Nigeria – Page 13 – Tech and Biz News Nigeria

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Past Seven years: A Missed Opportunity to Stem Elite Superiority (Nkali)

Femi Otedola and Aliko Dangote went to a Drivers Licence Center (DLC) in Lagos to renew their licences a few days ago. I saw the pictures online and called Aliko to verify the story. He confirmed.

I was happy. The reason for my happiness is that this was my goal in revamping the drivers licence. It was not only to provide a secured and verifiable document, but I included the more significant social issue of equality of all Nigerians—the removal of Nkali (superiority) in our society. The need for physical presence for data capture was a significant issue for me in the brief I gave PwC the consultants to the project.

In the past, big men like Femi and Aliko would have sent their staff or driver to procure a licence for them from DLC at a cost. They would not have appeared in person for data capture or verification. Their presence at the DLC was a good signal and example. I am sure they rarely drive and would not have been stopped for licence check by law enforcement officers. The public show also helps in building a culture of respect for rules.

The first test of my resolve to get everybody to come physically for data capture was the launch of the new Drivers License by President Goodluck Jonathan. After agreeing with him to go for the launch, I told his staff that I needed his old licence and details for the new licence. His villa staff flatly rejected my request, insisting that the President cannot go to my office for a ‘mere’ licence when other bigger agencies come to the villa for data capture.

They said he could only come to launch the licence and leave; if I want to issue him a licence, I have to come to the villa for the capture and present it to him on the launch day. I quietly left. I was resolute that the data capture at the villa was not on the table, even if it meant the President might not come.

As a young under 40 then and oblivious of the word fear, I went back to the President with the offer that if he couldn’t come for data capture, it would send the wrong signals about the new system. However, I am willing to accept a representative in his stead, though that will reduce the prominence we wanted for the event.

President Jonathan overruled his staff and came to FRSC Hq for his licence. We paid (I collected the N6000 from him, he asked his staff to pay) the FCT VIO and followed through the whole process.

Ten years later, the system is still robust and working despite known challenges. Femi and Aliko collected temporary licences and will get the permanent cards in about six weeks, if everything works fine.

When rules are enforced, everybody obeys. My team at FRSC and I set out to use technology to limit officers’ discretionary powers to bypass the system and benefit from offering elite privileges. We succeeded.

The greatest tragedy of the Buhari administration is in the inability to equalise access for all Nigerians. No Nigerian Leader was equipped like President Buhari in 2015 to restore order in Nigeria. He had a solid support base, a party in control of both Houses, and an unparalleled moral authority to redefine Nigeria.

Sadly under his watch, recruitment to government agencies are done without a competitive process. The Bureau for Public Procurement (Due Process office) have become another bureaucracy and checkpoint dampening the visibility around public procurement that was becoming a culture. Nigeria’s elite still move around with Mobile Policemen and pay scant attention to rules neither on the roads or other areas of our national life.

A pervading culture of impunity has morphed into a macabre, violent show of superiority. President Buhari’s most significant legacy would have been restoring law and order in our country. The total demystification and destruction of elite privilege is critical because lawlessness and a sense that there is no consequence for bad behaviour is at the root of the violent rebellion and the widespread corruption in the land.

His pledge to fight corruption would have been impactful if he made it clear that elite privilege was not acceptable. His tenure is a great opportunity lost. He had all the ingredients for creating a new society: soldier, austere, angry, overthrown from office, suffered electoral defeats many times and old enough not to care.

A missed opportunity, yet we need to restore order in Nigeria. 2023 presents another opportunity.

Osita Chidoka
January 2022

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NIGERIA NEEDS PEACEMAKERS, NOT SPOILERS, SAYS PRESIDENT’S SPOKESPERSON

Mr Femi Adesina, Special Adviser of the President, Media and Publicity, Friday in Abuja, stressed the need for national unity, saying Nigeria needs peacemakers who will entrench nationalism and patriotism in the polity, and not spoilers.
Adesina spoke when he received a merit award from the Ambassadors of Voice for Change, a group of Nollywood actors and entertainers, led by Ahmed Bala.

The President’s spokesperson said the Buhari administration would continue to support Nigerians working assiduously to promote peace, harmony and development.

He invoked the words of renowned novelist, Chinua Achebe, in his book ”Arrow of God”, to warn on the consequences of internal conflict and underscore the need for Nigerians to see themselves as one:

”When brothers fight to death a stranger inherits their father’s estate.”
Commending the group on their vision to promote unity in Nigeria, Adesina said the sheer volume of talents and exceptional Nigerians on their network, including those in the entertainment, media, sports, fashion and arts industry, makes them a formidable voice for positive change in the country.

”The Media office of the President will always support you and I wish you the very best in all your endeavours.

”What you are doing for the country makes our work easier. When you hold town hall meetings in different parts of the country, advocating for unity, peace and change, it is easier for me to do the job and I am very glad to identify with this group, which is nationalistic and patriotic,” he said.

