The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has called for a data-driven regulatory framework to support Africa’s digital economy, urging telecommunications regulators across the continent to strengthen collaboration and adopt evidence-based decision-making in addressing emerging industry challenges.
Aminu Maida, executive vice chairman and chief executive officer of the NCC, made the call at the 7th Ordinary Session of the Conference Preparatory Committee (CPC) of the African Telecommunications Union (ATU) in Abuja on Tuesday.
Maida said African regulators face similar challenges despite differences in market size, legal frameworks and national priorities.
According to him, the pace of technological change has made traditional regulatory approaches inadequate, requiring regulators to rely more on data, market intelligence and cross-border collaboration to make informed decisions.
“We may regulate markets of different sizes, operate under different legal frameworks and respond to different national priorities. But the realities of our work are often remarkably similar,” Maida said.
He noted that conversations among regulators often extend beyond routine issues to investment, infrastructure resilience, satellite services, cybersecurity, affordability, artificial intelligence and other emerging technologies that continue to test existing regulatory frameworks.
“The challenge that one regulator is trying to solve has already been encountered in one form or another by a colleague elsewhere on the continent. The question is how we make that exchange of experience more deliberate, more systematic and more useful to our institutions,” he said.
Maida said the roundtable, themed “Building Africa’s Network Intelligence Ecosystem for Evidence-Based Regulation,” provides an opportunity for regulators to examine how data, evidence and market intelligence can improve regulatory decisions while enabling African countries to learn from one another.
He said Nigeria would share its experience in deploying regulatory intelligence but stressed that the objective was to encourage discussions on successful approaches, lessons from previous initiatives and areas where collaboration could help avoid duplication of efforts across African markets.
Also speaking, Rimini Makama, executive commissioner for stakeholder management at the NCC, said the continent’s digital transformation is reshaping the communications sector, making data-driven regulation increasingly important.
According to her, broadband expansion, the adoption of satellite services, artificial intelligence, cloud computing and digital public infrastructure have introduced new complexities that require regulators to move beyond conventional approaches.
“Our discussion today turns on one question that matters to every regulator in this room: How do we use data and evidence to make decisions that are smarter, more transparent and more focused on consumers?” Makama said.
She said that while regulators now have access to more technical, market and consumer data, the challenge is converting that information into policies and regulatory decisions that deliver measurable outcomes.
“The challenge is not collecting it. The challenge is turning it into better decisions,” she said.
Makama said African regulators share common priorities, including consumer protection, promoting competition, attracting investment and strengthening network resilience, making collaboration across ATU member states necessary.
She said the NCC has developed a regulatory intelligence ecosystem that integrates quality of service and quality of experience data, consumer complaints, compliance analytics and market intelligence into a single platform to support evidence-based regulation.
The system, she said, has informed several regulatory interventions and would be presented to delegates by Kwasim Odubakun, deputy director at the NCC.
Makama urged regulators to share experiences on maintaining independent and reliable data, addressing barriers to regulatory data sharing, using advanced analytics and measuring consumer experience beyond conventional quality of service indicators.
The roundtable is part of efforts by African telecommunications regulators to strengthen policy coordination and regulatory capacity as the continent advances its digital transformation and adopts emerging technologies.
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