Hon Samson Osagie

Honourable Samson Osagie, the Minority Whip in the House of Representatives of the 7th National Assembly was recently appointed Executive Director, Marketing and Business Development, NIGCOMSAT. In this interview with journalists,  he spoke about the potentials of the company for Nigeria’s social-economic development and how the new management will tackle the various challenges confronting it to make it’s a viable organization. Ayorinde Oluokun was there

You were recently appointed as Executive Director, Business Development and Marketing,  NIGCOMSAT. What are the new things you and your colleagues are bringing to the table to reposition this company?

Let me say that I thank God for the opportunity. I didn’t send myself to NIGCOMSAT. I did not apply for a job there. The government felt that I could make an impact. This is the first time in my life that I am getting a political appointment without contesting election. I thank Mr. President for this appointment. I was given the portfolio of Executive Director, Marketing and Business Development.

Now, what does NIGCOMSAT Stands for? Those who conceived the idea of coming up with a communications satellite for the country are visionary and nationalistic, I must commend them. The Nigerian Airspace Development Agency, NASRDA put the team together for the NIGCOMSAT Project in 2003. The idea was multipronged- to position Nigeria in the eyes of the world as a real super power , not just on paper, but with a demonstrable advancement in technology at least in the continent of Africa because it would take an advancement in technology for a country to be able to launch a satellite into the orbit.

And as at the time it was done, and even as I speak, Nigeria is the only country South of the Sahara that has a functioning, live satellite in the orbit for communications purposes. The satellite has the capacity to foster our complex commercial communication needs through broadband data services , telecommunications and broadcast networks. Angola is just building their own now and that will be the second one. So, those who put it in place are very visionary. They wanted to let the world know that Nigeria has the capacity to be a world leader because when you are asking for a seat in the (UN) Security Council, what advancement do you really have?

Having a communication satellite can also improve your military and Security architecture, you don’t have to depend on foreign satellite to even run your military and Security intelligence networks. A communications satellite like the one Nigeria has can also help a nation to have a foot print in some other nations of the world and that is why as I speak to you now, the Nigeria Communications Satellite in the geo stationary orbit has footprints in about 54 countries of the world, particularly, West, Central and Southern Africa and some parts of Europe. The de-orbiting of our first satellite NIGCOMSAT-1 in 2006 is not peculiar.

Arthur Clarke was the first person to conceive of the idea of communications satellite. When American launched its first set of communications satellite they had many failures, even Russia had the same problems before they successfully launched Sputnik and the US launched America Explora. But because of the fate that befell NIGCOMSAT 1, everybody now thinks that the NIGCOMSAT is a failed Project. No not at all. But I must tell you that NIGCOMSAT-1R is very functional and providing services to an array of both public and private bodies. It has the potential of assisting the Federal Government generate huge revenue to fund its budget and reduce reliance on oil. It is one of those areas the government can look into in order to diversify the economy.

In the last five years, satellite communications business globally has hit over $200billion. Satellite Communications business is a big and global business. The Nigeria Communications Satellite has the capacity to generate funds if well managed, marketed and if its services are embraced even by Nigerians alone, it can generate five to ten billion dollars per annum.

That’s the challenge because people are saying the way NIGCOMSAT was managed in the past, those potentials have failed to materialize…

The potentials are still there and that is why government is bringing in people from private and public sector with varied expertise to help drive the process of commercialization of the company. Those who started it have been those who have been running it and they have been majorly those who were recruited through the normal public service. But I must confess that they are some of the best brains that we have in this country.

NIGCOMSAT can boast of the best engineers in Nigeria today, they can hold their own anywhere in the world. They are the ones solely running the Satellite. So, our injection into the company is to be able to bring added value and let things move at a faster pace given our background in both private and public service, we should be able to talk to people and they should listen to the value proposition that we are bringing on behalf of the company. This company is viable and it can become more viable for the Nigerian state if we all believe in it. It is a matter of patriotism.