The spokesman of the group, Ben Kure, said Adesina, a two-time president of the Nigerian Guild of Editors (NGE), has distinguished himself as an excellent journalist, writer, media executive and spokesperson of the President, writing his ‘‘name in gold’’ in the media profession and discharge of his duties.

”He has been adjudged the best spokesman by journalists in Nigeria and one of the reasons adduced to this feat is his humility and accessibility, he deeply cares about the welfare of journalists in Nigeria,” he said.

Referring to a recent piece authored by Adesina in his weekly article, Kure thanked the president’s spokesperson for making Nigerians understand President Buhari as a good man and one who remembers and rewards the labours of the living and the dead.

”Thank you for quoting the Scripture: ‘Blessed be he of the Lord, who has not left off his kindness to the living and the dead,’ Kure said, noting that Buhari has demonstrated, through his appointments of Margery Okadigbo, Constance Harry Marshall, Justice Adesola Oguntade and Justice Sylvanus Nsofor of blessed memory, that he is a detribalised Nigerian, passionate about the country.

The representatives of the group that came with Bala, the leader, to the State House to present the award are Kure, Gentle Jack, Saheed Balogun, Mr Ibu, Shina Peters and Onyekweli Harry B.

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Canadian fintech Periculum, officially launches in Nigeria, set to build credit assessment infrastructure for Africa

The availability of domestic credit is a key requirement for consistent economic growth in developing countries. The vitality of financial services such as banking, savings, debt and equity financing, investment management, and point-of-sale lending is largely dependent on the maturity of its domestic credit industry. Nigeria’s domestic credit market pales in comparison to similar countries of the same size. For context, credit to the private sector in Nigeria is about 12 percent of GDP, lower than South Africa’s 129 percent and Malaysia’s 134 percent. High ratios of credit to the private sector in these countries have helped to ramp up real sector growth, create innovative innovation possibilities for technology-enabled businesses, accelerate financial development, ensure the efficient functioning of the economy and guarantee the prosperity of the private sector.

The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and other development partners including the Bank of Industry (BoI), the Bank of Agriculture (BoA), among others have embarked on significant credit injections to support the critical sectors of the economy, but the paucity of credit assessment infrastructure ensures many potential borrowers are denied access to loans, and when they do, they can be charged as much as triple the base interest rate. This financial exclusion has significant outcomes for the real sector as lack of access to credit can be a disincentive to entrepreneurship, investment, and economic growth.

Canadian fintech startup and credit assessment company, Periculum, has launched in Nigeria to tackle the challenge of domestic credit to the underserved markets. Focused on improving financial inclusion in emerging markets through automated credit assessment tools that close the consumer credit gap and help financial institutions provide credit facilities to the financially excluded while making smarter decisions, Periculum officially launched its financial service product offerings at a media interaction today.

Speaking at the launch, Michael Temitope Collins, Periculum’s founder and Chief Executive Officer, said “Africa needs domestic credit to stimulate real economic growth. And this is not only bank-to-business credit; it can also be digital lending for short-term credit as well as “buy now, pay later” schemes. The absence of tech-enabled credit assessment infrastructure has limited the quality and quantity of lending and may be behind the risk premiums borrowers have to pay, and the harassment practiced by predatory lenders in countries like Nigeria. Periculum will change that. We are a top provider of data analytics and credit assessment services targeted explicitly to underserved markets. We help our customers to reduce their lengthy loan application processing times and loan default rates and offer loans to the underbanked and unbanked consumers as well as micro, small and medium-scale enterprises. With reliable, tech-enabled, credit assessment services, financial institutions can increase lending to those that need credit.”

The company has also announced the appointment of a Managing Director, Damilola Aluede, to accelerate its business in Nigeria.

Nigeria’s domestic credit market pales in comparison to similar countries of the same size

Founded in 2019, Periculum helps its banking and lending customers identify fraud risk, assess creditworthiness, and analyze existing data. Periculum offers real-time decision-making, analysis, and credit underwriting solutions to financial institutions including banks, non-banking financial companies, and fintech companies. By providing information on the financial worthiness of customers and automating the loan decision process, Periculum’s customers can gather and analyze borrower information and assign a credit score faster, with real outcomes on financial inclusion in Nigeria and other markets.

Canadian Fintech Periculum, Officially Launches In Nigeria, Set To Build Credit Assessment Infrastructure For Africa

https://www.Periculum.io/media/

Periculum offers data aggregation APIs and platform solutions that aggregate data from partners including open banking APIs and the credit bureaus, to provide complete financial and data profiles of prospective borrowers and third-party entities. Some of its clients include Fundii, Lendaba, Sycamore, Golden Ox Partners, Vola Africa and Venero.

On its product roadmap and current services, Collins added “We offer services that include Credit model development, SMS data aggregation and analysis, financial data analysis, and other data analytic solutions. We can help our customers with solutions such as fraud detection, insights for lenders based on customer segmentation and customer lifecycle value, insights to retailers and ATM operators, and several other benefits”.

