Technology
NCC Denies Planning to Restrict SIM Registration for Under 18s
By Adedapo Adesanya
The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has debunked reports making the rounds that it was planning to disqualify Nigerians below 18 years of age from getting Subscriber Identity Module (SIM) cards.
This clarification was contained in a statement signed by Mr Ikechukwu Adinde, Director, Public Affairs of the NCC. The agency stated that SIM acquisition is a contract between service providers and their subscribers – which requires the subscriber to have proper legal status, informs that age of 18 years for SIM acquisition proposed in the draft regulation is contingent on the constitutional provision, which makes 18 years the age of consent in Nigeria.
“The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) would like to draw the attention of the public to a publication in a section of the media, purporting that the commission is developing a regulation to disqualify Nigerians below 18 years of age from getting Subscriber Identity Module (SIM).
“For the avoidance of doubt, the commission wishes to categorically state that the said report is not only misleading and inaccurate; but misinformation and mischaracterisation of the proceedings of the Public Inquiry on the Reviewed/Draft Registration of Telephone Subscribers Regulations, which took place on Tuesday, October 6, 2021.
“The commission considers it necessary to set the record straight for the purpose of serving existing and potential telecom subscribers, investors and other stakeholders in the industry accurate information for making informed decisions,” a part of the statement disclosed.
It clarified that in accordance with sections 70 and 71 of the Nigerian Communications Act (NCA), 2003 and its consultative engagement process, which define its rule-making process, the public inquiry was held for all relevant stakeholders to provide input on the draft regulatory instrument.
“SIM acquisition is a contract between service providers and their subscribers, which requires the subscriber to have proper legal status, be of the matured mind and rational enough to bear certain responsibilities, obligations and liabilities imposed by a contract.
“The proposal is, therefore, to protect minors. Parents and guardians can acquire SIMs in their names on behalf of their children and wards in which case they assume whatever responsibilities or liabilities that arise from the usage of such SIMs, a measure expected to also strengthen national security.
“While the Commission is progressively pursuing digital inclusion for all, the draft proposal is intended to guarantee increased monitoring of children and shield the minors from undue liabilities in line with NCC’s Child Online Protection drive.
“However, the consultative engagement process is still ongoing, as the Commission is reviewing all input from relevant stakeholders in this regard and will consider and deliberate on all comments before issuing a final regulatory instrument.
“We appeal to our media stakeholders to always fact-check their stories pertaining to telecoms regulatory issues and seek necessary clarifications for informed and accurate reporting as the Commission runs an open-house system,” the statement further 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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