FEC Approves National Policy on 5G

By Kehinde Ogundare In recent years, the global economy has faced and continues to face numerous challenges, including a pandemic, war, climate change, and inflation. Businesses have had to adapt and find new ways of working to tackle these challenges. Nigeria is no exception. According to the National Bureau of Statistics of Nigeria, the annual inflation rate accelerated to 24.08% in July 2023, the highest since September 2005. This has affected everything from electricity tariffs to transportation, all crucial to the performance of Nigerian enterprises. Fortunately, by adopting the right technologies and using them the right way, enterprises can ensure that they’re

On Wednesday, Google rolled out its Search Generative Experience (SGE) in the SSA region as an opt-in experiment in Search Labs. This AI-powered experience is available in English. With new breakthroughs in generative AI, Google is reimagining what a search engine can do and is bringing these powerful new capabilities to Search in a bold and responsible way. This powerful new technology can unlock entirely new types of questions that Search could not previously answer and transforms the way information is organized in Search to help people sort through and make sense of what’s out there. Improving Search with generative

By Adedapo Adesanya The Minister of Communications, Innovation, and Digital Economy, Mr Bosun Tijani, has announced a N1 billion partnership between the ministry and IHS Towers, one of the largest independent communications infrastructure firms in the world, to establish the 3 Million Technical Talent (3MTT) Learning Community. The ministry earlier this month released a 31-page policy document titled Accelerating our Collective Prosperity through Technical Efficiency which outlined plans to boost the country’s economy through the use of technology. It said it would collaborate with other ministries and parastatals, including private sector stakeholders to drive opportunities for startups to facilitate the

By Modupe Gbadeyanka Salesforce and Amazon Web Services (AWS) have expanded their strategic partnership, deepening product integrations across data and artificial intelligence (AI). The new and enhanced integrations will include streamlining purchasing options for customers via the AWS marketplace, enhancing customer experiences through unified data management, empowering developers with new AWS compute and development services, securely bringing AWS data and AI services to Salesforce’s Einstein 1 Platform, and ensuring seamless customer service with service cloud and Amazon connect. It was gathered these features will enable customers to seamlessly and securely manage their data across Salesforce and AWS, and safely and

By Adedapo Adesanya Nigeria will develop a new integrated national electricity policy and strategic implementation plan, as mandated by the Electricity Act 2023, according to the Minister of Power, Mr Adebayo Adelabu. President Bola Tinubu had on June 9 assented to the Electricity Bill, now an Act empowering states, companies and individuals to generate, transmit and distribute electricity. This, in turn, repealed the Electric Power Sector Reform Act (EPSR A), 2005 and create a comprehensive legal and institutional framework to guide the Nigerian Electricity Supply Industry (NESI). Mr Adelabu, while speaking on Monday at the Nigeria Electricity Management Services Agency

By Ahmed Rahma It was an exciting moment for kids on Monday, December 14, 2020, when the first scripted kid’s series by a popular Hollywood filmmaker and actor, Tyler Perry, premiered on Nickelodeon Africa. The new live-action series, Tyler Perry’s Young Dylan, which was executive produced, directed and written by the actor, centres on a family whose world turned upside down when their nephew, Young Dylan, an aspiring hip-hop star, moves in unannounced, a character played by Dylan Glimer. Commenting on Nickelodeon’s partnership with Perry, Senior Vice President and General Manager at ViacomCBS Networks Africa, Monde Twala, said “Festive season

By Modupe Gbadeyanka The federal government has suspended fuel subsidy removal, which was earlier meant to be from July 1, 2022, and will now amend the 2022 Appropriation Act to accommodate the new change. This action followed the pressure mounted by the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), which threatened to embark on a nationwide protest from January 27, 2022. In the 2022 budget signed into law by President Muhammadu Buhari last month, the provision of petrol subsidy was till June 30, but the labour said fuel subsidy removal at this period of high inflation would be resisted. On Monday, January 24,

By Adedapo Adesanya For yet another month, Nigerian crude oil production fell in January 2022 as the country produced 1.5 million barrels per day, 180,000 barrels per day lower than what it is permitted to supply to the global market, though its production last month was the highest in five months. Nigeria’s January output marked a recovery from the fourth quarter of last year when production was hit by a number of sabotage incidents and infrastructure issues. The Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), which Nigeria is a member, saw its crude production increase again last month but the

By Adedapo Adesanya Nigeria-based digital freight startup, MVX, has announced a $1.3 million seed round to tackle the challenge of financing and booking freight operations in Africa. Investors in this round included Kepple Africa Ventures, Launch Africa Ventures, Founders Factory and some unnamed angel investors. The new round is coming after the startup secured a $100,000 pre-seed investment from Oui Capital in 2019 and with the fresh disbursement, MVX wants to ease trade finance and freight shipping in Africa by making the process available online. According to the Chief Executive Officer, Mr Tonye Membere-Otaji, “We make it easy and convenient

By Modupe Gbadeyanka In a bid to improve the ease of doing business in Nigeria, the Federal Government has approved the reduction of timeline for processing the mandatory form NXP. Before any export business is initiated in Nigeria, an exporter is required to register with the Nigerian Export Promotion Council (NEPC) and is mandated to complete and register Form NXP with an authorized dealer (any commercial or merchant bank) of his choice. The main aim of this is to ensure goods to be exported meet with the buyer’s expectation (order) since the goods will be subjected to inspection, conducted by

By Adedapo Adesanya The London Stock Exchange (LSE) has completed the acquisition of a data firm, Refinitiv, for £20billion ($27 billion). The deal creates a company to rival the likes of Bloomberg, S&P Global and Intercontinental Exchange in everything from data to clearing and trading. The Refinitiv takeover includes taking on the data provider’s net debt of £9 billion, while the investors selling Refinitiv, led by US private equity giant, Blackstone, will get a 37 per cent stake. Speaking on the deal, LSE chief executive officer, Mr David Schwimmer, explained that his main focus was now on completing the integration

By Adedapo Adesanya The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has emphasised that it does not intend to withdraw the redesigned N200, N500 and N1,000 notes from circulation. The apex bank was reacting to widespread reports that it was walking back on the plans to redesign the country’s top three highest denominations. In a statement on Sunday, the apex bank’s Acting Director of Corporate Communications, Mr Isa AbduMumima, described the reports as unfounded speculation, noting that there was no plan to phase out the three newly redesigned banknotes. “The attention of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has been drawn to