Director, Public Affairs of Nigeria’s regulator of telecommunications sector, the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), Dr. Rueben Muoka has somewhat given likely hints on why President Bola Ahmed Tinubu picked Dr. Aminu Maida among other hot contenders as the new Executive Vice Chairman/Chief Executive Officer to take over from Professor Umar Garba Danbatta, who held sway from 2015 to 2023.
The NCC’s spokesman said that Aminu Maida, PhD, was appointed the Executive Vice Chairman/Chief Executive Officer of the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) by President Bola Tinubu, GCFR on Wednesday, October 11, 2023.
According to him, Dr. Maida holds an Masters of Engineering in Information Systems Engineering from Imperial College, London in 2002 while in 2006, he bagged a PhD in Electrical & Electronic Engineering from the University of Bath, United Kingdom.
Between 2018 and 2019, Maida completed a Post Graduate Diploma in Entrepreneurship (FinTech Pathway) program at the Cambridge Judge Business School, University of Cambridge, United Kingdom.
Until his latest appointment by the President, Dr. Maida was the Executive Director, Technology and Operations at the Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement System Plc (NIBSS), the nation’s central switch company owned by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and all licensed Deposit Money Banks (DMBs) in the country.
At the NIBSS, Dr. Maida was responsible for holistically spearheading the technical and operational standardization of all devices deployed in the financial system in Nigeria for interoperability.
The press release which unveiled the identity of the new NCC’s helmsman also disclosed that Maida led a dynamic team that ensured that all terminals used in the e-payment industry and all devices deployed in Nigeria would accept all cards issued by banks and other licensed card schemes without discrimination.
Prior to his appointment at the NIBSS, Maida was the Chief Technical Officer (CTO) at the Nigerian-based FinTech Arca Payments Network and Senior Manager at Cisco Systems, United Kingdom.
As a seasoned technical professional with over 15 years of multi-functional and international experience in FinTech & Telecoms & Enterprise Technology, between 2010 and 2014, Maida worked as a Network Design Consultant at EE, part of BT Group, and one of the largest mobile communications companies in the UK.
He was also at some point (2006-2010) a System Engineer at Ubiquisys, a leading company in intelligent 3G and LTE small cells, which is now part of Cisco where Dr. Maida, as a professional par excellence garnered a broad range of experience, making him technically strong and commercially aware. He is married with children, the press release added.
