The executive The Executive Vice Chairman of the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), Prof. Umar Garba Danbatta, speaks on telecoms development and the expectations that Nigeria will surpass the target of 70 per cent broadband penetration by 2025, given the current statistics of 45.93 per cent penetration as at October 2020. Emma Okonji presents the excerpts: You were among the recipients of this yearâs ZIK Prize for leadership award. What does it mean to you and the entire staff of the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) where you sit at the helm of affairs? I was honoured with the Zik Leadership Award in the professional leadership category. We were two, who got that award. The other person is a banker. The reason I was considered for the award, according to the organisers, was that NCC succeeded in raising the bar in the telecommunications industry. They acknowledged the fact that we have been able to raise broadband penetration from about 6 per cent in 2015 to 45.93 per cent in October 2020. They talked about how we at NCC have empowered the telecoms consumers. Remember, the NCC declared 2017 as the year of the consumer. That was equally appreciated. They also noted our efforts on protection of the consumers against unsolicited SMS, providing them a toll free number they can used to complain. So, when services are being provided to over 207 million subscribers, of course, complaints are expected. In fact, they are normal. We however, have an excellent consumer resolution mechanism in place, which is working well. The response time to complaints can be shorter. We have the 622 number that is on 24 hours to resolve issues.