Mohammed Arzika

Background

Arzika was the Chairman of the People's Solidarity Party (PSP), one of the political parties that applied for registration when General Ibrahim Babangida started preparing for a transition to democracy in 1991, later merging into the Social Democratic Party (SDP). After the failure of the Nigerian Third Republic with the assumption of power by General Sani Abacha, he became a member of the National Democratic Coalition (NADECO) formed in May 1994.

Minister of Communications

In June 1999 Arzika was appointed Minister of Communications in Obasanjo's first cabinet. He published a formal telecommunications policy in May 2000. Prior to the official policy release, Arzika said the changes would help Nigeria add two million fixed and 1.2 million mobile lines over the next two years. At the time, Nigeria had about 500,000 connected lines for a population of over 108 million. The policy essentially remained in force for the next ten years.

The telecommunications environment at the time was dominated by the state-owned Nigerian Telecommunications (NITEL). Although Private Telecoms Operators (PTO) were allowed to provide service, typically using wireless links, the PTOs complained that NITEL denied them access to the network, or failed to provide sufficient access lines, and charged excessively for connections. Speaking in June 2000, the NITEL Managing Director Emmanuel Ojeba said that NITEL would address these problems, and planned to expand network capacity by about one million lines per year.

Arzika promised to provide telephone service in all the local government areas. At the opening session of the second Africa Internet Summit in September 2000, Arzika said the Nigerian government had identified access to telecommunications as a critical factor in the development of all aspects of the nation's economy. Arzika pushed to liberalize the telecommunications sector. In early 2001 the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) auctioned licenses for GSM mobile carriers. NITEL obtained a licence, and well as Econet and MTN. Arzika also made a strong case for expanding NITEL to transform it into a "viable, reliable and technologically sound company to enable it to meet the demands of government's deregulation and privatisation policies". In December 2000, Arzika said that plans to privatize NITEL had received a favorable reaction both within and outside the country.

In January 2001 President Obasanjo approved a merger of NITEL and the state-owned mobile carrier M-Tel, and confirmed the appointment of Emmanuel Ojeba as the Chief executive. Until then Ojeba had been in an acting capacity for almost a year. In March 2001, Arzika visited the People's Republic of China accompanied by Ojeba and met with his counterpart Mr Wu Jichuan, where they discussed approaches both countries were taking to ensure rapid telecoms growth. In April 2001 Arzika ordered the removal of Ojeba from his position as managing director of NITEL ahead of his scheduled retirement in June 2001 as part of the "process of reinvigorating the much-criticised national carrier".

Speaking in May 2001 in response to allegations that NITEL had executed inflated contracts, a NITEL spokesman said Arzika "is the only minister ... that has not bothered to influence any decision in the company, so how then could anyone allege that he was in the know how?" In June 2001 Arzika resigned from the cabinet. He was replaced by Mohammed Bello.