" ITREALMS: Celtel distributors smile home

Wednesday, October 10, 2007

Celtel distributors smile home

•In Southeast region

Top distributors of Pan African telecommunications company, Celtel Nigeria in the South Eastern region of the country, at the weekend, smiled home with rewards of their endeavours in the past one year.

The event, which held in Calabar, capital of Cross Rivers State, saw some of Celtel partners in its Rural Acquisition Initiative (RAI), known as Associate Distributors (ADs) in the region, happily went home.

The top five Associate Distributors honoured for outstanding performance during the pilot phase of the Rural Acquisition Programme included an Anambra State-based businessman, Mr. Azuka Arinze Chibueze, Mr. Emmanuel Okon Aki and Akpabio Akom both from Cross Rivers State, Abian Chinedu Nwala and Eddy Martins from Enugu State.

Whereas Mr. Chibueze, was presented with the star prize of 42-inch flat screen colour television set, alongside 5KVA generator set and a Celtel handset as well as a plaque, equally presented to other winners.

While the Chief Technology Officer (CTO) at Celtel Nigeria, Mr. Lars Stork, presented the star prize, the General Manager, South East Region, Celtel, Babatunde Lawson, made other presentations.

Champion Infotel also gathered that the top five ADs were selected from among the 25 ADs that participated in the pilot scheme, even as the RAI pilot programme was carried out in Imo, Enugu, Anambra, Ebonyi, Cross Rivers, and Abia States.

Commenting, Mr. Stork said that the initiative is Celtel’s new route to market, designed to empower the rural communities through the provision of communication service, job creation, wealth creation, economic and physical development, customer care service and increased availability and accessibility of products and services.

He further said that Celtel has heeded the government’s call for public-private partnership in job creation for the teaming unemployed population and providing rural telephony.

Mr. Stork added that Celtel is determined to create value for everyone who wants to communicate irrespective of where they live, work and play in line with the mobile company’s brand philosophy of making life better for Nigerians.

Project Director, Operations at Celtel Nigeria, Ms. Omotayo Emden, told participants at the occasion that the RAI was designed to eliminate most of the logistics and other challenges faced by people in the rural area in gaining access to communication.

She noted that Celtel is paying a great attention to the rural areas because it is home to about 70 per cent of Nigerians and represent new frontiers for growth.

She explained that the Associate Distributors (ADs) were chosen because their standing in the rural communities, recommendation from the communities’ traditional heads and interest in the rural distribution programme.

According to her, Celtel supports the ADs through training, provision of motorbikes, point of sales of sales materials, promotions, direct marketing activities, branding support and customer care service, among others.

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