The absence of Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Prof. Isa Pantami among other factors, stalled a public hearing on a Bill to repeal the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA).
The Director-General of the NITDA, Kashifu Abdullah was also absent at the hearing.
The Chief Executive Officer, Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), Prof. Umar Danbatta and other stakeholders also failed to appear at the public hearing.
The hearing was convened by the Senate and House of Representatives Joint Committee on ICT and Cyber Security held on Friday in Abuja.
Chairman of the joint committee, Sen. Yakubu Oseni said the bill sought to provide for the administration, implementation and regulation of information technology systems and practices as well as the digital economy in Nigeria and for related matters.
BRANDPOWER reports that only Oseni and Sen. Ibrahim Hadejia (APC-Jigawa) were present while four House of Representatives members, Rep. Isiaka Ibrahim, Rep. Samsudeen Bello, Rep. Zaiyad Ibrahim, and Rep Idem Unyime were in attendance.
The invited stakeholders were Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) of the Federal and state governments, Civil Society Organisations, and the entire business community among others
Stakeholders and members of the general public who were invited by the joint committee attended the event except the heads of critical MDAs in the communication sector.
The stakeholders had described the bill as important to the Nigerian economy but also controversial on the basis that it arrogated the powers of existing government agencies to NITDA as an agency.
They argued that the bill sought to make NITDA a mega regulator of regulators in the country, going by the provisions in the bill.
The President of the senate, Dr Ahmad Lawan, who was represented by the Deputy Whip of the senate, Sen. Sabi Abdullahi, inaugurated the opening of the event.
Indications that the public hearing wouldn’t have gone on as usual first came when the Deputy Chief Whip of the Senate and representative of the Senate President, Senator Aliyu Sabi Abdullahi, cautioned those he accused of describing Friday’s public hearing as a secret meeting.
Abdullahi stated that the National Assembly had no ulterior motive and had followed due process in calling for the public hearing on the NITDA Bill.
Stakeholders in the ICT had raised an alarm over the hurried move by the Joint Senate and House Committee on Information Communications Technology, ICT, to pass a controversial bill to govern the Nigerian Information Technology Development Agency.
They had expressed suspicion that the Committee wanted to pass the bill without substantial public participation.
It was also alleged that the submissions of the industry stakeholders made during its first public hearing, were discarded.
