Technology

9Mobile Stronger Despite Etisalat’s Exit—Emefiele

Published

8 years ago

27/07/2017

By Dipo Olowookere

Governor of the Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Mr Godwin Emefiele, has disclosed that the country’s fourth largest telecommunication firm, 9Mobile, which recently changed its name from Etisalat Nigeria, has continued to wax stronger despite the initial fears nursed by some people when its former parent company, Etisalat Group, pulled out of the business.

While addressing journalists on Tuesday in Abuja, the apex bank chief said contrary to opinion, 9Mobile recorded a growth in revenue last month.

He described the intervention of the CBN and the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) as necessary, saying it has been “positive.”

“The intervention has been positive, and Etisalat has retained its subscriber base. Its 4,000 staff have continued their work and, indeed, the revenue for the month of June has remained stable at not less than N16 billion.

“A lot of people, who were watching from the sidelines thought Etisalat’s revenue was going to drop drastically and that there was going to be slide to subscriber base, but that was not the case,” the CBN boss said.

However, Mr Emefiele emphasised that the newly constituted board would quit maximum in six months’ time.

“The intervention through the institutionalisations of an interim board, headed by the regulators, I must say here is temporary and our plan is that it should not take more than maximum 90 to 180 days,” he informed newsmen.

He explained that, “We only came in to say, ‘please gentlemen, we understand all your interests in this company either you are a creditor or stakeholder, let’s take things easily so that we do not hurt the interest of others who also have interest in this company.”

Giving more insight into the roles of the CBN and the NCC, Mr Emefiele said, “The issue is that, whereas the regulators, the NCC and the CBN, in this case, businesses and companies that operate in the telecoms market, should operate profitably, but we also expected that whatever decision they take should not be such that would affect other stakeholders in that industry.

“We all know that Etisalat is one of the four biggest telecommunication firms in Nigeria, with a subscriber base of over 20 million; and of course, we also know that the revenue base of the company is also very robust.

“It is important that we should not just allow any creditor who feels disadvantaged, to take a decision that hurts other important stakeholders that operate within Etisalat.

“That was what the NCC and the CBN observed that the activities and the attempt by some creditors were going to leave a dismemberment of that company and we could not allow the millions of subscribers to be running helter-skelter without services, and that we could not allow 4,000 or more employees of this company to just run in disarray because something wrong has happened.”

He added that, “The company’s Advisers have been appointed to provide a process for major investors to intervene in the company and take it over.

“Potential investors have shown interest, so what would happen is that, these interests would be made opened; the advisers would advertise for RSP, everybody can conduct their due diligence after that. The best will win. Therefore, we are not moved at all for the change.”

Technology

Tijani Sees Digital Economy Contributing One-Fifth to Nigeria’s GDP

Published

2 days ago

29/08/2025

Adedapo Adesanya

By Adedapo Adesanya

The Minister of Communications, Innovation and Digital Economy, Mr Bosun Tijani, has projected that the digital economy to will contribute over one-fifth to Nigeria’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) by 2030.

Mr Tijani said this at the National Digital Economy and E-Governance Bill stakeholders’ engagement on Thursday in Abuja.

Mr Tijani was represented by the Permanent Secretary of the ministry, Mr Adeladan Rafiu, in his address, said that in Q1 2025, Nigeria’s digital economy contributed N7 trillion to real GDP, representing 14.19 per cent of the N49.34 trillion total GDP.

According to him, presently, the sector contributes 16 per cent to 18 per cent of GDP, with well-defined strategies to increase this to 21 per cent by 2030.

“These figures demonstrate both the current impact and the vast potential of a unified, digitally empowered economy driven by robust legislation,” he said.

Speaking on the importance of the bill, the minister said that it sought to establish a robust legal and regulatory framework that would guide the implementation of digital governance in Nigeria.

“We can ensure that this bill provides the solid legal foundation required to drive digital identity, aid governance and overall decision-making for Nigeria,” Mr Tijani said.

Also speaking, the Director-General, National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), Mr Kachifu Abdullahi, said that the bill would accelerate digitisation of the Nigerian economy.

“Everybody is contributing to see how we can build a legal and institutional framework for our national digital economy.

“Government is doing a lot in digital literacy to educate our citizens to develop their digital fluency, so that everyone will be part of it and deepen the financial inclusion as well,” he said

The National Commissioner of Nigerian Data Protection Commission (NDPC), Mr Vincent Olatunji, in his goodwill message, said that the digital economy sector was the most consistent in growth.

“I am not sure of any other sector where there is consistent progress in a particular sector and contributing highly to the growth of our economy,” he said.

Earlier, the Director-General of Galaxy BackBone (GBB), Mr Ibrahim Adeyanju, said that digital economy could not be mentioned without a digital infrastructure and that is where GBB comes in.

“The government has invested a lot in terms of infrastructure, which are there to support the digital economy,” he said.

Technology

Zoho Unveils Zia LLM, Expands AI Suite With Agents, Studio Tools

Published

2 days ago

28/08/2025

Modupe Gbadeyanka

By Modupe Gbadeyanka

A global technology company, Zoho, has introduced its proprietary large language model known as Zia LLM, trained specifically for business use cases, keeping privacy and governance at its core, which has resulted in lowering the inference cost, passing on that value to the customers, while also ensuring that they are able to utilise AI productively and efficiently.

