Brands/Products
SONA Group: Contributing To Healthy Environment in Nigeria through Recycling
Plastic waste pollution in Nigeria has proven to be one of the most inimical threats to environmental health in the country, with dire consequences such as outbreaks of communicable diseases, loss of lives and properties and continuous environmental degradation.
Indiscriminate dumping of waste is a major contributing factor to the environmental disasters recorded annually as citizens, especially inhabitants of metropolitan areas in the country discard most of their waste, including plastic bags and bottles illegally in drainages and canals.
This in turn congests the channels, hindering the free flow of water whenever it rains and ultimately leads to flood.
In an attempt to reduce the undesirable effects, many citizens resort to burning their plastic waste, which also triggers numerous health and environmental risks as a result of air pollution.
Recycling has been globally identified as the most effective solution to the problem of plastic waste pollution. In order to curtail plastic waste pollution, the Nigerian government has announced plans to introduce policies on plastic waste management, as well as strategies to implement waste recycling programs, encouraging recycling culture in the country.
However, only a handful of companies are currently recycling plastic waste to significantly abate environmental hazard and promote public health in Nigeria. One of such companies is SONA Group of Industries.
Established over 30 years ago, SONA Group is a foremost conglomerate in Nigeria with up to 10 subsidiaries, cutting across diverse sectors and making significant investments in each.
Since inception, the company has provided world-class quality products to elevate the standards of living in the country.
One of SONA’s subsidiaries, Shongai Packaging Industries Ltd, is a major player in plastic packaging manufacturing in the country; producing several domestic and industrial products including injection moulded plastic furniture, storage crates, basins and buckets, rugged crates for beer & beverage, cosmetic jars, plastic pallets, among others.
Owing to the company’s extensive range of plastic products and the desire to facilitate a healthy environment in Nigeria, it actively engages in plastics recycling.
The plastic wastes are processed into raw materials, which are then used to manufacture various plastic products.
Currently, Shongai Packaging owns five recycling plants, with four being fully functional while the fifth is being completed.
SONA Group’s Chairman A.K Mirchandani has revealed that one of the pivotal reasons for the company’s investment in multiple recycling plants is to enable the efficacious eradication of plastic waste pollution in Nigeria.
According to him, “A clean and safe environment for the citizens should be the priority of every manufacturing company in the country.
“Our goal is to promote public health through our recycling, hence the construction of more plants. Our recycling goes beyond production as we see it as an avenue to add considerable value to Nigeria as a nation.”
Mr Mirchandani wished more companies could espouse and engage in recycling as much as SONA Group does, as it will undoubtedly diminish environmental degradation and precipitate the growth of Nigeria’s industrialization.
Shongai Packaging Industry Ltd began recycling about 10 years ago, with only 200 tons of plastic being recycled. Presently, over 20, 000 tons of plastics are recycled in the plants annually, with cutting-edge European technology being used by the company for the recycling process.
About 85 percent of the materials used in manufacturing Shongai’s products are derived from recycling, which is a contributing factor to SONA Group’s adulated eco-friendly production processes over the years.
With waste recycling still being relatively unexplored in Nigeria, if more companies actively engage in recycling like Shongai Packaging Industries, plastic waste pollution which has now become one of the major scourges of environmental degradation in the country will be effectively controlled, promoting public health and reducing monumental loss caused by the pollution considerably.
Besides public health, other ways Nigeria as a nation could benefit from recycling include energy conservation, economic growth, conservation of natural resources, reduction of landfill waste, and several more.
By Aduragbemi Omiyale
An institutional investor, First Ally Capital, has strengthened a leading Nigerian financial technology company, Mathesis Analytics, to scale its proprietary credit decisioning infrastructure.
It made this possible by injecting fresh capital into the firm, which specialises in AI-powered credit decisioning infrastructure, an action that will directly support the growth and scaling of Mathesis’ core mission of providing the intelligence and infrastructure needed to bridge the credit gap for millions of unscored or underscored individuals across Nigeria.
With this investment, Mathesis will enable financial institutions to confidently assess and extend credit to borrowers who lack a formal credit history by leveraging an expanded pool of alternative behavioural and transactional data.
To date, Mathesis’ systems have supported more than 8 million loans for over 2 million unique borrowers in Nigeria, and the company is actively deploying its infrastructure to establish a growing pan-African footprint.
With the investment from First Ally Capital, Mathesis is well positioned to transform how the credit ecosystem operates, driving financial inclusion in partnership with lenders across the continent.
