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By Chinenye Anuforo, [email protected]
Controversies have continued to trail the proposed NITDA Bill 2021, as experts in the industry have expressed dissatisfaction on how the bill principally targets usurpation, duplication and unnecessary overlapping with the Nigerian Communications Commission’s regulatory powers in the Nigerian Communications Act, 2003, and other agencies.
NITDA earlier hosted a stakeholder’s engagement forum on the proposed NITDA Bill 2021 and from the comments, suggestions and opinions expressed by stakeholders at the meeting it was observed that there was a general disapproval of the bill, which they argued arrogates powers of several other regulatory agencies to NITDA, an infringement on the statutory powers of other agencies of government like Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), Galaxy Backbone, ONSA and National Universities Commission (NUC), among others.
Consequently, Computer Professionals of Nigeria (CPN), in a statement signed by its registrar/secretary to council, Muhammad Bello Aliyu, said stakeholders who attended the meeting were unanimous in their opinions that several sections in the proposed NITDA Bill were an usurpation of the statutory powers of other agencies of government that had been in existence before NITDA, and which have been performing their statutory roles.
“For instance, Section 6, 13, 20, 21, and 22, which talked about NITDA’s power, licensing and authorisations, offences and penalties, among others, raised some pertinent issues. Section 6 arrogated new powers to NITDA, which included the ability to fix licensing and authorisation charges, collect fees and penalties and issue contravention notices and non-compliance with the act,” the body stated.
CPN claimed that all the agencies present during the stakeholders’ engagement meeting were unanimous in their opinion that the offending sections of the proposed NITDA Bill, giving NITDA powers to perform other agencies’ functions should be expunged.
CPN said it strongly believes that NITDA should stick to its role as an IT development agency and stop seeking regulatory roles since there is so much that is yet to be done under information technology development in the country.
On their part, legal experts in Nigeria picked holes in the propositions contained in the proposed NITDA Bill 2021, describing it as infiltrating or attempting to unnecessarily duplicate the regulatory powers of some government agencies in the country.
The legal luminaries made their positions known during a webinar on “Stakeholders’ Engagement for Legal Practitioners in Nigeria on National Information Technology Development Agency Bill, 2021,” which took place last week.
During the webinar anchored by the chief executive officer of FIL, Sanusi Musa, the president of the Nigerian Bar Association, Olumide Apata, who raised three fundamental concerns on the proposed bill, which, he said, should be looked into by stakeholders at the webinar. Apata was represented by the ICT committee head, NBA-SBL, Rotimi Ogunyemi.
The tripartite concerns raised by Apata were around how the bill would align with the Startup Bill before the National Assembly, how the NITDA Bill intends to navigate its way within the broadband context of other regulatory functions of other regulate agencies to avoid overlapping of functions; and what will be the implications of the harsh penalties for violation of certain sections of the bill on the ICT business environment.
Other legal experts spoke on other areas of conflict of the proposed NITDA Bill with existing legislations of some other organisations, including the Central Bank of Nigeria and the Nigerian Communications Commission, among others.
Each of the acts establishing all the agencies was looked into vis-à-vis the new provisions in the NITDA Bill and it was unanimously stated by the legal stakeholders that there were regulatory conflicts that may be detrimental to the peaceful regulatory atmosphere in the nation’s digital economy space.
Aside some of the provisions overlapping on the regulatory functions of other agencies, the legal experts observed that a number of the provisions in the Bill as “ambiguous, unclear, nebulous, fluid and capable of exerting substantial regulatory conflict in the system.
They called on the drafters of the NITDA Bill 2021 to go back to the drawing table and ensure that they address all the areas of regulatory conflict with existing regulatory powers on functions of other agencies. Some of the stakeholders also called for outright expunging of the conflicting sections from the Bill, stating, however, that if NITDA wishes to collaborate with other agencies in some critical areas of regulations, it is better to simply “resort to signing Memoranda of Understanding (MoU) with other concerned agencies instead of interloping into their regulatory arena.”
The stakeholders further stated that NITDA is understood to be a ICT policy development and implementation agency and should not unnecessarily arrogating a regulatory powers, which are already being exercised by other agencies, to itself, through the controversial Bill.
Earlier justifying the need for the review of the NITDA Act, the Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Isa Pantami, who was represented by his Technical Adviser, Saliu Junaidu, said NITDA Act 2007 is one of the laws that require a repeal and re-enactment in order to keep it in tune with the developmental regulation direction of the National Digital Economy Policy and Strategy (NDEPS), 2020-2030.
Also justifying the need for the Bill, Director-General of NITDA, Kashifu Abdullahi, said the scope of ICT has widened over the years with a lot of convergence and expansion in technology platforms being used by businesses and governments for delivery services. “Considering that NITDA Act is almost 16 years old, we consider it necessary to keep the Act up-to-date with the current reality in the Nigerian digital economy space,” he said.
In his earlier remarks providing information on the new provisions in the proposed NITDA Act 2021, Director, Legal Service Department at NITDA, Emmanuel Edet, stated clearly “we know that some of the areas we would like to be regulating fall into the existing regulatory functions of some agencies.” He said this informed why NITDA’s emphasis would be on collaboration.
