Technology
Telco Subscribers Propose 10% Tariff Hike, Reject NCC’s 50% Approval
By Adedapo Adesanya
The National Association of Telecommunications Subscribers (NATCOMS) wants a maximum of 10 per cent increase in tariffs as against the 50 per cent announced by the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC).
Recall that the leadership of the body in an interview on Tuesday said it would challenge the federal government’s decision to allow operators increase tariff by 50 per cent in a court of law.
In another round of interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Lagos, the President of NATCOMS, Mr Deolu Ogunbanjo, said the group understood the dilemma faced by the telecommunications industry and had suggested a 5 – 10 per cent marginal increase in tariff.
He said that the approval by the federal government for the telcos to raise tariffs at a maximum of 50 per cent was unacceptable, arguing that it will “affect everyone from the biggest industry to the smallest company, such as the Point of Service (POS) operators.”
“It will increase operational costs,” he added.
According to Mr Ogunbanjo, experts had x-rayed the telecoms sector and said it was in intensive care, meaning it needed to be attended to.
“We now depend on telecoms for our meetings, for the banks, everybody depends on it even the education sector, yes, a lot of things depend on it.
“So, that is why we painfully agreed that, look, a moderate or marginal five per cent to 10 per cent increase will be fine.
”You know, we do not mind an increase if it is to salvage the industry that is helping us, that means so much to us and that is also contributing double-digit to Nigeria’s Gross Domestic Product.
“So, we appreciate that. It’s painful, but we granted. We said, okay, we will not mind if it is just five per cent to 10 per cent increase,’’ he said.
The NATCOMS boss stressed that, if the operators really needed funds, they should explore the Nigerian Exchange (NGX) Limited.
“The industry operators can opt for an Initial Public Offer (IPO) for Nigerians to buy shares in their companies as a way of raising funds.
“However, a situation where a whole 50 per cent is granted for tariff hike is not cheap and it is a no! no! from us subscribers.”
He reiterated that the body will take the case to the court.
“I mean, for what we are already going through, no for us, we will challenge this in court,’’ Mr Ogunbanjo insisted.
The NCC announcing the hike on Monday said the increase was pursuant to its power under Section 108 of the Nigerian Communications Act, 2003 (NCA) to regulate and approve tariff rates and charges by telecommunications operators.
“…Over 100% requested by some network operators, was arrived at taking into account ongoing industry reforms that will positively influence sustainability.
“These adjustments will remain within the tariff bands stipulated in the 2013 NCC Cost Study, and requests will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis as is the Commission’s standard practice for tariff reviews. It will be implemented in strict adherence to the recently issued NCC Guidance on Tariff Simplification, 2024,” the announcement statement noted.
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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