Technology
Telco Tariff Hike Not Good for Low-Income Earners—LCCI
By Adedapo Adesanya
The Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI) has warned that while the approved tariff hike may ease production costs for telecommunications operators, low-income consumers will surely experience more pressure on their livelihood.
Recall that last week, the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) approved a 50 per cent hike on mobile phone calls, SMS, and internet data costs for the first time since 2013.
However, there have been reactions from consumers, with the LCCI joining to shout from the rooftop, calling for continuous engagement by stakeholders in the sector to create a win-win situation.
According to the Director General of the LCCI, Mrs Chinyere Almona, while telecommunications had become a critical part of lifestyle and businesses; the sector must remain competitive to deliver quality services.
She noted the emerging innovative landscape in food production, surveillance technology for security and exploits of artificial intelligence depended on a robust digital ecosystem.
Mrs Almona said the current environment in which the sector operated had become too expensive for their profitability.
She explained that factors such as rising energy costs, increasing price of network equipment, inflation, and currency depreciation placed heavy financial burdens on operators.
According to her, a combination of these factors led telecom providers to increase tariffs to mitigate the rising cost.
“The recent hike in telecoms tariff has attracted mixed reactions.
“While this hike may offer relief for the operators, it risks placing additional strain on consumers, particularly those in lower-income brackets,” the DG said in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), in Lagos.
She noted that a factor of consideration by most stakeholders was that Nigerian citizens and businesses deserved better services from the operators, adding that consumers deserved more robust regulation from government.
Mrs Almona said that in the quest for a one trillion-dollar economy, there was need for more investments in critical infrastructure.
This, she said, would drive the much-needed digital revolution for growth and development.
“A robust digital infrastructure will support innovation across all sectors of the Nigerian economy. Looking beyond the hike, the operators and regulators need to settle down into delivering quality services to drive operational cost efficiency for businesses and support the automation of government services.
“We reiterate our call for reducing human interface in the conduct of regulatory services like licensing of products, obtaining necessary permits, issuance of certifications, and port operations.”
Mrs Almona also noted that a significant item for inclusion in rebasing of Nigeria’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is activities in the Information and Communications Technology sector.
She said the sector recorded resilient growth during the COVID-19 pandemic and had also led other sectors in the post-pandemic recovery and stability.
She stated that this reality should attract more government attention and funding for the digital and creative industry.
“To remain competitive and continue to provide quality service, telecom operators must overcome significant challenges.
“Nigeria’s digital economy must be empowered to catalyse economic growth and be the driver of innovation and possibilities,” she said.
By Aduragbemi Omiyale
One of the players in the Nigerian gaming industry, Secure Electronic Technology (SET) Plc, has appointed Ms Leticia Otomewo as its acting secretary.
This followed the expiration of the company’s service contract with the former occupier of the seat, Ms Irene Attoe, on January 31, 2026.
A statement to the Nigerian Exchange (NGX) Limited on Thursday said Ms Otomewo would remain the organisation’s scribe in an acting capacity, pending the ratification and appointment of a substantive company secretary at the next board meeting.
She was described in the notice signed by the Managing Director of the firm, Mr Oyeyemi Olusoji, as “a results-driven executive with 22 years of experience in driving business growth, leading high-performing teams, and delivering innovative solutions.”
The acting secretary is also said to be “a collaborative leader with a passion for mentoring and developing talent.”
“The company assures the investing public that all Company Secretariat responsibilities and regulatory obligations will continue to be discharged in full compliance with the Companies and Allied Matters Act, applicable regulations, and the Nigerian Exchange Limited Listing Rules,” the disclosure assured.
Meanwhile, the board thanked Ms Attoe “for professionalism and contributions to the Company during the period of her engagement and wishes her well in her future endeavours.”
By Adedapo Adesanya
The Russian government on Thursday confirmed it has blocked the WhatsApp messaging service, as it moves to further control information flow in the country.
It urged Russians to use a new state-backed platform called Max instead of the Meta-owned service.
WhatsApp issued a statement earlier saying Russia had attempted to “fully block” its messaging service in the country to force people toward Max, which it described as a “surveillance app.”
“Today the Russian government attempted to fully block WhatsApp in an effort to drive people to a state-owned surveillance app,” WhatsApp posted on social media platform X.
“Trying to isolate over 100 million users from private and secure communication is a backwards step and can only lead to less safety for people in Russia,” it said, adding: “We continue to do everything we can to keep users connected.”
Russia’s latest move against social media platforms and messaging services like WhatsApp, Signal and Telegram comes amid a wider attempt to drive users toward domestic and more easily controlled and monitored services, such as Max.
Russia’s telecoms watchdog, Roskomnadzor, has accused messaging apps Telegram and WhatsApp of failing to comply with Russian legislation requiring companies to store Russian users’ data inside the country, and of failing to introduce measures to stop their platforms from being used for allegedly criminal or terrorist purposes.
It has used this as a basis for slowing down or blocking their operations, with restrictions coming into force since last year.
For Telegram, it may be next, but so far the Russian government has been admittedly slowing down its operations “due to the fact that the company isn’t complying with the requirements of Russian legislation.”
The chat service, founded by Russian developers but headquartered in Dubai, has been a principal target for Roskomnadzor’s scrutiny and increasing restrictions, with users reporting sluggish performance on the app since January.
By Adedapo Adesanya
Nigerian startup, Decide, has emerged as the fourth most accurate Artificial Intelligence (AI) agent for spreadsheet tasks globally, according to results from SpreadsheetBench, a widely referenced benchmark for evaluating AI performance on real-world spreadsheet problems.
According to the founder, Mr Abiodun Adetona, the ranking places Decide alongside well-funded global AI startups, including Microsoft, OpenAI, and Anthropic.
Mr Adetona, an ex-Flutterwave developer, also revealed that Decide now has over 3,000 users, including some who are paying customers, a signal to the ability of the startup to scale in the near future.
SpreadsheetBench is a comprehensive evaluation framework designed to push Large Language Models (LLMs) to their limits in understanding and manipulating spreadsheet data. While many benchmarks focus on simple table QA, SpreadsheetBench treats a spreadsheet as a complex ecosystem involving spatial layouts, formulas, and multi-step reasoning. So far, only three agents rank higher than Decide, namely Nobie Agent, Shortcut.ai, and Qingqiu Agent.
Mr Adetona said SpreadsheetBench measures how well AI agents can handle practical spreadsheet tasks such as writing formulas, cleaning messy data, working across multiple sheets, and reasoning through complex Excel workflows. Decide recorded an 82.5% accuracy score, solving 330 out of 400 verified tasks.
“The result reflects sustained investment in applied research, product iteration, and learning from real-world spreadsheet workloads across a wide range of use cases,” Mr Adetona told Business Post.
For Mr Adetona, who built Decide out of frustration with how much time professionals spend manually cleaning data, debugging formulas, and moving between sheets, “This milestone highlights how focused engineering and domain-specific AI development can deliver frontier-level performance outside of large research organisations. By concentrating on practical business data problems and building systems grounded in real user environments, we believe smaller teams can contribute meaningfully to advancing applied AI.”
“For Decide, this is a foundation for continued progress in intelligent spreadsheet and analytics automation,” he added.
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