The startup was accepted into Techstars in 2021 and is among the 2021 Techstars Montréal AI cohort, as well as the Founder Institutes’ Select Portfolio. In October 2021, Periculum raised a $620,000 pre-seed funding round to help it expand its team, improve product development and scale its operations in Nigeria and other markets. The company currently delivers services to customers in Canada and Nigeria and plans to expand to Ghana, Kenya, and Egypt before the end of 2022.

For many countries in Africa, there is still a financial divide. By tackling the credit assessment challenge, Periculum can build the financial infrastructure that helps in addressing the issue of access to financial services and improves development outcomes for millions of people, with better opportunities for businesses, financial institutions, and lenders.

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WhatsApp launched #YouSaid education campaign to make people more aware of false news in Nigeria

WhatsApp, has announced the launch of #YouSaid, a campaign to educate people on how to verify information they come across before passing it on, to help reduce the spread of false news in Nigeria.

The campaign offers tips for WhatsApp users to spot false news and take responsibility in minimizing its spread, by encouraging people to think carefully and check authoritative sources before deciding to share any information with their friends and family.

“At WhatsApp, all personal messages are protected with end-to-end encryption because the safety and security of our users and their messages is important to us. ” Akua Gyekye, WhatsApp Public Policy Lead said while commenting on the launch of the campaign. “While we remain committed to creating a safe space for our users to communicate privately, we encourage everyone to verify any information they receive and confirm whether it is true or false before sharing it with other people. Regardless of the person you received the information from, as soon as you share any information, it becomes something people think #YouSaid. Our hope is that this campaign will open up a conversation on the importance of verifying information and thinking carefully about what people read, trust and choose to share” Gyekye added.

Here are four easy ways to reduce the spread of false news on WhatsApp

Understand what a ‘Forwarded’ message means: Any message that has the ‘forwarded’ label (an arrow or double arrow icon) did not start with the person who sent it to you. They will also have received it from someone else before passing it on to you. If you are not sure the information is true, do not forward it to someone else without verifying it.

A double arrow icon and “Forwarded many times” label will be displayed when a message has been forwarded more than five times since it was originally sent and will restrict sharing to just one chat at a time.

Always fact check information with other sources: False news can go viral, and photos, audio recordings, and videos can be edited to mislead you. If you’re unsure whether a message is true, check trusted news sites to see where the story came from. When a story is reported in multiple places and from trustworthy sources, it’s more likely to be true.

Look out for messages that look different: If you receive messages that have such things like misspelled words, wrong dates, awkward layouts, unrelated pictures and web addresses (URLs), it’s a sign that the information could be false.

Read the message objectively: Don’t let what you think you know get in the way of your judgment. Review the facts yourself before sharing information. Stories that seem hard to believe are often untrue.

Today, WhatsApp protects the personal communication of over two billion users all over the world, securing it with end-to-end encryption by default.

WE HAVE BEEN ABLE TO OFFER WORLD CLASS CYBERSECURITY SOLUTIONS FOR TEN YEARS IN NIGERIA – ETHNOS IT BOSS

Ethnos IT Security Solutions Limited is celebrating 10 years as an IT Security solution provider. Can we know how it all started?

As a company we were designed to provide security solutions to organisations, businesses and others. As technology keeps improving we came to knowledge that security is the backbone of technology. We can’t talk about technology advancement without thinking of how to secure your business assets and human to human engagements. We, at Ethnos IT Solutions have grown with the growth of technology, Today, technology is looking at artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning, metaverse, digital transformation, Holography and many others. We have grown with these new technologies and also improved in our capacity and skillset to support our customers as they consume these technologies. We have grown our market base, personnel, in terms of global technical engagements we have grown also. That is the journey. Someone said if I survive 5 years it means we would be in business for long and thank God we have survived these 5 years and we are ten today. Ten years has been a good experience for us. We have our ups and downs but we keep evolving.

Are you focused in B2B relationship or B2C relationship as it pertains to cyber security business?

Currently, we have a wealth of experience and we have changed our thinking and vision as a company. What we do now is to solve real problems for organisation and we are not limited in our thinking. We are not limited in any area of cyber security. Companies and organisations are on a journey as it pertains to business and we come in to solve problems for organisations in terms of security. We are no longer at this stage delivering products but solving problems. Some customers we evaluate them, some we train them and improve their cyber hygiene culture, some we deploy technologies to control their touchpoints, some we help on their regulatory compliance and certification journeys. We do firewall, application security, database security or perimeter security. So, we look at businesses and implement threat management and we have platforms that we can plugin your environment and help you control and detect threats from internet exposure to data base etc. We detect and remediate these threats. We also conduct threat hunting and keep checking what criminals will check for, we detect it before the criminals. We specialise in solving problems for customers regardless of what you are doing.

Do you do Penetration and vulnerability testing for companies?

Yes, we always do that for customers, before we implement anything, we first assess your threat and risk level… we do what we call threat assessment. This is the first level we take. Currently, we are conducting vulnerability and assessment testing for most of the stockbrokers as required by the Nigerian Stock Exchange.

What do you think about security breaches in Nigerian banking system?

