President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has effected a shake-up in the Federal Ministry of Communications, Innovation, and Digital Economy that has affected three agencies under the Ministry. The affected agencies and heads include the Executive Vice Chairman of the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), Prof Umar Danbatta; the Postmaster General/CEO of the Nigeria Postal Service (NIPOST), Mr Sunday Adepoju; and the CEO of Nigeria Communication Satellite Limited (NigComSat), Tukur Mohammed Lawal Funtua.
The new appointees to take over these three agencies include Aminu Maida as the new EVC/CEO of the NCC, Nkechi Egerton-Idehen as the new MD/CEO of NIGCOCOMSAT and Tola Odeyemi as the Postmaster General / CEO.
The appointments announced by the Special Adviser to the President (Media & Publicity), Ajuri Ngelale, take immediate effect.
The DG / CEO of the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), Kashifu Inuwa Abdullahi, and the National Commissioner / CEO, Nigeria Data Protection Commission (NDPC), Dr. Vincent Olatunji, were not affected by the shake up.
The President also announced the appointment of Idris Alubankudi as Special Adviser to the President on Technology and Digital Economy.
Prof. Umar Danbatta was reappointed to serve a second five year term by former President Buhari in 2020 to serve in the position till 2025 while the Postmaster General of NIPOST, Sunday Adepoju was appointed by President Buhari in October 2022 and has barely spent 1 year in office. Engineer Tukur Mohammed Lawal Funtua of NIGCOMSAT was just appointed in December 2022.
According to the President, these appointments were in line with his determination to maximally leverage Nigeria’s proven technological and digital economic prowess to reposition the nation’s economy toward greater financial inclusion.
Before the appointment, Aminu Maida was the Executive Director, Technology and Operations at Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement System Plc (NIBSS). He has over 15 years’ multi-functional and international experience in FinTech, Telecoms and Enterprise Technology. Prior to NIBSS, Maida was CTO at the Nigerian-based FinTech Arca Payments Network and Senior Manager at Cisco Systems UK. He holds an MEng in Information Systems Engineering from Imperial College London and a PhD in Electrical & Electronic Engineering from the University of Bath UK
Prior to taking up the new role as the MD/CEO of NIGCOCOMSAT, Nkechi Jane Egerton-Idehen has served in various leadership capacities including Head of Sales (Middle East and Africa) at Meta (formerly Facebook), Country Manager for Nigeria, and Regional Sales Director at Avanti Communications Group PLC.
Tola Odeyemi, the new Postmaster General / CEO of NIPOST, served at the Head of Government Relations, West Africa for Binance before taking up the new role. She was once the Head of Public Policy, West Africa.
