The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has urged African telecommunications and communications regulators to strengthen collaboration by leveraging data, evidence and market intelligence to deliver more effective, responsive and future-ready regulation across the continent.
The call was made by the Executive Vice Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of the NCC, Dr. Aminu Maida, while speaking at the Heads of Regulators Roundtable held during the African Telecommunications Union (ATU) Conference of Plenipotentiaries (CPL-26) in Abuja.
Dr. Maida said communications regulation has become increasingly central to Africa’s economic growth, digital transformation and national development, noting that despite operating within different legal and market environments, regulators across the continent continue to grapple with many of the same issues.
According to him, these common challenges include infrastructure development, cybersecurity, affordability, satellite services, network resilience and the rapid emergence of artificial intelligence technologies.
Highlighting the importance of greater regulatory cooperation, he observed that interactions among African regulators consistently reveal valuable lessons that can help institutions respond more effectively to complex policy and regulatory issues.
He, therefore, stressed the need to make such exchanges more deliberate, systematic and beneficial to regulatory authorities across the continent.
He noted that, “Very often, the challenge one regulator is trying to solve has already been encountered, in one form or another, by a colleague elsewhere on the continent.”
Dr. Maida described the roundtable’s theme, “Building Africa’s Network Intelligence Ecosystem for Evidence-Based Regulation,” as both timely and highly relevant to the future of communications regulation in Africa.
“It gives us an opportunity to consider how better use of data, evidence and market intelligence can strengthen regulatory decisions, and how African regulators can learn more systematically from one another,” he explained.
Chairing the roundtable, the NCC’s Executive Commissioner, Stakeholder Management, Rimini Makama, said the rapidly evolving digital landscape demands a shift from traditional regulatory models to more intelligence-driven approaches.
She stated that, “developments such as broadband expansion, satellite services, artificial intelligence, cloud computing and digital public infrastructure are making communications ecosystems increasingly complex and requiring regulators to move beyond traditional regulatory approaches.”
Makama noted that although regulators across Africa now have access to increasing volumes of technical, market and consumer data, the greater challenge is converting that information into actionable intelligence capable of supporting more effective regulatory decisions and better outcomes for consumers and the industry.
The Heads of Regulators Roundtable forms part of broader efforts by African communications regulators to deepen evidence-based regulation, strengthen regional cooperation, and build more resilient, innovative and consumer-focused communications ecosystems across the continent.