So, how would NIGCOMSAT overcome the challenges?  

There are challenges, just like there are challenges in the other sectors. NIGCOMSAT is a Nigerian company fully owned by government. And it is not immune from regular problems that beset Nigerian institutions. Funding of projects and some of its critical equipments which are becoming obsolete is an issue. Two, the absence of a backup satellite is also making people lose confidence in it.

But I have good news for you guys. Only last week, Belarus, a country in part of Europe which also has one satellite which was built by the company that built our own has entered into mutual service backup agreement with us. At the just concluded Africa Com in Cape Town, South Africa where I represented the company we have started talks with other major Global Satellite Companies on the possibilities of collaboration as well. In other words, it is as good as if we now have two satellites with the potential for more backups services.

But we are also negotiating several investments that will give us two additional satellites, Nigcomsat 2 and 3 so as to guarantee regular services to our corporate and public sector customers in terms of our capacity. The challenges we have are not insurmountable. Government also understands that having invested that much in the company it does not have to look away and it is in order not to look away that they have brought us in. What we have seen on ground is amazing. If only the capacity of that company is utilized by 40 per cent, it can on its own meet its needs. And so, that is why we are pushing, trying to expand the business frontiers now trying to have partnership with state governments, operators in the ICT sector, different organizations to partner with us and use our services in order to overcome some of these challenges.

A former management of NIGCOMSAT was at a time advocating that the company should be given licence to provide last mile services like the GSM telephone companies?

The kinds of services we render are not usually retail services. We worked with channel partners to deliver services to end users. We cannot be in position to operate like telecommunications companies. Telecommunications companies are channel partners to satellite owners. Certainly that is not what we are looking at. What we are looking at is to deploy our services, our transponders for the use of telecommunications companies to guarantee their own services because I don’t see what those foreign satellite companies are doing with our telecommunication companies here in Nigeria that Nigcomsat cannot provide because telephone calls are not efficient.

What stopped MTN for instance, from saying for a particular segment of the country, we are using NIGCOMSAT transponders to be able to deliver services? But they will not do it because there are powerful Nigerians that are partners with those companies. You know that telephone services in Nigeria are not efficient. So, NIGCOMSAT can provide services that can also make telcos deliver services the way they are delivering it now, even in a more efficient manner.

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It will not be a good business move to also get a license to operate a telecommunications company. We don’t even need government to get a license to operate a GSM company. You go to NCC. But that would now be like you are operating at the upstream and you also wants to operate at the downstream segment of the sector.  Do you know what will be involved in that will be huge in terms of capital outlay?  You must be able to sustain your equipment and your capacity level to offer full upstream services, before you can even talk of going into retailing at all. So, you cannot be pursuing so many things at the same time. Most satellite companies don’t do that. They are at the background. DSTV is a brand name for Multichoice. Multichoice as a company doesn’t have satellites in the orbit; they leased transponders from Satellite companies. So, those satellite companies don’t have to come down to be selling set up boxes or decoders for you. We also have those facilities which an off taker can come and invest in and take it to the public to deliver to end users and to the underserved and it will be cheaper than the dollar rate they are spending. That’s the truth of the matter with NIGCOMSAT. It has the capacity to give jobs to numerous Nigerians through its services down the value chain.

And its services are very important for the rural areas because the alternative for the satellite services for broadband services is that you lay cable- the fiber network. But how many places can you connect with fibre? But you don’t need fiber with satellite.

Right now, we have over 50 channels on our broadcasting network (DTH platform) that are running free to air. We get aggregators to get these channels into our system and then we are running them free to air pending when an off taker will come to take it to the end users like Multichoice. We are already talking with Strong and others on our DTH platform. We are considering a lot of business proposals right now. Many people are now getting interested and in the last two months, we have had engagement with well over 30 investors who are interested in taking on one aspect of our service or the other.
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