Prof. Umar Garba Danbatta

Nigeria’s President, Muhammadu Buhari has sent the name of Prof. Umar Garba Danbatta to the Senate for confirmation as the Executive Vice Chairman/Chief Executive Officer (EVC/CEO) of the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), for a second term of five years.

The president had sent a letter to the senate for approval of the reappointment.

The letter was read on the floor of the senate on Tuesday by the Senate President, Ahmad Lawan.

Lawan said the president has forwarded Danbatta’s name for screening for a second term as EVC/CEO of NCC.


Born in Danbatta Local Government Council of Kano State, Prof. Danbatta obtained his BEng, MSc degrees from the Technical University of Wroclaw in Poland and his PhD from the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology (UMIST) UK respectively.

He has served as a lecturer in the Department of Electrical Engineering, Faculty of Technology of Bayero University Kano for 28 years, where he taught courses in telecommunications engineering and electronics and held academic positions of Dean of the Faculty and Head of Department at different times. His main administrative responsibilities, in the university, included Deputy and Acting Dean of Students’ Affairs, Administrator of the Works Department and later, Director of the Centre for Information Technology (CIT).

He was also a member of over 60 University committees and task forces, including numerous stints as Chairman. In administrative and other responsibilities outside the university, he has served on over 20 committees, prominent among which was his Chairmanship of the Implementation Committee of Kano State University of Science & Technology, after which he became its pioneer Deputy and Acting Vice-Chancellor when it took off in 2001.

Prof. Danbatta has supervised more than 60 PhD, MEng and BEng projects in diverse areas of telecommunications and has also served as external  examiner  to  seven universities  and  polytechnics  and  is  an  assessor,  technical  reviewer and editorial member to eight research journals. He has to his credit more than 50 articles in journals, conference proceedings and technical reports. He is also the author of a six-chapter, 167-page book titled Elements of Static Engineering Electromagnetics.