In a statement, the company also announced the launched of a no-code agent builder, Zia Agent Studio, over 25 deployable Zia agents, and a Model Context Protocol (MCP) server to open up its vast library of actions to third-party agents.

The Country Head for Zoho Nigeria, Mr Kehinde Ogundare, noted that these products demonstrate the organisation’s longstanding aim to build foundational technology focused on protection of customer data, breadth and depth of capabilities because of the business context, and value.

Zia LLM leveraged NVIDIA’s AI accelerated computing platform. It comprises three models with 1.3 billion, 2.6 billion and 7 billion parameters, each separately trained and optimised for contextual applicability that benchmark competitively against comparable open source models in the market.

The three models allow Zoho to always optimise the right model for the right user context, striking the balance between power and resource management. In the short term, Zoho will scale Zia LLM’s model sizes, starting with the first set of parameter increases by the end of 2025.

While Zoho supports many LLM integrations for users, including ChatGPT, Llama, and DeepSeek, Zia LLM continues its commitment to data privacy by allowing customers to keep their data on its servers, leveraging the latest AI capabilities without sending their data to AI cloud providers.

As for the Zia Agent Studio, Zoho has simplified it to be fully prompt-based (with the option to use low-code) and includes ready-made access to over 700 actions across its products.

Agents built by users can be deployed autonomously, triggered by button click, with rule-based automation, or even summoned within customer conversations.

To enable immediate adoption of agentic technology, Zoho has developed a roster of AI agents contextually baked right into its products. These agents can be used across various business activities, handling relevant actions based on the role of the user. These include Customer Service Agent for Zoho Desk that can process incoming customer requests, understand the context, and either answer directly or triage them to a human rep, providing an efficient first line of assistance.

At the time of deployment, an agent can be provisioned as a digital employee, maintaining the user access permission structure defined within the organisation. Admins can perform behavioural audits as well as performance and impact analyses on digital employees, ensuring that every agent is working as effectively as possible and within clear guardrails.

These agents are available in Agent Marketplace from where customers can easily deploy them. Ecosystem partners, ISVs, and individual developers will be able to create agents and host them on the Zia Agents Marketplace in coming months.

The company plans to add more skills to Ask Zia, allowing it to act as an assistant to Finance teams, Customer Support teams to start with. Support for the Agent2Agent (A2A) protocol will be implemented, allowing Zia Agents to interact and collaborate with each other, as well as collaborate with agents on other platforms.

Technology

AI Can Drive Nigeria’s GDP Growth by 20%—NITDA

Published

3 days ago

28/08/2025

Adedapo Adesanya

By Adedapo Adesanya

The Director-General of the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), Mr Kashifu Inuwa, has projected that the digital economy, using Artificial Intelligence (AI), could drive the country’s economy up to 20 per cent Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth.

Mr Inuwa said at the 3rd Economic Confidential Lecture in Abuja on Wednesday that AI was no longer optional but essential.

“Those who fail to upskill will be replaced. AI can free up 20 per cent of time for higher productivity, and nations leading in AI will lead the world.”

According to him, the country can not afford to miss the fourth industrial revolution after losing out in the first three revolutions.

Mr Inuwa said that there were ongoing collaborations with the Ministry of Education to build digital literacy into the country’s national curriculum, and with the office of Head of Service of the Federation to enhance civil service training .

“Market women can now connect with customers through mobile technology. But as we connect, we must also protect, and cybersecurity is a critical pillar.”

The President and Chairman of Council, Nigerian Institute of Public Relations (NIPR), Mr Ike Neliaku, said that the country must ensure that participation in the digital global economy is inclusive, innovative, and sustainable.

Mr Neliaku, was represented by NIPR fellow, Mr Afolabi Olajuwon, urged the country to be committed to building capacity, investing in infrastructure, and creating policies that enable innovation to thrive.

“We are living in a period where technology is reshaping governance, trade, education, healthcare and every aspect of human endeavour.

“Nations that fail to embrace the digital revolution risk being left behind, while those that seize the opportunity can leapfrog barriers to growth and development,” Mr Neliaku said.

He said that the country was blessed with a dynamic youth population, abundant talent and a spirit of innovation,adding that must advance its embrace of this new reality.

Mr Neliaku said that the Renewed Hope Agenda challenged Nigerians to harness technology, not merely as consumers, but as creators, innovators and exporters of digital solutions.

He said that to achieve this, there should be collaboration among government, private sector and the academia, adding that the media was not optional, but critical and essential.

“I also wish to commend the unveiling of the three landmark publications: Diplomacy and digital innovation: youths’ insights. Healing Nigeria: A chronicle of health reform and hope, and also the Renewed hope in central banking.

“Each of these publications reflects a thoughtful attempt to capture pressing national and global issues, while offering practical insights for policy and practice.

“They are not just books, but tools for shaping informed conversations and evidence-based decision-making,” Mr Neliaku said.

Other experts identified AI as a key factor to be embraced to drive Nigeria’s economy into a prosperous one.

They canvassed for the deployment of technology and AI into the country’s current struggle for economic diversification and general development.

Specifically, they called for the adoption of AI to enhance Nigeria’s growth in the fourth global industrial revolution.