Author: Gift Ifeanyi

United Bank for Africa (UBA) Plc has officially commissioned a new multi-purpose Innovation Hub and Business Office at the University of Lagos (UNILAG). The custom-designed, four-floor commercial building is engineered to foster deeper synergy between the financial services sector and academic research, offering students, innovators, and university faculty direct access to professional financial systems, advanced technology sandboxes, and corporate mentorship channels. The commissioning ceremony was led by the bank’s Group Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, Oliver Alawuba, representing UBA Group Chairman Tony Elumelu (CFR). The project was handed over directly to the university’s leadership team, led by Vice-Chancellor Professor…

The National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), working through the Office for Nigerian Digital Innovation (ONDI), has launched a targeted effort to expand the country’s digital footprint. The agency has officially opened applications for the pilot cohort of the Digital Export Acceleration Programme (DEAP). This six-month, intensive program is designed to transform high-potential startups and small-to-medium enterprises (SMEs) into export-ready businesses capable of successfully scaling outside Nigeria’s borders. The launch of the DEAP framework comes at an important time for the economy. While Nigeria’s domestic market boasts over 200 million consumers, local tech and manufacturing innovators often hit a growth…

As international tech conglomerates increase their control over Africa’s digital infrastructure, indigenous technology firm CBRILLIANCE AI-TECHS LTD has launched an aggressive, multi-sector expansion. Founded by prominent Nigerian technology entrepreneur Jethro Mark Da’ar (JMD), the company is building an interconnected network of artificial intelligence, blockchain, and automated commerce tools designed to reduce Africa’s long-term reliance on external tech platforms. The strategic push comes at a critical time for the continent’s digital economy. Rather than deploying isolated software applications, JMD is focusing on an infrastructure-first strategy to protect African digital assets, automate everyday business tasks, and open up new avenues for digital…

The Pan-African talent accelerator ALX has rolled out a major shift in its educational framework, moving entirely to a self-paced learning model across its digital training platforms. Backed by a strategic funding partnership with the Mastercard Foundation, the career accelerator has lowered financial barriers by allowing learners to access high-tier technology and artificial intelligence training for a heavily subsidized cost of $5 (~₦7,500) per month. The operational pivot is designed to prepare the continent’s rapidly growing youth population for modern workplace demands, particularly as the global economy reorganizes around automated tools and artificial intelligence. Demographers estimate that by 2035, more…

The Abia State Government has launched a ₦306 million technology-driven intervention framework designed to modernize small and medium-scale enterprises (SMEs) across its 17 Local Government Areas (LGAs). Unveiled by Governor Dr. Alex Otti, the initiative—tagged the NKATA Technology Enabling Business Grant—moves away from traditional cash-distribution models to establish a highly structured, vendor-managed resource deployment system. Administered by the Abia State Technological Skills Acquisition Centre (ATSAC) under Director-General Mr. Peter Ukonu, the project seeks to move local artisans, traders, and manufacturing outfits from basic survival into measurable corporate growth. To ensure accountability, the program explicitly eliminates direct cash payments to beneficiaries,…

The Abuja Chamber of Commerce and Industry (ACCI) and the Chartered Institute of Taxation of Nigeria (CITN) have locked horns over the operational rollouts of the Nigeria Tax Act (NTA) 2025. Speaking at a high-level stakeholders’ tax roundtable in Abuja, themed “Tax Reality: Ripple Effects on Industry and Commerce,” organized private sector leaders warned that overlapping compliance mandates are shrinking the national tax base, while administrators defended the progressive tax structure as vital to halting Nigeria’s spiral into debt. The debate arrives as Nigerian enterprises face significant macroeconomic headwinds, including persistent inflation, volatile foreign exchange rates, infrastructure deficits, and high…

A significant structural shift is redefining corporate finance and capital acquisition across Sub-Saharan Africa. Data released by enterprise fintech firm Pronalytics Limited reveals that a clean, automated tax compliance infrastructure has become the primary factor separating local companies that successfully close institutional funding rounds from those that stall during accounting audits. According to the analysis, the widespread failure of high-potential enterprises to clear private equity due diligence is rarely caused by an intentional desire to evade taxes. Instead, the bottleneck stems from fragmented back-office setups that rely on disconnected spreadsheets, manual monthly Value Added Tax (VAT) computations, and retrospective year-end…