There is the roadmap from Central Bank for banks on the levels of protections that should be in place. They have gone to define some framework that the banks must have, they are also looking at mobile environment such as mobile applications. If the CBN defines a roadmap, then banks must follow them because they are developed from expert experience and advise. So, banks must follow these guidelines. I’m not aware the Nigerian government has enacted a law that compels every organization to make their breaches public. This is what a responsible government must do. Banks are making huge efforts and investment to protect their data and that of their customers. I do sympathize with them because as they borrow new frameworks and technologies, they sometimes run into difficulties and no organization is breach proof and I know that the banks and CBN aren’t sleeping.

What about independent merchants and those deploying mobile apps?

As of the merchants, I don’t know how much regulatory frameworks are into this area. People are spinning out all kinds of mobile app, depending on what they are offering and these apps collate critical information from people and we do not know how they store and process it. We do not know the level of investment and I do not know how they do their source code analysis etc? We know how much source code analysis cost. The criticality of source code environment determines how strong the app is and criminals are now looking in that direction to launch attacks… there is the need to regulate them because if the apps are vulnerable, the users are in trouble.

Now, what do you think about public sector and what do you think that the government can do?

In business you have to know that there is what is called “focus”. Our focus as a business is to offer solutions to private businesses, it is easier and faster to deal with the organized private sector. Government isn’t an easy client to deal with, we do not want to be distracted while chasing or engaging with government. We know the political side of it and we are apolitical as a firm. If the government wants to engage us, we are open to consultancy but as per chasing government contracts, we are strictly focused on private sector. Although, we are engaging with NITDA as a DPCO (Data Protection Regulator Organization) that has been certified by NITDA. We want the lawmakers to make law on security of critical public infrastructure. There are couple of experts who are speaking to government here. We believe that it will come out positive.

You changed your corporate logo, why the change?

When we started as a company, we wanted to create an identity but as we have come of age, we tweaked our logo a bit to reflect whom we are as of today. The concept of the circle you find in our logo shows a network of our customers. If you look at it clearly it is not broken, we meant here that our customers are safeguarded and we are supplying the livewire they need to grow. We wanted that to reflect in our logo as a problem-solving organization.

What have you learnt this past 10 years as a CEO of an IT firm?

As a Chief Executive Officer of this organization and the leader of this team, I have learnt a lot of things. As a person, I have learnt to create a platform for people to thrive. We recently created an academy where people are recruited and made to know the rudiments of cybersecurity. We created a platform that will have skills available to the young ones and we trained them at no charges. We are building a platform of security experts. We are also a strong and bonded team; we encourage people to try. Opportunities abound in the market and we encourage people to take advantage of them. I also learnt that you just have to put in your best strategically and see where life take you. I enjoy what I do, it is no longer like a work to me but a lifestyle.

How did you gain market acceptance during your early years as an indigenous firm?

Well, it is mindset which has become cultural where Nigerians believe that foreign firms are better but we met some Nigeria who were of different opinion and they gave us a chance and here we are today. The industry has grown today, we were early birds that came to the industry when it was young or green. The security industry has grown so wide and today a lot of people have joined and the industry has grown. What sets us apart is that we do not only provide products but we provide services. We go to companies with questions like; what have you tried and failed? What are your plans for security? what fears do you nurse and your plan? We help organization answer these and even equip the people with skillset. We help organization to optimize their products. These are few of the things that sets us apart. We appreciate those that gave us a chance during the early days. A good number of Nigerian companies died off due to the acceptability of their products where many business owners think that foreign firms are better. Some companies are built from scratch to survive and we are built to stay in business and provide an environment for many others to thrive and grow.

What do we expect from you in future?

Currently, we are running a platform that allows us to conduct detection and response. It is a managed service that is focused on threat hunting. We want to grow that platform and see many organizations cost effectively enjoy security protection. We want to expand our capacity and give people opportunity to express themselves and contribute to protecting national assets. Cyberspace is getting more dangerous today with software everywhere, we have houses, watches, phones and a whole lot that is powered by software and because software is everywhere, it means that risk is everywhere. We want to stay relevant and ensure that these software are protected because they carry critical information from health, flight, defense, education to financial to others.

Today, technology is looking at artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning, metaverse, digital transformation, Holography and many others. We have grown with these new technologies and also improved in our capacity and skillset to support our customers as they consume these technologies. We have grown our market base, personnel, in terms of global technical engagements we have grown also. That is the journey. Someone said if I survive 5 years it means we would be in business for long and thank God we have survived these 5 years and we are ten today. Ten years has been a good experience for us. We have our ups and downs but we keep evolving.

DG NITDA Receives MTN CEO, Urges More Collaboration To Encourage Innovation

The Director General of National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) Mallam Kashifu Inuwa Abdullahi, CCIE has today received the newly appointed MTN Nigeria’s Chief Executive Officer, Mr karl Toriola and his team at the Agency’s corporate headquarters.

