Yola, Adamawa, Nigeria: July 30, 2018: The Government of Nigeria has endorsed Dr Abubakar Sadiq Hussaini as the country’s sole candidate to contest the position of secretary-general of the African Telecommunications Union in August.
Currently an assistant professor and chair of the Telecommunication & Wireless Technologies program in the American University of Nigeria, Dr. Abubakar is running on an agenda to accelerate broadband availability, including the 5G technology, and expand the Global Information Society to include more African users.
He is also promising to nudge the ATU into developing a program of work for Public Protection and Disaster Relief (PPDR). “This should look at the various PDR options that might be best suited to the requirements of Africa and suggest policies (such as spectrum or joint purchasing schemes) that can best achieve Africa’s security needs.”
A diplomatic note verbale No A.90/2018, dated 13th July, from Nigeria’s Foreign Ministry supporting Dr. Abubakar Hussaini’s candidacy and transmitted to the ATU secretariat in Nairobi, Kenya, was received and acknowledged by the secretary-general, Soumaila Abdoulkarim on the 17th.
The Foreign Ministry affirmed in the cover letter that Abubakar, who holds a PhD in Telecommunication from the University of Bradford in the UK, “possesses a great wealth of experience in telecommunications which are necessary attributes to hold the prestigious office on the continental level.”
President of AUN Dr Dawn Dekle described Dr Abubakar’s chances as very bright considering his wealth of experience, passion for telecommunications scholarship and commitment to human development. “Dr. ASH is the best man for the job and will proudly fly the Nigerian and AUN flags with the utmost integrity. We wish him good luck.”
He is coordinating faculty for the Senior Design Project, AUN’s School of Information Technology & Computing most esteemed academic showpiece. The SDP is the largest component for AUN’s BSc & MSc degree programs in ICT, allowing students to develop and demonstrate their ability to apply scientific and engineering principles to the solution of practical problems in engineering systems and processes.
Since 2012, Dr Abubakar has served as Head of Programmes/Director, Commonwealth ITU Group (CIG), a body consisting of senior government officials and regulators from member-States of the Commonwealth that are also a part of the ITU. The body meets on a regular basis to establish a standard set of objectives to be achieved at various conferences and meetings of the ITU on International Telecom Regulation, Policy and Radio Spectrum.
The CIG also discusses standardization, typically addressing the concerns of Commonwealth member states in all aspects of telecommunications development and implementation.
Dr Hussaini also served as project development manager (PMD), 4TELL Research Group at Institute of Telecommunications (IT), Aveiro, Portugal; the Instituto de Telecomunicações, an organization of public interest, a partnership of four institutions with experience and traditions in research and development in the field of Telecommunications; he received new sources of research funding, and was involved in cutting-edge research targeting a research program initiative on nanoelectronics aimed at enhancing the further integration and miniaturization of devices, and increasing their functionalities in emerging wireless technologies.
Dr Abubakar has authored or co-authored over 52 technical papers published in global journals and presented at numerous international conferences. His most recent publication, a chapter on “Design of MMwave Antenna for 5G Applications” (co-authored with Elfergani, A. Mahmoud, J. Rodriguez & R. Abd-Alhameed), appeared in ‘Optical and Wireless Convergence for 5G Networks’ (John Wiley & Sons, London, 2018).
Dr. Abubakar published a book entitled “Antenna Fundamentals for Legacy Mobile Applications and Beyond” in Springer International Publishing, Switzerland, 2017, together with I. Elfergani, J. Rodriguez, and R. Abd-Alhameed.
— Dan Okereke
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