At the 7th edition of the Africa Soft Power Summit in Nairobi, Kenya, the Chairman of Nigerian Exchange Group (NGX Group) Plc, Alhaji Umaru Kwairanga, called for a fundamental restructuring of how African capital markets evaluate intellectual property. Speaking under the central summit theme, “Africa’s Compound Interest: Aligning Ecosystems of Finance, Creativity and Human Capital for Growth,” Kwairanga urged continental financial institutions to move past treating African arts, music, and film as mere cultural assets. Instead, he argued that these sectors must be institutionalized as a structured, investable asset class. To bridge the gap between creative execution and global capital…

The rapid expansion of Africa’s financial technology ecosystem has turned secure, real-time message delivery into a critical operational necessity. At the forefront of this shift is Termii Group, an indigenous Communications Platform as a Service (CPaaS) company led by co-founder and Chief Executive Officer Emmanuel Gbolade. Since its launch in 2017, the firm has evolved from a basic digital marketing support service into the foundational messaging infrastructure used by thousands of companies across Sub-Saharan Africa. By offering unified Application-to-Person (A2P) messaging pipelines, the startup has significantly reduced message failure rates—a common issue that frequently disrupts online shopping and digital banking…

To mark his 60th birthday, the founder and Group Managing Director of the Rainoil Group, Dr. Gabriel Ogbechie (OON), has injected ₦50 million in equity-free seed capital into Nigeria’s startup ecosystem. At an entrepreneurship symposium held in Lagos, Ogbechie selected 10 early-stage entrepreneurs to receive ₦5 million each, shifting his anniversary celebration into a practical exercise in venture incubation and corporate philanthropy. The symposium served as a strategic platform for established industrialists to discuss survival tactics for volatile markets. Highlighting Nigeria’s population of over 200 million consumers, Ogbechie argued that current macroeconomic challenges are accompanied by massive consumer demand across…

In a significant return to where his business journey began, the founder and Group Chief Executive Officer of Moniepoint Inc., Tosin Eniolorunda, paid an official courtesy visit to the Ooni of Ife, Oba Adeyeye Enitan Ogunwusi. Accompanied by members of Moniepoint’s executive management team, Eniolorunda was received at the royal palace with traditional cultural performances and royal blessings. The palace audience marks a major milestone for the fintech unicorn, which Eniolorunda originally conceptualized and co-founded as TeamApt in 2015 alongside fellow engineers from the university town. Today, the platform has grown into one of Africa’s fastest-scaling business banking and agency…

Nigeria is undergoing a major structural shift in its fiscal policy as the Federal Government aggressively tries to raise its tax-to-GDP ratio from a low 10 to 11 per cent up to more sustainable African regional benchmarks. While the sweeping reforms introduced under the Nigeria Tax Act (NTA) 2025 are designed to streamline collections, they are creating a complex regulatory environment for young entrepreneurs, who currently own 67 per cent of all enterprises in the country. For millions of youth-led Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs), entrepreneurship is a necessity driven by a tight formal job market rather than a…

Nigeria’s public-private approach to informal sector formalization is gaining continental recognition. A high-level diplomatic and technical delegation from Angola’s National Institute for the Support of Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises (INAPEM), led by Chairman Bráulio Augusto, visited the country to study mySMEville, a unified digital platform developed through a partnership between MTN Nigeria and the Small and Medium Enterprises Development Agency of Nigeria (SMEDAN). The platform was designed to tackle a massive structural challenge: while MSMEs account for approximately 48 per cent of Nigeria’s GDP, nearly 80 per cent of these small businesses operate completely outside the formal financial system,…

