Author: Gift Ifeanyi

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…

To expand its commercial lending portfolio and capitalize on the steady growth of the domestic logistics market, FairMoney Microfinance Bank has launched its Asset Financing Solution. The new product marks a strategic shift for the digital lender, moving beyond its traditional focus on short-term personal and working capital loans into long-term, asset-backed commercial financing. The financial product is designed specifically for mobility entrepreneurs, intra-state transit operators, and delivery merchants. These operators often struggle to secure traditional commercial bank loans due to a lack of formal collateral, despite driving the majority of road freight and passenger transport across Nigeria’s urban centers.…

In a notable shift within Nigeria’s corporate elite, billionaire investor and Chairman of First HoldCo, Femi Otedola, has strategically reallocated a portion of his wealth to back the continent’s largest industrial asset. Otedola disclosed that he has sold part of his equity stake in Geregu Power PLC to free up liquidity, positioning himself for a $100 million private placement share allocation in the upcoming Dangote Petroleum Refinery Initial Public Offering (IPO). The financial disclosure was made during an official corporate retreat and site visit by the board and management of First HoldCo to the 650,000-barrel-per-day (bpd) integrated petrochemical complex in…

Lagos is set to reinforce its position as a major hub for commercial dispute resolution as it hosts the 10th International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) Africa Conference on International Arbitration and Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR). Scheduled to run from June 3 to 5, 2026, at the Lagos Continental Hotel, the milestone pan-African summit will bring together global arbitrators, corporate counsels, business leaders, and regulatory policymakers. Organized by the ICC International Court of Arbitration in collaboration with ICC Nigeria, the conference is themed “A Decade of Excellence: Shaping the Future of International Arbitration & ADR in Africa.” The gathering comes at…

To address high maintenance costs and make roads more resilient to changing weather patterns, the Federal Ministry of Works has shifted its road construction strategy toward high-durability technology. Speaking at the 2026 International Civil Service Conference in Abuja, the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry, Mr. Adeladan, announced the mandatory adoption of Continuously Reinforced Concrete Pavement (CRCP) for major high-traffic federal trade corridors. The change in engineering policy comes at a time when the federal government is moving away from shouldering the full cost of infrastructure development. Facing a large infrastructure deficit, the state is increasingly using Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs) and…