The Nigerian Railway Corporation (NRC) has disclosed that the rehabilitation of the 200-kilometre Minna-Baro railway track will cost the Federal Government more than N80 billion. The completion of the project will afford people the opportunity to ply the Lagos-Abuja-Kano route with ease. According to NAN, this was made known by the Managing Director of NRC, Fidet Okhiria, during a meeting with officials of the construction firm, Chinese Civil Engineering Construction Corporation (CCECC), on Friday in Minna. Okhiria who said that they plan to complete the project within 3 years, assured that the government will make funds available for it. He…
Author: Temitope N.
OkHi, a smart addressing startup has secured $1.5 million seed extension to further its goal of increasing efficiency across key sectors in Nigeria. While the new funding brings the total funding to $3 million, the startup says the development will enable it to hasten its goal of verifying the addresses of more than one million Nigerians to enhance accessibility and efficient delivery services. The round saw existing investors such as Founders Factory Africa, Betatron, and Interswitch Group as well as new investors, the likes of; Chapel Hill Denham, Flutterwave’s founder and executives, and EXFI (a syndicate of ex-Googlers). Timbo Drayson,…
Oxford International Group, Vektr Capital Investment and Farmforte Agro-Allied Solutions Limited have reacted to their recently sealed offices by the Security and Exchange Commission for reasons bothering on unlicensed and alleged illegal investment activities. According to SEC in a statement, the three investment companies’ offices in Lagos, Port Harcourt and Abuja were shut down for executing investment operations that fall within the ambit of fund management without registration. The SEC statement read, “These companies do not have registration of the SEC to conduct fund management activities and have been found to promise exorbitant rates of returns to lure investors. The SEC…
African mobility fintech, Moove has raised $105 million in new Series A2 financing to provide vehicle financing to drivers of ride-hailing platforms like Uber and other gig networks in seven new markets across Asia, Europe and the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) over the next 6 months. The new fund follows its recently secured $10 million in debt financing a month ago and $23 million Series A round in August, last year. The startup said with the fund, it will model its gig drivers in other vehicle classes such as three-wheelers and buses. The funding round was led by…
Spleet, a Nigerian prop-tech startup, has received a $625,000 pre-seed funding round as it looks to further its drive to provide tenants with affordable loans to help them pay their rent. The funding is an oversubscribed pre-seed round, which was led by MetaProp VC including other participants like Future Africa, FEDHA Capital, VFD Group, Moonshot VC, HoaQ, Squarefoot CEO Jonathan Wassersturm, Flutterwave CEO Olugbenga ‘GB’ Agboola, and others. According to the startup, the funding will be used to build Spleet’s newest rent financing product ‘Rent Now Pay Later’ and other products to enable seamless residential rental processes as it is…
Co-founder and CEO of Meta, Mark Zuckerberg has said that Non-Fungible Token, NFTs, will be coming to Instagram soon. According to the CEO, the development – still on the way – would see the integration of non-fungible tokens into the company’s photo and video sharing app as the Instagram team is currently working out some of the technical challenges. Casey Newton, writer of The Verge’s Platformer newsletter, tweeted that Zuckerberg also said that “hopefully” in the coming months, Instagram members will be able to mint their own non-fungible tokens (NFT) within the app. He said, “We’re working on bringing NFTs to Instagram…
Co-founder and CEO of Meta, Mark Zuckerberg has said that Non-Fungible Token, NFTs, will be coming to Instagram soon. According to the CEO, the development – still on the way – would see the integration of non-fungible tokens into the company’s photo and video sharing app as the Instagram team is currently working out some of the technical challenges. Casey Newton, writer of The Verge’s Platformer newsletter, tweeted that Zuckerberg also said that “hopefully” in the coming months, Instagram members will be able to mint their own non-fungible tokens (NFT) within the app. He said, “We’re working on bringing NFTs to…
You know how all your friends are currently using your Netflix login details? Netflix knows it too, and is testing a new way of allowing account sharing, but for an additional fee. Sharing your Netflix password with someone for free outside your household may soon become a thing of the past. In a news release posted to its website Wednesday, the streaming giant announced that it will begin testing ways to make users sharing an account outside the household pay for the additional members. “We’ve always made it easy for people who live together to share their Netflix account, with features like…
ThriveAgric, a technology-driven agricultural company, secured $56.4 million in debt funding from commercial banks and institutional investors. Additionally, the company received a $1.75million co-investment grant from West Africa Trade & Investment, which is funded by USAID. As a result of the new investment, the company will be able to expand its 200,000+ farmer base, as well as enter new markets in Africa, including Ghana, Zambia, and Kenya. By accessing credit and improving productivity and sales, ThriveAgric promotes food security by helping farmers in Nigeria sell their products to FMCGs and food processors. The company was founded in 2017 and has…
A fire incident has the popular Apongbon Under Bridge Market in Lagos, razing shops and properties worth millions of nairas. According to sources present at the scene, the fire started at around 4:00am Wednesday morning. It is not yet clear what caused the fire, but no casualty has been reported so far. The unfortunate incident has already caused heavy traffic Eko and Carter bridges as Eko Bridge in particular, has been heavily affected by the inferno. The federal and Lagos fire services are currently at the scene of the incident, trying to put out the fire. Officials of LASEMA and…
The Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Godwin Emefiele, has disclosed that the number of fertilizer blending plants in Nigeria, has risen from 7 to over 48, since the assumption of office by President Muhammadu Buhari in 2015. This is as 35 million blended bags of fertilizer has been produced in the country within the last 5 years. Emefiele made known this while speaking at the official commissioning of the $2.5 billion Dangote Fertilizer plant at Ibeju-Lekki, by President Muhammadu Buhari, on Tuesday. The CBN Government attributed this achievement to the efforts of the Presidential Fertilizer Initiative which…
The Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (FCCPC) has disclosed that it is engaging pay television company, Multichoice Nigeria, for clarity on its recently announced increase of subscription fee across all bouquets for its DStv and GOtv services. According to NAN, this was disclosed by the Executive Chairman of FCCPC, Mr Babatunde Irukera, during an interview on Wednesday in Abuja. Irukera pointed out that its engagement with the pay-television company is to find out if the company implemented a change in terms and conditions in line with the Commission’s mandated steps. He said that the FCCPC’s recent orders were broad…
The Federal Government established that the $2.5 billion Dangote Fertiliser plant will improve the agriculture productivity and address issues with low volume in Nigerian agriculture. This was made known by Nigeria’s Agriculture Minister, Dr, Mohammad Abubakar at the commissioning of the Dangote Fertilizer Plant at Ibeju-Lekki, Lagos on Tuesday. He urged fertiliser stakeholders to register with the Ministry of Agriculture under its quality control programme to ensure the health of the value chain. The Minister stated that the plant, built for $2.5 billion, is a major milestone in the agriculture policy reforms of the Buhari administration. “For Nigeria, the agriculture…
The President/Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Dangote Group, Alhaji Aliko Dangote, has said that the products from its newly commissioned fertilizer plant are already in the African market as well as the United States, Brazil, India and Mexico. Africa’s richest man noted that the export of products from the $2.5 billion fertilizer plant is due to the achievement of self-sufficiency in production with excess capacity for export. This was made known by Dangote, while reading his address during the commissioning of the Dangote Fertilizer plant at the Ibeju-Lekki area of Lagos by President Muhammadu Buhari, on Tuesday, March 22, 2022.…
The Federal Government of Nigeria has made known that the $2.5 billion Dangote Fertiliser plant will be beneficial for Nigeria’s food-related exports as Africa ventures into the African Free Trade Continental Agreement( AfCFTA). This was made public by Nigeria’s Trade Minister, Niyi Adebayo at the commissioning of the Dangote Fertilizer Plant at Ibeju-Lekki, Lagos on Tuesday. He also added that the plant has also introduced development into the Lekki Free Trade Zone area. The Minister said that this is a great achievement, not just for Dangote Group, but Nigeria as a country, adding that Alhaji Dangote is a man that has been…
Africa’s richest man and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Dangote Group, Aliko Dangote, has noticed low fertilizer usage as the major reason for low productivity in the agricultural sector in Nigeria. Dangote revealed that the non-availability of fertilizer in quantity and quality rather than affordability is the primary constraint in the use of fertilizer in the country today. This was made known by Dangote while delivering his speech at the commissioning of the $2.5 billion Dangote fertilizer plant at Ibeju-Lekki, Lagos, on Tuesday, March 22, 2022. Dangote said that the major objective of the fertilizer plant is to make…
Bolt and Uber drivers, ride-hailing firms in Abuja has increased their rates by 50% from the rate charged by the apps due to persistent fuel scarcity in the Federal Capital City (FCT). This was based on interviews conducted with some of the drivers in the FCT. According to them, they had to increase the fares because the fuel is still scarce in the FCT and they may down tool if the situation persists beyond next week. John, who is one of the drivers, told us that it has been very difficult buying fuel in Abuja. He said, “We have to unofficially…
Nigerian startup, Simplifyd, has raised US$500,000 in pre-seed funding to solve the challenges associated with accessing affordable data. The new funding came from Future Africa and Y Combinator – after Simplifyd was selected for the W22 batch of the Silicon Valley-based accelerator. The startup was founded by Tomi Amao, Mayowa Amao, Sam Keiru and Abiola Fajimi in 2020 to avail affordable data to mobile and web app users in emerging markets across Africa. it is part of its drive to become the platform of choice for data-free access to the internet across Africa, the startup has also launched ZeroData, a toll-free internet…
The American multinational technology, Microsoft Corporation, which produces computer software, personal computers and related services, will today, open its first African Development Centre (ADC) in Lagos. The centre which is a $100 million investment by the multi-billion dollar firm is where software engineering solutions is expected to be provided to Africa. This report was made known in a tweet post by the Personal Assistant to the President on Digital and New Media, Bashir Ahmed, on his official Twitter account on March 21, 2022. The hub, which was created alongside the one in Nairobi, Kenya, will be the first to be…
The Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (FCCPC) has instructed MultiChoice Nigeria (MCN), to introduce an additional feature that allows subscribers to maintain the same subscription fee for a minimum period of one year. The additional features will also allow subscribers to have better value for money proposition for annual prepayment of subscription with the ability to suspend subscription at least once every quarter of the year. This disclosure is contained in a final order and notice of the FCCPC and signed by its Director, Legal Service, Mr Tam Tamumokonbia, on Saturday, March 19, 2022, and can be seen on…