managing the Remita platform for the TSA now, the NCC on the other hand appears to be playing by the books. In a little as just a year since Prof. Umar Danbatta’s appointment as Executive Vice Chairman and CEO of the regulatory agency, the NCC claims to have remitted ₦70 billion to the federation account.
According to the special assistant to the EVC, Yakubu Musa, the cash payment is in addition to the ₦30 billion paid by MTN as part of a renegoniated fine of N330 billion slammed on the company for failing to deregister about 5.2 million unregistered subscriber from its network.
The NCC was instrumental in not only ensuring that MTN pays the fine but also overseeing other key financial deals; like the auctioning of the 2.6GHz spectrum for instance that raked in a whooping $96 million. Deeds like that haven’t gone unnoticed, with NCC raking in numerous awards from within and outside the country. Prof. Umar Danbatta himself is among the head of key government agencies invited to make a presentation at a two-day retreat on enhancing revenue generation in the country later in the year.
If you come to think of it, this is not all surprising. Earlier in the year, Okechukwu Ofili shared a conspiracy theory that accused the NCC of victimizing MTN as part of the Nigerian government's plans to drastically increase non-oil revenue in 2016. In light of recent happenings, that theory is starting to seem more plausible.
Suggested Read: Why small Nigerian businesses should care about the outrageous MTN Nigeria fine
So much about the NCC and their falling in line with President Muhammadu Buhari’s transformation agenda you’d say.
