Nigeria re-elected to the International Telecommunication Union council for a three year term

NIGERIA has been re-elected as council member of the United Nations specialised agency that oversees global telecommunication operations the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) for the next three years.

At the ongoing ITU summit held in the Romanian capital Bucharest, Nigeria was voted on to the council again to serve between 2023 and 2026. Nigeria's delegation to the event was led by Professor Isa Pantami, the minister of communications and includes the chairman of the Nigerian Communications Commission Professor Adeolu Akande and its chief executive Professor Umar Danbatta.

At the conference, which started on September 26 and is scheduled to end on October 14, member states at voted on the composition of the next council and the 12 representatives to serve on the Radio Regulations Board for the next four years. Nigeria was elected to represent the African region, which has 13 seats made up of Algeria, Egypt, Ghana, Kenya, Mauritius, Morocco, Rwanda, Senegal, South Africa, Tanzania, Tunisia and Uganda.

Also, the summit elected Doreen Bogdan-Martin of the US as the organisation’s next secretary-general. She thus becomes the first woman to lead ITU in its 157-year history and will begin her four-year term from January 2023, when Houlin Zhao stands down.

Professor Danbatta said: “The re-election of Nigeria as a member of ITU council for the next four years, again, points to the globally-recognised leadership role Nigeria is playing in Africa and at the level of ITU council in the area of telecommunications policy formulation and technical regulations development to drive ITU’s mission and vision."

Originally established in 1865 as the International Telegraph Union, the ITU became a United Nations specialised agency in 1947, was set up to coordinate telecommunications operations and services throughout the world. It is headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland and Nigeria became a member on November 4, 1961.