The United Kingdom Government has commissioned a community-owned digital connectivity hub in Siun, Obafemi Owode Local Government Area of Ogun State, putting community participation and local ownership at the heart of efforts to bridge Nigeria’s digital divide. The Siun Community Self-Built Connectivity Hub, supported through the UK Government’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) Digital Access Programme, is one of 10 community-centred connectivity hubs being established to expand affordable internet access and digital opportunities in underserved communities across Nigeria. Rather than adopting a conventional top-down approach to digital infrastructure development, the initiative places communities at the centre of the process,…
Author: Rommy Imah
Rommy Imah is Founder/Editor of Digital Times Nigeria (www.digitaltimesng.com). He has been in active journalism in over two decades with a bias for technology and business reporting. He is particularly passionate about technology and how it can be used to transform human life, businesses and services.
When a card transaction fails, the customer rarely knows why. Was it their bank? The network? The merchant’s terminal? For the person standing at a checkout counter, the uncertainty is the problem, and increasingly, fintech engineers are treating that uncertainty itself as something to be designed against, not just tolerated. That idea sat at the centre of Moniepoint’s inaugural “Off the Record Engineering Mixer” in Lagos, where the leading fintech gathered senior engineers from across Nigeria’s payments industry, including Flutterwave, Cowrywise and Nomba, for closed-door conversations on the mechanics of running financial infrastructure at scale. The sessions, titled “Building for…
On a quiet Monday morning, the proprietor of a growing private school walks through her compound before the first bell rings. The classrooms are freshly painted, teachers are preparing their lessons, and parents are arriving with children eager to begin another academic year. Behind the excitement of the new session is a list of urgent financial decisions. The school needs more desks to accommodate increasing enrolment. Some computers in the ICT laboratory must be replaced. The school bus requires repairs, additional teachers must be recruited, and suppliers are waiting for payment. Beside the school is an empty plot that could…
The Director-General of the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), Kashifu Inuwa Abdullahi, has called for a unified regulatory framework across Africa to remove overlapping mandates, shorten approval processes and make the continent more attractive to digital infrastructure investors. Inuwa made the call while speaking at a Regulatory Roundtable on “Regulations that Builds: Aligning Policy and Digital Infrastructure Investment Priorities” at the ITW Data Cloud Africa 2026 event in Nairobi, Kenya. He argued that investors should not have to navigate a maze of government agencies with overlapping responsibilities before establishing or expanding digital infrastructure businesses. According to him, governments must…
The emergence of Mary-Brenda Akoda’s GenScan AI as the winner of the 2026 Nigeria Prize for Science and Innovation (NPSI) was the product of a deliberate process by the Advisory Board to uphold the highest standards of scientific excellence, Professor Barth Nnaji has said. Nnaji, Chairman of the Advisory Board for the Nigeria Prize for Science and Innovation, said the Board’s role was not merely to announce a winner but to ensure that every edition of the prestigious prize provided a credible platform for identifying innovations capable of making meaningful contributions to society. Speaking at the announcement of the 2026…
Mary-Brenda Akoda has made history as the first woman and first millennial to win the Nigeria Prize for Science and Innovation (NPSI) as an individual recipient, emerging winner of the 2026 edition with her groundbreaking artificial intelligence innovation, GenScan AI (GenMRI/C-MORE). Akoda’s achievement marks a significant milestone in the 22-year history of the Prize, which recognises outstanding scientific research and innovations capable of addressing critical challenges and delivering sustainable impact on society. The 2026 winner was announced at the NPSI Press Conference in Lagos following a rigorous and independent evaluation by the Prize’s Panel of Judges, chaired by former minister…
Businesses, investors and government officials travelling between Nigeria’s political capital and Ogun State’s rapidly expanding commercial and industrial corridor can now access a faster air connection, following the commencement of a daily service by ValueJet in partnership with Gateway Air, the Ogun State-owned airline. The new Abuja–Lagos–Gateway service links the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja, with Gateway International Airport in Iperu, Ogun State, via Lagos, providing travellers with a more convenient alternative to the often lengthy road journey into the state. The service is designed to enable passengers travelling from Abuja to maximise their time in Ogun State, with the…
Lagos is positioning itself at the centre of Africa’s rapidly evolving financial landscape with the launch of MINT AFRICA by GITEX, a new platform designed to bring together capital, technology, regulation and infrastructure to shape the continent’s next generation of financial services. Announced in Lagos as part of GITEX NIGERIA week 2027, the future finance platform will convene governments, regulators, banks, institutional investors, fintech companies, technology providers and digital-asset innovators at a time when fundamental assumptions about money and financial markets are being rewritten. From programmable money and tokenised real-world assets to agentic artificial intelligence, stablecoins and interoperable payment systems,…
HCL Software is expanding its business footprint in Nigeria and across West Africa, leveraging the region’s growing demand for cybersecurity, endpoint management, workplace collaboration and other enterprise technology solutions, according to Chancard Moise Kanga, General Director, Africa, HCL Software. Kanga, who spoke on the sidelines of the ongoing 2026 GITEX Nigeria in Lagos, said Nigeria has emerged as one of the company’s strongest and most mature markets on the continent, accounting for a significant share of the growth HCL Software has recorded across Africa over the past three years. Speaking on the company’s operations and strategy in Africa, Kanga described…
Lagos has emerged as the focal point of Africa’s accelerating technology and artificial intelligence ambitions, as government leaders, technology companies, investors and startups gathered in the city for the second edition of GITEX NIGERIA, with a renewed call for the continent to build, own and commercialise the technologies shaping the global intelligence economy. The two-day Tech Expo & Future Economy Conference, which opened in Lagos on Wednesday, followed Monday’s sold-out Government Leadership & AI Summit in Abuja, bringing West Africa’s largest technology, AI and startup gathering to Nigeria’s commercial capital for an intensive programme of innovation showcases, strategic conversations and…