Mr Toriola was at the Agency to familiarize himself with the activities of NITDA and to further strengthen the partnership already existing between the Agency and organisation
The DG NITDA while addressing the team stated that MTN is one of the supporting organisation that has helped the Agency in achieving some of its set goals. Adding that “as such, we need to find ways we can work hand in hand in terms of regulations and make sure what we do is in the best interest of the public.”

“The regulation we do is not to discourage innovation or to limit you rather our regulations are developmental regulations which helps to unlock opportunities and to also create an enabling environment for you and others players”, he added.

Mallam Abdullahi said that NITDA’s regulations are form in two ways either the Agency deciding on what and what to set as regulations or they sit with the industry players to decide on what kind of regulations can be made.

He said that human capital development is one of the key areas the agency is focusing on “as we need to train our people to understand the new technologies before we develop and use it.” In this regards, the DG NITDA urged MTN to collaborate with the Agency to train as many persons as possible.

“In terms of infrastructure, we have done a lot in that aspect as we have provide infrastructure to under served and unserved communities because you need to have infrastructure to be able to connect to the service. As business people, I urged you to create an avenue where people are easily and freely connected to the service as it will create more users and in turn generate more fund”, he said.

NITDA Boss applauded MTN for doing its best in the area of compliance and commended the company for the prompt payment of its levies.
Speaking earlier, Mr Toriola asserted that the MTN Nigeria Privacy and Data Protection service has been developed and adopted by the board. He said, “It has been deployed across our business and with constant engagement with NITDA officials who have provided us with necessary support and guidance, we have carried out an audit of our privacy data compliance practices with the Nigerian Data Protection Regulations requirements.

He stated that the data breach management has been developed and deployed adding that the company has embarked on a programme that will promote local content in Nigeria which includes ecosystem support to provide ICT innovation, STEM to accelerate local innovations.

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Gov Badaru Calls For Youths’ Involvement In Critical Thinking, As Pantami Commends Jigawa For Digital Economy Drive

The Jigawa State Governor, Alhaji Muhammadu Badaru Abubukar, has urged Nigerian youths to key into the digital technologies and focus more on critical thinking in order to find solutions for Nigeria’s economic and security challenges, according him that is the only way to move the country forward.

Governor Badaru made this call at the 1st Jigawa Innovation Summit with the theme: ‘Creating a Viable Innovative Ecosystem for Economic Development’ organised by the state government in collaboration with National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) and Youth Coalition for Development (YCD), an NGO that canvasses youth engagement in changing the status quo for the betterment of Nigerians.

The governor said it is only through critical thinking that the minds of Nigerian youths can be opened, so that they can look around their environment and see the opportunities around them that they can turn into business and create jobs, adding that the more problems are being solved, the more income can be generated.

He further said that the vision and focus is to bring world of innovations to the state, noting that oil economy is almost over because of what is happening around the globe – electric cars are on the rise, solar energy is becoming cheaper, wind energy becoming supportive, and the unknown fuel energy-drive currently ongoing can surely drop the demand of oil, and if this happens, national income will continue to decline and that will affect all the states of the federation, including Jigawa.

“We have to look at the areas where we have competitiveness and see how best we can make our economy work through those areas. Like I have always said, we can achieve this largely in Agriculture. We have vast land and water for irrigation in Jigawa. We will continue to focus on how to develop Agriculture and its value chain.

“I want to challenge this Summit to see how best we can to improve in what we are doing and how best we can to create jobs around the value chains in Nigeria digitally.

“We have Informatics Kazaure that produced so many IT professionals in the country. So I expect this Summit to bring to our table advises in our educational arena so that we can do more in developing our youth by making them employers, not just employee,” he added.

While delivering his speech, the Honourable Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Dr Isa Ali Ibrahim (Pantami), commended Jigawa State for its drive in Digital Economy, noting that the State Government showed its willingness to support the effort of the Federal Government and collaboration in order to develop indigenous digital economy in the country.

Dr Pantami said the rate of unemployment in the country motivated Ministry of Communications and Digital Economy to think outside the box by focusing more on creating potential employers rather than potential employees.

He said, “If you enrolled people in university and they graduated without sufficient skills, they will never be self-reliant, they will always go around looking for jobs. But when you provide digital skills for your citizens, they will be employers of others, which Jigawa Innovation Summit should also focus on.

The minister cited Jeff Bezos, owner of Amazon, second richest person in the world, as the perfect example potential employer, who million of people are working under him.

He stated how Netherland used digital technology to boost its agricultural activities despite having lesser landmass compare to some states in Nigeria. He added that if Jigawa State deploy digital innovation to agriculture it will go along the way in creating many jobs and generating revenue for Federal and State Government.

On his part, the Director General, National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), Mallam Kashifu Inuwa Abdullahi, CCIE, while giving a Keynote Address, recalled that the journey to Innovation Summit is more exciting than the theme of the event, because the journey started in January last year when the Honourable Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Dr Isa Ali Ibrahim (Pantami) commissioned Hadejia Community IT Centre.

