By Adedapo Adesanya

President Bola Tinubu has permanently abolished the 5 per cent excise duty on telecommunications services, two years after the policy was first suspended.

The abolishment is part of efforts to ease financial pressures on consumers and businesses in Nigeria’s digital economy.

At a media briefing in Abuja on Tuesday, the Executive Vice-Chairman of the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), Mr Aminu Maida, said the excise levy, initially suspended in 2023, has now been officially removed under revised national tax laws.

“The 5 per cent excise duty is no longer in effect,” Mr Maida stated.

“Initially, it was only suspended, but the President has now completely removed it. I was present when the issue was raised, and he firmly said, ‘No, we cannot place this burden on Nigerians.’ I was very pleased to see that this directive was upheld in the new legislation,” he added.

The duty, which applied to mobile voice and data services, had sparked significant backlash from both industry stakeholders and consumer advocacy groups, who argued it would increase the cost of digital access and threaten the viability of telecom operators already grappling with high operational costs.

Business Post reports that President Tinubu first suspended the tax in July 2023 as part of a broader fiscal policy overhaul aimed at mitigating the impact of multiple tax burdens on businesses and households.

However, the issue resurfaced in October 2024, when the National Assembly proposed reinstating the tax as part of broader revenue-generating measures, which also included levies on gaming, betting, and lottery services.

The proposal was met with strong resistance from the telecom sector.

One of such was from the Association of Telecommunications Companies of Nigeria (ATCON), which argued that reinstating the excise duty would undermine service affordability and hinder sectoral growth, particularly at a time when reliable internet access is increasingly vital to Nigeria’s economy.

In July 2023, Mr Tinubu signed four Executive Orders, one of which is the suspension of the five per cent Excise Tax on telecommunication services, as well as the Excise Duties escalation on locally manufactured products.

Also, the late former president Muhammadu Buhari-led administration, in late March 2022 had announced the exemption of the Nigerian digital economy from the proposed 5 per cent excise duty introduced in 2022.

By Aduragbemi Omiyale

Interswitch has been accredited as an Access Point Provider and System Integrator for Nigeria’s mandatory e-invoicing system under the Monitoring, Billing, and Settlement (MBS) platform of the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS).

This accreditation allows Interswitch to provide a fully compliant e-invoicing solution that connects directly and securely to the FIRS platform, helping businesses meet regulatory requirements while modernizing their financial operations.

The solution supports both corporates and SMEs, enabling them to automate invoicing workflows, reduce manual errors, and access real-time reporting for faster, more accurate tax submissions.

With this development, Interswitch is now supporting the roll-out of ambitious national e-invoicing network projects across Nigeria and Kenya, two of the continent’s largest economies, following Interswitch’s selection by the Kenya Revenue Authority in 2024 as a technology partner, providing solutions for businesses to comply with the eTIMS requirements, including hardware and software.

The FIRS launched the MBS platform to combat tax evasion, improve transaction transparency, and boost revenue collection.

Serving as the central hub for real-time or near-real-time invoice validation, the platform captures essential transaction details, from buyer and supplier information to quantities, prices, and taxes, replacing paper or traditional electronic documents such as invoices, credit notes, and debit notes.

The FIRSMBS initiative in Nigeria went live on August 1, 2025, starting with large taxpayers with annual turnover above N5 billion, after a pilot phase that began in November 2024.

Following industry feedback, the FIRS extended the onboarding deadline to November 1, 2025, to allow businesses more time for integration and testing.

Commenting on this development, the Managing Director for Commercial Inclusion (Interswitch Inclusio) at Interswitch Group, Mr Muyiwa Asagba, said, “This accreditation reaffirms Interswitch’s commitment to delivering innovative, business-centric solutions that not only meet compliance requirements but also create operational value for our customers.

“Our e-invoicing solution has been built to integrate seamlessly with existing enterprise systems, ensuring security, accuracy, and efficiency at every step.

“The e-invoicing directive is not just about compliance, it is an opportunity for Nigerian businesses to modernize their operations, enhance transparency, and embrace efficiency. We are here to make that transition seamless.”

By Adedapo Adesanya

A social video intelligence platform, Dig, which gives enterprises the visibility and speed to detect and respond to fast-moving narratives across the most influential video platforms, has closed a $14 million Series A financing round to fuel market expansion and deepen the company’s patented AI platform.

The investment was co-led by New Era Capital Partners and Osage Venture Partners, with participation from 97212 Ventures, Maccabee Ventures, Ginossar Ventures, Itai Tsiddon, and other investors.

Dig will utilise the new capital to scale global sales and marketing, expand coverage across additional video and messaging networks, and continue to enhance its proprietary AI stack, including in-house large language models that reduce compute costs by up to 100 times compared to off-the-shelf services.

The growth of social video platforms, such as TikTok, has led to the video takeover of social media. 2025 is estimated to be the first year in which more than 50 per cent of social media posts will be video posts. This number is expected to grow substantially in the coming years with the emergence of generative video platforms like Veo-3. In a world dominated by social video, the lack of automation leaves brand and insights teams blind to fast-moving risks and consumer signals.

Dig’s selling point is unlike text-only social listening platforms that rely on keyword matching and Boolean queries, the company noted that its video-first LLM-native platform understands briefs and research questions, and is able to detect more than 90 per cent of relevant videos, images, or text posts, automatically filtering out irrelevant mentions by matching narratives rather than keywords.

Dig claims it automatically detects social network policy violations, such as disinformation or deepfakes, and alerts communications teams immediately, prioritizing the threat and recommending next steps before it escalates.

Speaking on the funding, Mr Ofer Familier, Co-founder & CEO of Dig, said, “Social video builds and breaks reputations faster than any other medium. Our mission is to give brands immediate, precise visibility into those narratives, along with the tools to respond before risk becomes a crisis.

“With support from New Era, Osage, and our other partners, we’re doubling down on product innovation and bringing Dig’s value to marketing, communications, and insight teams worldwide.”

“We’re incredibly excited to continue partnering with Dig as they build the future of social video intelligence. When we first backed Dig at Seed, the team predicted video would eclipse text as the language of the internet”, said Mr Ran Simha, Managing Partner, New Era Capital Partners.

“Their growth, to more than 70 enterprise deployments in under 18 months, proves that thesis, and we’re excited to help scale a category-defining company. Brands today face both immense opportunity and real risk in the world of social video – content spreads faster than ever, and a single post can influence perception globally within minutes.

“Dig’s technology empowers companies to truly understand and manage this dynamic landscape, turning social video from a source of unpredictable risk into a strategic growth channel,” Mr Simha added.

“Dig pairs computer-vision depth with a business model that meets Fortune 500 security and ROI standards,” said Mr Nate Lentz from Osage Venture Partners. “The speed at which customers move from proof-of-concept to production is unlike anything we’ve seen in market intelligence software.”

Dig’s platform is deployed across brand, consumer insights, communications, and social media functions. Its current customers include global luxury brands, CPG and fashion brand houses, and Fortune 500 tech firms, who leverage Dig for unique, advanced reputation and insights services, such as early detection of viral narratives, brand perception benchmarking tracker, dynamic customer cohort segmentation, campaign and narrative impact analysis, and others.