Effective midnight September 17, 2015, Nigeria’s Engr. Shola Taylor, will assume office as the Secretary General/ Chief executive of the 54-member nation Commonwealth Telecommunications Organisation (CTO). His appointment was announced in London, United Kingdom on June 16, 2015, He succeeds Prof. Tim Unwin whose tenure expired midnight.
Taylor’s appointment and assumption of duty comes a little over two weeks after another Nigerian, Dr. Akinwunmi Adesina took over as President of the African Development Bank (ADDB) in Abidjan, Cote D ‘Ivoire.
The Acting Executive Vice Chairman (EVC) of the NCC, Prof. Umar Garba Danbatta, is the Chairman of CTO. Taylor’s appointment comes at a time that Nigeria is re-establishing its status in the comity of nations and the Federal Government has assured of its continued support for the CTO. Prof. Danbatta equally congratulated Prof. Unwin for his contribution to the steady growth of CTO in the last few years.
The Government particularly thanked member nations of the CTO for considering Nigeria and Shola Taylor worthy of this appointment “and this is confidence renewed in our country,” according to the EVC of the NCC, Prof. Umar Garba Danbatta who spoke from Nairobi, Kenya where he is attending the Annual Forum and Council Meeting with the theme: “Towards a Connected Commonwealth.”
Danbatta said that Taylor’s 35 years’ experience as a consummate and well groomed engineer will be put to bear on the activities of CTO and it is hoped that he will translate many of those pending decisions to actions in the days ahead “thereby taking the CTO to the next level, providing visionary leadership in the process.”
Before his appointment as the Secretary General of CTO, Taylor has been the Chief Executive of Kemilinks International, a global ICT Consultancy firm based in Lagos, Nigeria.
A telecommunications engineer by training, he brings his over 35 years of global telecommunications experience in ICTs with government and the private sector to CTO. He has consulted for several blue chip companies in Nigeria and the global ICT communities. From 1994 – 1999, Taylor served as Regional Director of Inmarsat. He also served as Space Technology coordinator for developing countries at the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) from 1993 to1994. He had earlier served as Project Director at ITU (1987 – 1993). “His very rich experience will certainly impact positively on the CTO,” Danbatta added.