He said, “While delivering his Keynote Address at the commissioning, the Honourable Minister explained potential benefit of Digital Economy in our country and Jigawa State in general. Our governor showed interest in Jigawa State’s readiness to embrace the initiative, and the Honourable Minister responded positively by directing me to engage all the stakeholders to ensure Jigawa benefit immensely from Digital Economy.”

“Whatever the state government, ministry and NITDA are doing are in line with President Muhammadu Buhari’s economic diversification agenda, therefore all the credits should go to Mr President, because he campaigned before election and after he was voted to lead the country, he appointed my boss and mentor as minister, who also recommended me for this position,” he added.

Mallam Abdullahi opined that with new measures being put in place in regard to innovation and also what Governor Muhammadu Badaru Abubakar is doing in the state, Jigawa is in the forefront of zero-oil revenue.

He explained that innovation has been generally defined as the processing and taking idea from inception to impact, adding that innovation is not all about Information Technology, it is also something that has to do with invention, in terms commercialisation, business model, customer experience and organisational structure.

The DG said the event organised by Jigawa State Government in collaboration NITDA and YCD, attended by IT experts, entrepreneurs, academia, private sectors and other stakeholders is put heads together and look for competitive advantage in Jigawa; look at what each local government has, and come up with a strategy that can help unlock opportunities and create prosperity for the citizens.

“Jigawa State has a lot of potentials in terms of agricultural resources. Jigawa is the largest producer of dates, hibiscus and gum Arabic in Nigeria, and largest producer of sesames in the whole of Africa. The state also stands third in rice production, and we are utilising less than 10% of our arable land. Recently, His Excellency, the Executive Governor of Jigawa, Muhammadu Badaru Abubakar negotiated with stakeholders from Mexico to boost hibiscus production, which is a big plus for us as a nation.”

“All these can be achieved through digital technologies; this is why we are building IT centres across the country. So far, we have established 18 IT community centres out of 27 local governments, and we will build in the remaining ones. This is to prepare our future generation and create job opportunities, not only government jobs, but for youths to become self-reliant.

“We are coming with strategy where the state government can provide enabling environment that will unlock opportunities. In some countries, government job is the last resort, because you will make more money in business than in government; you will have more time in your private business than government,” he concluded.

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ZETA-WEB BRINGS LOW-PRICED, RELIABLE & SUPERFAST INTERNET SOLUTIONS FOR HOMES KNOWN AS Z-FORCE

Zeta-Web Nigeria Limited, an indigenous Information Technology (IT) firm in Lagos has reiterated their commitment to bring robust broadband and internet solutions that would ease productivity for Nigerians in the post Covid 19 work place. The company introduced Z-Force, a super-fast internet service designed for Nigerians working from home and other notable services for other market segments lately.

Speaking to the media on importance of the Z-Force to the current work place, Chris Obasi, the Managing Director of Zeta–Web Nigeria Limited said “Our Z-Force service is unique in its design as it came out at a point where users wanted internet services with both speed and data that they can use while working remotely, void of the frequent intermittencies and high-cost associated with such requests. As you would agree with me, the global pandemic brought with it, different challenges and an uncharted path that a lot of businesses where ill-prepared for; but we saw it as an opportunity to change the way we think and operate, and this meant that we had to look at a product that acts as a best-fit to the need of our clients as well as meet the current demand and market trend.”

“Our unique selling point is One product that meets the unique need of every user, Fast installation, High Quality of Service, Fair Pricing and Excellent Customer Turnaround Response Time to mention a few. Z-Force is a hybrid product that serves both the SME market (Home office) and selective mass market – home users, online schooling, entertainment, etc.”, Chris added.

With a collection of world-class services & solutions, the company has repositioned itself as a one-stop centre for IT needs. In line with the global best practices, Zeta-Web Nigeria Limited has demonstrated a high level of commitment to customer support over the years which has brought accolades and recognition to them.

In the words of Chris Obasi, he said “Our unique selling point is that we listen to our customers before designing the desired product that meets their specific needs; as we know that the world is evolving and it is no more one product fits all.”

Zeta-Web Nigeria Limited is also bringing to the fore, enhanced solutions around Virtualization and IT Security Solutions for enterprises as well as IT/Cyber Security trainings for IT administrators and regular users that utilise enterprise systems. Aside all these, they are positioning their Cloud infrastructure (both private and public) as well as digital transformation as the best-fit for the Nigerian market.

*Chris Obasi, Managing Director, Zeta Web Nigeria Limited*

The company has been lauded as being innovative in their solutions offerings that has brought respite to the premium segment of the market.

Zeta-Web Nigeria Limited have designed enterprise solutions for businesses and large corporate organizations like banks, government establishments and large business conglomerates and their aim is to fill the gap of quality ICT Service Integration and Services by designing, implementing, operating and managing high-end enterprise networks, data center technologies and applications for their customers’ specific needs.

Their current product suites are being aligned to meet the new-normal and ensure their solutions help improve users’ IT environment, support their digital transformation journey, enhance their overall experience & processes and facilitate business growth; bringing customer satisfaction to a new height and giving clients respite. They are poised to provide solutions that will meet every customer’s unique requirement.