A significant barrier to credit access in Nigeria, which prides itself on being Africa’s largest economy, is data fragmentation. Borrowers frequently build positive financial behaviours across multiple digital platforms by repaying microfinance loans, saving through fintech wallets, or servicing Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) facilities.
However, under traditional credit infrastructure, these achievements remain invisible to new lenders.
Mathesis addresses this challenge through the concept of Personal Equity—the quantified expression of an individual’s financial behaviour aggregated across every institution with which they have transacted.
By translating these disparate signals into a precise, portable measure of creditworthiness, Mathesis creates a comprehensive credit identity that reflects the full breadth of a person’s financial life.
“True financial inclusion cannot be achieved in a vacuum; it requires structural collaboration in which lenders and fintech companies work as partners within the ecosystem.
“This investment from First Ally Capital validates our approach to reshaping credit infrastructure. By quantifying Personal Equity, we empower lenders to safely look beyond the constraints of formal credit histories and recognise a borrower’s true creditworthiness. This capital enables us to accelerate our pan-African expansion while maintaining the robust, institutional-grade infrastructure our partners rely on,” the chief executive of Mathesis Analytics, Winston Osuchukwu, stated.
On his part, the chief executive of First Ally Capital, Mr Ebenezer Olufowose, said, “At First Ally Capital, we pride ourselves on being a one-stop destination for financial solutions, offering a diverse portfolio of services ranging from investment banking and asset management to trusteeship, inclusive banking, and real estate.
“Our investment in Mathesis Analytics reflects our strong belief in the company’s vision and our commitment to supporting forward-thinking enterprises that deliver excellence.”
By Aduragbemi Omiyale
The chief executive of Canal+ Africa, Mr David Mignot, has disclosed that MultiChoice is now fully integrated into the media group.
Mr Mignot disclosed this via a statement issued on Thursday, noting that this development marks a new phase in the evolution of one of Africa’s leading pay television operators.
He noted that the integration positions MultiChoice within a global media organisation with an extensive international footprint.
“MultiChoice is now a full subsidiary of a truly international media group operating in 70 countries. The group was founded in France, is listed in London and Johannesburg, and has a strong African presence with operations in more than 45 countries,” Mr Mignot said.
The statement underscores the scale of the combined business, highlighting Canal+’s global reach alongside its significant investments across Africa.
The completion of the transaction is expected to strengthen MultiChoice’s position in the African media and entertainment market by giving it access to the broader resources, expertise and international capabilities of the Canal+ Group, while reinforcing the group’s commitment to the continent.
MultiChoice operates across sub-Saharan Africa through platforms including DStv and GOtv, serving millions of subscribers with entertainment, sports and news content.
By Adedapo Adesanya
FoodCourt, a Nigerian cloud kitchen startup backed by Y Combinator, has suspended operations after months of unpaid salaries and mounting debts to vendors triggered a staff strike and forced the company to halt customer orders, according to a report by TechCabal.
The publication reported that customers first noticed on March 4 that they could no longer place orders through the FoodCourt app after the company disabled ordering as kitchen workers, delivery personnel and branch staff embarked on strike over unpaid wages. The company also owed outstanding payments to vendors.
By April 19, FoodCourt had temporarily shut its last operating branch after suspending activities across its Lagos and Abuja locations while seeking fresh funding and restructuring the business, according to the report.
The company’s chief executive, Mr Henry Nneji, said the decision to pause operations was not caused by a single issue but by a combination of operational, organisational and working-capital challenges.
“It’s important to clarify that the decision to pause operations wasn’t driven by one single issue. We reached a point where it became clear that continuing to patch those issues while operating wasn’t the right long-term decision,” he said.
“The objective is to build a stronger business than the one that existed before the suspension. We fully intend to bring FoodCourt back,” he added in an emailed response.
The company acknowledged outstanding obligations to employees, vendors, riders and service providers, but declined to disclose the number of affected workers or the total amount owed. It said efforts were underway to resolve the liabilities as part of its restructuring process.
It was also reported that the startup’s financial difficulties worsened after expansion into additional locations increased operating costs, while its cloud kitchen model came under pressure from rising labour, logistics, food and marketing expenses.
Despite the shutdown, Mr Nneji said FoodCourt intends to relaunch after completing its restructuring, adding that the company believes demand for its products remains strong.
Founded in 2021 by Henry Nneji and Paul Adokiye Iruene, FoodCourt operates cloud kitchens under multiple virtual restaurant brands through its consumer app. According to TechCabal, the startup had previously disclosed raising $1.7 million, delivering more than one million meals and reaching $4.3 million in annual recurring revenue by the end of 2024.
