Pantami: The alternative conversation

If some public affairs commentators and their partisan associates have their way, the next head to be placed in the hangman’s noose is that of Dr Isa Ali Ibrahim Pantami. Nominated and confirmed as a minister in August 2019, Pantami’s posting to the Ministry of Communications and Digital Economy is no doubt fit and proper.

In less than two years in office, Pantami has justified the confidence President Muhammadu Buhari had in him. The new ministry, under his watch, has rolled out two strategic documents for the sector – the National Digital Economy Policy and Strategy and the National Broadband Plan. While yet to celebrate his first year on the ministerial seat, Pantami frontally tackled the issue of excessive Right of Way charges and vandalism of telecommunication infrastructure, which had nagged the sector for decades.

With Pantami in charge, broadband penetration increased by about 10 per cent in a year, instead of the average annual increase of about 1.7 per cent. According to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) Report for the second quarter of last year, as compiled by the National Bureau of Statistics, Information Communication Technology (ICT) contributed an unprecedented 17.83 per cent to the GDP. ICT was also the fastestgrowing sector of the Nigerian economy in the fourth quarter of last year contributing 14.7 per cent.

To critics of Pantami, all these do not matter. Not even the passion with which he drives the generation of a database for the country through the National Identity Card scheme will assuage his traducers. In a country that lacks the accurate figures to aid developmental activities, this should have attracted applause for the minister.

Why did they rail against Sheikh Pantami? His religious views stand tall among other factors.

The substantive issues are being ignored in the anti-Pantami narration. He has long repented from his radical ways, but his traducers will not see beyond that and view the revolution he has brought into his job at the Ministry of Communications and Digital Economy. The aggressive build-up of our national database through the National Identity Number is a revolution that will benefit national development and growth, if allowed to run its course.

Pantami has commenced a radical transformation in the ICT sector. He should be allowed to see it through.

Sunny Jackson Eyibio lives in Abuja