The company commended the regulator, Nigerian Communication Commission (NCC) on their strides in the ecosystem and put forward that tax waivers and tax incentives be considered, such as eliminate multiple taxation and include tax reduction on OEMs equipment manufacturing and importation to encourage investors. On spectrum management, Obasi appealed to the regulator to make spectrum available at a fair price. He opined that “We need the government to create a sustainable and predictable spectrum allocation regime that makes useful frequency spectrum available at a fair price. They should also properly differentiate the market so that Telcos and ISPs do not overlap, by enacting laws that separate what markets can be serviced by each category of provider.”

Zeta-Web Limited is a company set up specifically to bridge the gap between quality solutions and services as well guaranteeing business success. Having started as an ISP about 7 years ago, today the company has diversified to other areas of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) such as Data Centre Services, Data Centre Virtualisation, Network Virtualisation, SDWAN, IT & Cybersecurity trainings, Broadband deployment, Business Solutions, Contact Centres and many more.

“Our unique selling point is that we listen to our customers before designing the desired product that meets their specific needs; as we know that the world is evolving and it is no more one product fits all.”

OUR AIM IS TO FILL THE GAP WITH QUALITY ICT SOLUTIONS – CHRIS OBASI

As an Internet Service Provider (ISP), do you think that internet services are overpriced in Nigeria?

The Internet Services space in Nigeria in my opinion is fairly priced, considering the environmental and economic challenges we have to endure – lack of stable electricity, frequent vandalization of fiber-lay path, unstable exchange rate, multiple taxations from Local level to Federal level and so much more.

These challenges are experienced by most businesses in-country and Service Providers are offering to their subscribers to the best of their ability a bouquet of value-add packages that are pocket-friendly. You also need to understand that in this industry, the cost of capacity to Service Providers will always determine the selling price to the end-users if we wish to stay profitable. Internet services can only be fairly-priced to the extent capacity providers push-out and price their bulk capacity to ISPs. Nonetheless, we listened to the market and with the advent of the global pandemic and the remote-working that a lot of businesses have had to adopt since last year, we are fast-tracking on solutions and services that will give businesses peace of mind – one of such is working on a simplified bundled service that allows users (corporate or individual) to enjoy the best of internet, voice-data and video without exhausting their data or paying premium i.e. More Data for Less – thereby ensuring maximum productivity and profitability to businesses in Nigeria.

You have been in business for over 7 years now, started as ISP now diversified into other spheres of IT, how has the journey been?

The journey has been quite interesting, when I look back at our how we gradually diversified by developing our competencies in IT Solutions, and evolved our business model to foster a great relationship through partnership with industry giants; it gives me a high sense of satisfaction at our accomplishments. We cannot understate the challenges that come with these. Our team worked hand-in-glove with these customers to get quality feedback regarding the different services in their environment that were either not working, poorly implemented or needs to be optimized. These and more gave us a good direction that allowed us to embed our unique touch to IT services and solutions offerings. As a business, we have also been able to contribute our quota to the ongoing digital transformation journey in Nigeria, by ensuring that any business can get what they need from a single provider, which ensures full optimization across their IT infrastructure and is cost-effective. The testament of this success is with our customer base that spans across different industries and sectors in Nigeria that trust us. In as much as we acknowledge that the challenges are enormous and constantly evolving, we are determined to stake our claim in this space.

You recently introduced Z-FORCE service, how has it been and how well has it been accepted in Nigeria?

Our Zforce service is unique in its design as it came out at a point where users wanted internet services with both speed and data that they can use while working remotely, void of the frequent intermittencies and high-cost associated with such requests. As you would agree with me, the global pandemic brought with it, different challenges and an uncharted path that a lot of businesses where ill-prepared for; but we saw it as an opportunity to change the way we think and operate, and this meant that we had to look at a product that acts as a best-fit to the need of our clients as well as meet the current demand and market trend. In the area of aftersales support which is always a problem in our environment, we continue to run a 24-hour support service and this has also enhanced the acceptability of Zforce in the market. Currently this service is only available in Lagos, but we are increasing our service coverage to cover at least other major cities and the underserved communities across Nigeria.

What are the unique selling points of Z-FORCE as a product?

Our unique selling point is One product that meets the unique need of every user, Fast installation, High Quality of Service, Fair Pricing and Excellent Customer Turnaround Response Time to mention a few. Z-Force is a hybrid product that serves both the SME market (Home office) and selective mass market – home users, online schooling, ‘entertainment’, etc.

*Chris Obasi, The Managing Director, Zeta-Web Nigeria Limited*

Tell us about your FibreSat solution and the areas of coverage?

FiberSat is an innovative product that derives its name from a combination of services- Fiber and VSAT, one acts as the primary link while the second is a backup in the instance of service failure. It enables us to provide redundancy/backup with an uptime of 99.98%, compared to the industry uptime of 98%. It means we empower businesses to switch as need be during service disruption without their operations being impacted. FiberSat is available in major cities nationwide.

