The 2022 International Women’s Day became a day for Prof. Umar Garba Danbatta, the Executive Vice Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), to acknowledge his role in women empowerment in the country, as numerous beneficiaries of his efforts decorated him with awards of recognition.
The event was a public lecture hosted by the Kano Civil Society Forum (KCSF), an umbrella organization of over 200 women’s rights organizations, in collaboration with Bayero University’s Aminu Kano Centre for Democratic Studies to commemorate the 2022 International Women’s Day (IWD), which Danbatta presided over yesterday in Kano State.
While Danbatta was supposed to present awards to various women who had excelled in various fields, he had no idea that the beneficiaries of the Commission’s youth entrepreneur skills and other empowerment programs, as well as his personal charity foundation, Danbatta Charity Foundation (NCF), were planning an ambush to present him with their own prizes.
In a similar manner, the CDS, Mumbayya House, and the KCSF presented the EVC with their awards of honor, which caught the NCC boss off guard.
Danbatta had previously informed the audience that he believes strongly in women’s potential and that he has never hesitated to delegate tasks to his female colleagues since he has always found them to be highly trustworthy.
“I am a firm believer in the enormous potential that women possess. And they do it with delicacy rather than violence, like men do. Tenderness comes naturally to women. They take care of whatever they’re doing with refinement and precision. He emphasized that they “achieve on targets assigned to them before deadlines.”
Further, the EVC stated that he has never assigned a woman in the Commission a job that was not completed on time, “to the point that, ladies and gentlemen, I am always comfortable having a woman head committee, whenever there is a need.”
Danbatta, who said that respect for women is natural to him, as it is one of the values his late mum inculcated in him, expressed his delight about the fact that women are now working their way to the top echelon of responsibilities in the country.
“We now have women in every sector of the economy, in every area of human endeavour. We have them as engineers, medical doctors, seasoned administrators, name it. In the commission I am heading, we have 4 female directors. The Director of Zonal Operations is a woman.
“The Director of Policy competition, and Economic Analysis is a woman, and also a lawyer. Equally, the Director of Legal and Regulatory Services is a woman, and lastly the Director of Projects.
“And I am not saying this out of any disrespect for the womenfolk. Far from that. Importantly, more than 50% of the workforce in NCC is made up of women,” Danbatta informed his audience.
The NCC boss further stated that the Commission is particularly committed to bridging the gender-oriented digital divide. Hence, the NCC has put, in the front burner, the need to expose girls and young women to more opportunities in the digital ecosystem, in line with the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) resolution 70, which advocates gender mainstreaming and promotion of gender equality, as well as the empowerment of women through information and communications technology (ICT).
The EVC later commissioned the e-library of the Aminu Kano Centre for Democratic Studies, an arm of Bayero University, which was donated by the Commission in line with the Federal Government’s commitment to the promotion of the digital economy programmes.
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