The United Kingdom has implemented a major structural change to its international energy trade regulations by introducing the Russia Sanctions (EU Exit) (Amendment) Regulations. The updated policy closes the “refining loophole” by explicitly banning the import of refined petroleum products—including petrol, naphtha, paraffin, lubricants, and waste oils—processed in third-party countries using Russian crude oil. However, according to new guidelines analyzed by S&P Global, Nigeria has been exempted from the more rigorous proof-of-origin compliance audits. The British government has added Nigeria to a specialized list of 63 countries that are classified as net oil exporters, allowing local shipments to bypass additional…

Nigeria and Türkiye have signed a comprehensive mining cooperation agreement designed to transition their bilateral trade relations into a highly structured, operational framework. The pact was signed by the Turkish Minister of Energy and Natural Resources, Alparslan Bayraktar, and Nigeria’s Minister of Solid Minerals Development, Dr. Oladele Henry Alake, during the 2nd Istanbul Natural Resources Summit. The agreement updates an initial memorandum signed in 2021, moving it from a general statement of intent into a results-driven framework. The updated accord targets joint investments in advanced geological exploration, digital mineral management mapping, and specialized mining technology transfers. This comes as Nigeria…

To mark its a decade of business journalism, strategic policy reporting, and sector coverage, online publication City Business News will host its 10th-anniversary lecture on Thursday, June 25, 2026, at the Rockview Hotel in Apapa, Lagos. The landmark event will gather leading maritime operators, manufacturers, transport experts, and regulatory policymakers to discuss the critical infrastructure challenges impacting national distribution channels. The milestone event will be chaired by legendary transport industrialist Mr. Frank Nneji, the founder and former CEO of ABC Transport Plc. Organizers note that the choice of Nneji highlights his deep contributions to modernizing West Africa’s haulage, logistics, and…

Nigeria’s industrial sweetener demand is projected to scale to approximately 2.15 million metric tonnes, exposing a severe structural imbalance in the country’s manufacturing supply chain. A market insights report titled “NCIA Insights: Unlocking Cassava’s Industrial Value through Sorbitol Production,” published by the Nigeria Cassava Investment Accelerator (NCIA)—an initiative of the Lagos Business School (LBS)—reveals that local production capacity stands at a low 53,000 metric tonnes. Consequently, domestic agro-processors currently meet only 2.5 per cent of national demand, forcing the manufacturing sector to rely heavily on imports. Trade data shows that in 2023 alone, Nigeria imported over 7,700 metric tonnes of…

A regulatory gap in Nigeria’s aviation framework has left the Federal Government facing full financial liability for rebuilding the fire-damaged old international terminal (Terminal 1) at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport (MMIA) in Lagos. Following a major inferno at the facility, investigations by Financial Vanguard revealed that several months after the incident, no underwriting firm has recorded any claims exposure or liability. The National Insurance Commission (NAICOM), led by the Commissioner for Insurance, Mr. Olusegun Omosehin, confirmed that no claims have been filed or processed for the disaster. The development highlights a critical exposure of strategic national infrastructure, revealing that…

The Nigerian Economic Summit Group (NESG) has announced the appointment of Mrs. Surayyah Ahmad as a Director on its Board. The decision, approved during the private sector policy group’s second-quarter board meeting and confirmed via an official statement signed by Chief Executive Officer Dr. Tayo Aduloju, targets the acceleration of private sector-led transformation and inclusive growth across Nigeria. The boardroom appointment directly leverages Mrs. Ahmad’s cross-border expertise in impact investing, gender-lens finance, and early-stage SME venture scaling. This background aligns with the group’s ongoing evidence-based advocacy to bridge sub-regional financing gaps. 1. Operationalizing the $300m Youth Entrepreneurship Investment Bank A…

To strengthen non-operational support frameworks for military families, the Nigerian Air Force Officers’ Wives Association (NAFOWA) has broken ground on a mega-commercial real estate project in Idu, Abuja. The NAFOWA Neighbourhood Market is being developed through a strategic public-private partnership (PPP) with domestic construction firm Jenew Homes to build sustainable retail infrastructure for military families, widows, and local entrepreneurs. The infrastructure project reflects an ongoing policy shift by the Chief of the Air Staff (CAS), Air Marshal Sunday Aneke. The administration is increasingly tying hardware readiness and troop morale to institutional welfare, community stability, and economic self-reliance programs. 1. Structural…