9mobile Board visits NCC as Danbatta affirms telco top in Quality of Service

… shines as ‘Telecom Company of the Year 2018’ Award

The new Board of Directors of 9mobile has demonstrated commitment to promoting cordial stakeholder relations by paying a courtesy visit to the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) in Abuja, where they also affirmed commitment to sustained delivery of excellent services to customers.

The assurance by the board of 9mobile to sustain excellent service delivery also received regulatory acknowledgement when the NCC Executive Vice Chairman/CEO, Prof. Umar Danbatta, commended the telco for not only continuously meeting the key performance indicators on quality of service but surpassing the industry mark even during the trying time it went through.

Led by the Chairman of the Board, Alhaji Nasiru Ado Bayero, 9mobile board members on the visit to the NCC headquarters included three Non-Executive Directors – Asega Aliga, Mohammed Edewor and Winston Ndubueze Udeh. Others were the Acting Managing Director, Stephane Beuvelet and Executive Director, Regulatory & Corporate Affairs, Abdulrahman Ado. Executive Management Team members including Chief Financial Officer, Phillips Oki and Company Secretary, Ore Olajide were also on the visit.

Bayero, while speaking during an interaction with the executive management team of the NCC led by the Executive Vice Chairman/CEO, Prof. Umar Danbatta, commended NCC for its immense support alongside the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) in ensuring smooth and successful completion of the 9mobile acquisition process.

“We have come to extend our courtesies to the NCC under the able leadership of Prof. Umar Danbatta who has been doing an excellent job steering the commission’s affairs. We are particularly delighted at the professional and thorough supervisory roles the NCC and other regulatory stakeholders played in the acquisition process of 9mobile”, he said.

Bayero assured further that the new board constituted in November 2018 will uphold excellence as the gold standard across all operations of 9mobile and ensure the bar of service quality remains sky-high at every touchpoint.

In his words, “We have competent people with very rich experience that cuts across diverse fields of business. We reiterate our commitment to excellence in all spheres of our operations. We also want to assure you and our valued subscribers that we will justify their confidence in our brand by making significant investments that will improve the value they get for choosing 9mobile.”

While responding, Danbatta expressed delight that 9mobile was already on the path of recovery and growth, stating that he was thankful that the joint regulatory intervention by the NCC and CBN, along with other stakeholders, spared the industry and the Nigerian economy the unpleasant socio-economic effects that would have followed if the transition had not been successful.

“I’m happy that the acquisition process is over and the new board, comprising eminent Nigerians with sound business and professional pedigree, has started steering the affairs of the company in the right direction. Now that this take over is concluded, I know that the new board and management of 9mobile are busy trying to ensure that the telco continues to provide the excellent services that they are known for and which is attested to by the quality of service which is characterized by some key performance indicators which the telco has never failed to meet even during the crisis period”, he said.

Danbatta added: “You won’t believe this, but every time we measure the KPIs for all the companies, 9mobile comes up top. And I am not stating this as a marketing stunt for 9mobile, I am saying this arising from the figures we have consistently recorded; 9mobile has one of the best networks in the country, that I can attest to, based on the result of the KPIs characterising Quality of Service.”

In another development  the Nigeria’s innovative telecommunication company, 9mobile, again added to its long list of honours and recognitions with the latest being ‘Telecom Company of the Year 2018’ award.

The newest honour conferred by Leadership Group Limited, publishers of Leadership newspaper, is in recognition of the telco’s resilience and stability in the face of challenges which the company pulled through over the past two years.

While presenting the award to 9mobile during an awards ceremony which took place on Thursday, February 7, 2019 at the International Conference Centre, Abuja, Group Managing Director of Leadership Group Limited, Abdul Gombe, said the decision to honour 9mobile as the Telecom Company of the Year was a unanimous decision reached by an enlarged Board of Editors at a recent meeting.

He commended 9mobile for emerging stronger from its many tests including the challenging operating environment, tough regulatory requirements, threat of take-over by a banking consortium and post-acquisition realities.

Gombe said, “In the face of all these, 9mobile has maintained its relevance and its 9ja brand heritage within the Nigerian telecommunication space. For your resilience, the selection board found you most suitable for this prestigious award.”

Receiving the award, Acting Managing Director, 9mobile, Stephane Beuvelet, commended the Leadership Group Limited for finding the telco worthy of the honour, stating that it would serve as further motivation to the new board and management to continue building a world-class telecommunications company.

“On behalf of my other board members, we’d like to say thank you to Leadership Group Limited, for this award. Indeed 2018 was a defining year for 9mobile, but we saw it as an opportunity to show our mettle and spirit of resilience. Our appreciation also goes to all our stakeholders – our regulators who worked assiduously to ensure that the transition process was seamless; investors and financial partners that sustained the flow of critical lifeblood that we needed to stay afloat, and our customers who demonstrated loyalty and confidence in the brand” he added.

Beuvelet, who received the award alongside the telco’s Chief Financial Officer, Phillips Oki; Company Secretary, Ore Olajide and Executive Director, Regulatory and Corporate Affairs, Abdulrahman Ado, pledged 9mobile’s commitment to transacting business with integrity, putting value for customer spend at the core of its propositions, and disrupting the market with innovative products and services.

9mobile is Nigeria’s fourth largest telecoms operator and the telco in late 2018 successfully delivered a historic transition to its current shareholding structure and inaugurated a new board to chart the course of its next phase of success.