With Your broadband solution for home use, now that people are working from home, how pricey is it and the speed?

It is cost effective, as we had to invest and work with our partner ecosystem to provide the hardware at no cost or on free lease to our customers. We provide a solution that will meet every customer’s unique requirement.

How can the government create policies that would enable indigenous ISP firms like yours scale?

We need the government to create a sustainable and predictable spectrum allocation regime that makes useful frequency spectrum available at a fair price. They should also properly differentiate the market so that Telcos and ISPs do not overlap, by enacting laws that separate what markets can be serviced by each category of provider. Internet access should be treated as a right of all citizens and as such ISPs should be given tax incentives accordingly – eliminate multiple taxation and include tax reduction on OEMs equipment manufacturing and importation to encourage investors. Protection of our infrastructure and also support us more by ensuring the industry has access to foreign exchange at the official rate. Finally, provision of long-term loans with very minimal interest rates to new and existing ISPs to support their overall operation.

Tell us more about ZETA Business solutions and what segment of market it is designed for?

Zeta-Web Business Solutions (ZBS) is a 21^st century IT-savvy solutions competency provider, with a team of highly-dedicated and knowledge-based professionals that offer premium service to a varied clientele base that spans across, Financial, Oil and Gas, Government & their Parastatals, Education, Telecommunication and Manufacturing. We cater to the needs of SMEs and large organisations and able to deploy our services by working with select OEMs’ product offerings tailored to meet the ever-changing demands of our customers-partners environment that will help every business to be agile in order to meet their desired goals. Our aim is to fill the gap of quality ICT Service Integration and Services by designing, implementing, operating and managing high-end enterprise networks, data center technologies and applications for our customers’ specific needs.

“Our unique selling point is that we listen to our customers before designing the desired product that meets their specific needs; as we know that the world is evolving and it is no more one product fits all”

As an ICT Solutions Provider, you have various solutions like Data Centre services, structured cabling and switching services etc. how has the market accepted these solutions and what are your unique selling points?

Our unique selling point is that we listen to our customers before designing the desired product that meets their specific needs; as we know that the world is evolving and it is no more one product fits all. Secondly, the market’s methodology about Data Centres and WAN has gone in the Software-defined direction and our portfolio has been robust enough to accommodate this shift in demand. Our range of Structured Cabling and Switching solutions deliver quality throughputs and serve as a solid foundation for data centre services of all kinds. Our flexibility, in-depth professional knowledge and customer-centric approach stands us out in the market.

This is a new year, what are the solutions that Nigerians should expect from you?

COVID 19 and the local impacting socio-political upheavals that affected the business landscape have also opened-up unique opportunities such as the importance of Remote Working. We are enhancing our solutions around Virtualization and IT Security Solutions for enterprises. We also provide IT/Cyber Security trainings for IT administrators as well as regular users that utilise enterprise systems. Aside all these, we will also be positioning our Cloud infrastructure (both private and public) as well as digital transformation to the market. The post-pandemic reality is that the new normal has come to stay, and our current product suites are being aligned to meet the new-normal and ensure our solutions help improve our customers’ IT environment, support their digital transformation journey, enhance their overall experience & processes and facilitate business growth. As we continue to understand the enterprise business landscape, we will keep designing solutions that fit into the market needs.

Tell us about your Collaboration Services and your Contact Centre Solutions. Are you open to mid-market players?

In the past, Collaboration was assumed to be within an office or one organization. Now, Collaboration has broken boundaries of the typical office network and has reached across all of the Internet and Cloud Infrastructure. Cloud-based collaboration solutions in the form of software as a service (SaaS) is readily available for a wide range of customer type including mid-sized firms. The advantage is that these solutions are scalable and so you can start small and scale up as you grow.

Our Call Centre Solutions are robust and have crossed the boundaries of the basic voice-based call centre and IVRs, to multichannel contact centres that have multiple touchpoints including Social Media and Chat Bots. The need to constantly engage and have successful dialogues with customers and employees as well as putting information on products and services out there without increasing operating cost is one aspect, we are mindful of.

As an IT stakeholder, what is your take on Nigerians hosting and having their data hosted locally, do you think that there are advantages to this?

Nigeria has come a long way from when there were no standard tiered data centres in-country and 100% of Internet content was outside our shores. Now we have a lot of content developers, Intellectual property owners and organisations with content and Internet-based products meant for consumption by the Nigerian market. A good example is the different payment gateways we have now, make room for all of these contents to remain in-country to ensure good application response time and overall better performance of products and services. Also, the content remaining in-country improves the economy, as fees that would otherwise be paid to ferry the traffic outside our shores and host it outside our shores is now paid to local providers; thereby boosting our economy. The main challenge for now is in generating alternative source of energy which is not cost-effective and is currently being used to manage downtime and availability, which is an essential and critical aspect of data hosting.

“Our Z-Force service is unique in its design as it came out at a point where users wanted internet services with both speed and data that they can use while working remotely, void of the frequent intermittencies and high-cost associated with such requests.”

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Tag: Nigeria