Technology
Nigeria Plans Centre for Artificial Intelligence, Robotics
By Adedapo Adesanya
In an effort to achieve a robust digital economy, the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) is set to establish a Centre for Artificial Intelligence and Robotics in Nigeria.
This was disclosed by the Director-General of the agency, Mr Kashifu Abdullahi Inuwa when he received Vice-Chancellors Nile University Abuja, Mr Osman Nuri Aras and Vice-Chancellor, Sule Lamido University, Dutse, Mr Lawal Sani Taura on separate visits to the headquarters of the agency in Abuja.
In a statement released by the agency, the DG said the proposed state of the art facility will be for emerging technologies in the areas of networking, research development, information, and communication security.
He was quoted as saying “We need to look at the educational sector and focus more on skills and research that can be used to develop the economy.
“People should not see education as the end but means to the end. We need to look for ways to disabuse people’s mind on paper qualification and inculcate in them those skills required for the imminent industrial revolution and also focus more on science and technology.”
While citing some scholarly research from Microsoft, Mr Inuwa noted that according to the research, by 2030, 800 million jobs would be lost unless people up-skill and re-skill and 149 million new jobs would be created through Artificial Intelligence and other emerging technologies.
Mr Inuwa stated that the agency offers scholarships in areas that have direct impacts on the industry.
On this, he said, “It is important to strengthen the existing relationship with the higher institutions in the country so that there can be custom made courses to prepare us for future work. Our focus is not to just have MSc or PhD but to add value to the industry. We must prepare Nigerians especially students for the fourth industrial revolution.
“COVID 19 is fast-forwarding the industrial revolution, it has become imperative to increase our level of preparedness and develop capacity in emerging technology. Embedding relevant skills will better prepare the workforce to actively participate in the fourth industrial revolution.”
While commending Nigerian institutions that are gradually transiting from physical learning to virtual learning due to the lockdown, he encouraged other higher institutions to adopt the method of virtual education.
In his remarks, Mr Osman Nuri Aras of Nile University said his institution is prepared to work with NITDA to ensure it produces students that are future proof as it has a speciality in machine learning, where 85 per cent of its MSc and PhD computer science students have their specialities in machinery and Artificial Intelligence.
Also, in his remarks, Mr Lawal Sani Taura of Sule Lamidi University noted the importance of the partnership between NITDA and the Jigawa state government on digital transformation and smart initiatives. He, therefore, commended the agency for its interventions in capacity building programmes, especially on information and communication technology.
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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