Olushola Okunlade Writes

The Telecom’s Subscriber Advocacy Body – Association Of Telephone, Cable TV and Internet Subscribers Of Nigeria (ATCIS) have eulogised the effort of Prof. Umar Garba Danbatta and NCC officials for sustaining the core vision and mission of NCC.

The commendation was stated at the 90th edition of Telecom Consumer Parliament (TCP) held today June 23 2022 at Providence By Mantis Hotel Ikeja, Lagos State.

In his statement, Prince ‘Sina Bilesanmi popularly known as Ojueko the Foremost Telecom Activist and National President of Association Of Telephone, Cable TV and Internet Subscribers Of Nigeria (ATCIS), the leading telecom subscriber masses advocacy body that promotes subscriber interests as well as defends Subscriber right by promoting and endorsing good product & service from mobile network operators, Cable TV and Internet Service providers company to our association member’s across 36 States converge within six geopolitical zones with over 200 million Subscribers membership in Nigeria stated that: “We appreciate and congratulate the Management of the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) for appointing Mr. Reuben Muoka, an innovative journalist and consummate public relations practitioner, as its new Director of Public Affairs (DPA)”.

Reuben Muoka takes over from Dr. Ikechukwu Adinde, who has assumed duties as the Director of the Special Duties Department of the Commission.

The new NCC’s spokesman was recently promoted to a substantive director, alongside Ismail Adedigba, now Director of Research and Development (R&D); and Gwa-Tobi Mohammed, who has also assumed duties as Director/Secretary to the Board of the Commission.

Muoka was in 2021, appointed to head the Special Duties Department, which superintends the International Relations Unit; Emergency Communication Centres Unit; the Public-Private Partnership Unit; and the Security Services Unit of the Commission. He was promoted as Director of the Department before his current redeployment to lead the Public Affairs Department, the arm of the Commission mandated to manage the image and visibility of Nigeria’s telecom regulator and a leading light of the Nigerian public service.

Muoka is expected to bring his rich and versatile experience in both specialized and traditional journalism, public relations, integrated marketing communications (IMC), corporate communication, and people management, to bear on the Commission’s vision to expand the frontiers of its public goodwill and the impact of its reputational assets.
A former Deputy Communications Editor of the Vanguard Newspapers, and former Deputy General Manager at MTS First Wireless (Nigeria’s first mobile telephone operator), Muoka joined the NCC in 2007 as a Principal Manager and was deployed to the Public Affairs Department where he headed the Media and Public Relations Unit.

He later rose from the rank of Principal Manager to the position of an Assistant Director in 2010, and by 2015, as a Deputy Director, appointed to head the re-engineered Public Relations Unit of PAD. In 2017, he was redeployed to the Policy, Competition, and Economic Analysis Department to head the Economic Analysis unit department.

Muoka earned an M.Sc. degree in Mass Communication from the University of Lagos, specializing in Public Relations and Advertising, where he had earlier successfully completed a Postgraduate Diploma (PGD) in the same field of Mass Communication. Much earlier, he had obtained a bachelor’s degree in Performing Arts at the University of Ilorin.

As a mark of his distinctive journalism career, Muoka received a fellowship from the Egyptian Embassy in Nigeria to undertake a Pan-African training and tour of Egypt in 1999, leading to an award of a continental Diploma Certificate in Journalism at the instance of the Egyptian Ministry of Information, and the African Journalists Union (AJU) in Cairo, Egypt.

The focused, innovative and illuminating coverage and analysis of the Information and Communications Technology (ICT) in the pre and immediate post-liberalization period of the telecom industry in Nigeria is credited to the insights of visionary journalists like Muoka, whose pioneering initiative led to the establishment and institutionalization of the Hi-Tech Desk in Vanguard Newspapers in the late 1990s.

As the Chairman of the League of Communications Correspondents (LECCO), Muoka led his colleagues to give voice and focus to the advocacy for the liberalisation and deregulation of the telecom industry in Nigeria in the 1990s.

During his active days in journalism at Vanguard Newspapers, Muoka served concurrently as Africa’s contributing editor to the London-based Communications Week for four years beginning in 1998, during which he undertook copious reportage on the African telecom landscape. The London-based magazine shared Muoka’s work to an enthusiastic global audience in a rare showcase of Africa’s promise as a flourishing point for the emergent converging telecommunications industry. Between 1995 and 2001, Muoka leveraged his expertise to provide part-time public relations consultancy to notable companies and institutions in the telecommunications industry, including the Nigerian Mobile Communications Limited, Abuja; Multi-links Telecommunications Limited, Lagos; Satellite Telecommunications Limited, Lagos; Pulse Marketing Communications Ltd, Lagos; and the Nigerian Communications Commission, Abuja, years before he joined the Commission as a staff.

Reuben Ejike Muoka is a member of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ); a full member of the Nigerian Institute of Public Relations (mnipr); and an associate member of the Registered Practitioners of Advertising (arpa), regulated by the Advertising Practitioners Council of Nigeria (APCON).

On behalf of the Board of Trusses, Elders forum, National, States Excos, and over 200 million Subscribers across 36 states within six geopolitical zones in Nigeria, We heartily congratulate Reuben on his new role and look forward to working closely with our Association and his team in Public Affairs Department, as key internal stakeholders in the Commission’s re-engineering processes to meet and surpass Federal Government’s expectations for a robust telecommunications sector and a remarkably emergent digital economy.

On advocacy alone, ATCIS-Nigeria has spent about N507 million naira according to financial records since 2014 till to date, which has been self-sponsored by Subscriber members without government agencies in Nigeria.

Association of Telephone, Cable Tv & Internet Subscribers of Nigeria has made several impacts on history in what people believe it can’t possible with over 798 newspaper publications, both local and international as well as online news publications, Radio, and National Television Station Interviews with about 267 Success achievements so far to the benefit of every subscriber across the country Nigeria.

ATCIS social platforms are; http://www.atcisnigeria.com
Email: atcisnigeria@gmail.com
Instagram: atcisnigeria
Telegram: t.me/atcisnigeria
Twitter: @atcis9ja
Facebook: atcisnigeria ATCIS hotline & WhatsApp: 07052713300