By Dele Ogbodo
The Media and Corporate Communications Department of Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), on Thursday unveiled the newly appointed Executive Vice Chairman/CEO, of the Commission, Dr. Aminu Maida whose appointment was approved by President Bola Tinubu on Wednesday.
Maida’s appointment came at the twilight of the former EVC, Prof. Umar Danbatta, who is gradually coasting home on his second term in office according to Commission, holds an MEng in Information Systems Engineering from Imperial College, London in 2002, and in 2006, he bagged a Ph.D in Electrical & Electronic Engineering from the University of Bath, United Kingdom.
There is no doubt that a lot of achievements were recorded in the telecommunications sector in the period that the former helmsman served.
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 Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement System Plc (NIBSS), the country’s central switch company owned by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and all licensed Deposit Money Banks (DMBs) in Nigeria.
At 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. 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 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, Maida between 2010 and 2014, 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.
Maida, a professional par excellence with a broad range of experience, making him technically strong and commercially aware, is married with children.