Author: Akin Naphtal

Tizeti Network Limited, West Africa’s pioneer solar-based internet service provider has announced the appointment of Emmanuel Ikazoboh as its Board Chairman. Emmanuel Ikazoboh is the immediate past Group Chairman of Ecobank Transnational Incorporated (ETI), Chairman of ARM Pensions Managers Limited (Pensions Fund Administrators), and is the International Vice Chairman at International Institute for Sustainable Development, Canada. He is an independent/Non-Executive Director for Nampak Packaging Limited South Africa and Dangote Cement Plc. He was appointed Administrator of The Nigerian Stock Exchange and helped transform the Nigerian Stock Exchange as well as the Central Securities Clearing System (CSCS), and was responsible for…

Ericsson and 4G+ network Free recently in Senegal collaborated to showcase 5G technology capacity at the Free Senegal Innovation Xperience (FIX) ceremony held recently. The selected demos include Music Connect, Connected Healthcare, Connected Vehicles and Fixed Wireless Access (FWA) for smart homes, primarily focused on the role of 5G in enabling a more intelligent society. According to the companies, the demos have highlighted the role of connectivity and cellular technology in driving digital transformation for consumers and industries across Senegal. “By visualising artists spread across various locations playing together in harmony, the Music Connect demo showed how 5G can provide…

Elon Musk has threatened to walk away from his $44bn acquisition of Twitter, complaining that the social media company has failed to provide sufficient information about spam and fake accounts. Musk has repeatedly criticised Twitter’s claim that less than 5 per cent of its monetisable daily active users are bots, warning last month that his takeover “cannot move forward” unless the platform provides proof. In a letter to Twitter’s chief legal officer that was disclosed in a regulatory filing on Monday, Musk’s lawyers at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher and Flom wrote that the Tesla chief believes the company has “refused…

Kenya’s biggest telecommunications operator, Safaricom, has launched a virtual payment card with Visa Inc, offering more than 30 million users of its M-Pesa payments system access to global e-commerce platforms. The launch of the M-Pesa GlobalPay Visa virtual card follows a partnership between the two companies forged in 2020 to develop “products that will support digital payments for M-Pesa customers.” M-Pesa, launched 15 years ago as one of the world’s first mobile phone-based money transfer services, has evolved to account for roughly half of Safaricom’s annual revenue. Through Visa’s digital processing network its users will now get access to more…

The Executive Vice Chairman (EVC) of the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), Prof. Umar Danbatta, has promised the new leadership of the West Africa Telecommunications Regulators Assembly (WATRA) of the unflinching support of the Commission towards advancing the socio-economic agenda of the Assembly for the sub-region. Danbatta gave the pledge during a recent courtesy visit of the new executives of WATRA, led by its new Chairman, Sekou Oumar Barry of the Republic of Guinea. Barry came to vist Danbatta in company of the first and second Vice Chairmen of the Assembly, representing Mali and Sierra Leone respectively; as well as the…

Data from the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has revealed that 832 mobile subscribers ported their numbers to the MTN network in April 2022. The subscribers moved from other mobile networks of Globacom, Airtel, and 9mobile. This was done through the Mobile Number Portability (MNP) instituted by the telecoms regulator, which allows customers to change their service providers without changing their number. The data shows data Airtel also received 354 customers from other networks, while 9mobile welcome 131 customers through porting. Globacom also saw 112 customers moved to its network from other operators. But just as the operators gained some new…

Google is set to merge two of its audio and video-calling platforms- Google Duo and Google Meet, into a single platform. The technology company says it is integrating both features to create a more unified communications service. The platforms will be merged in a two-step process where Google Duo will get all the features of Google Meets first. Google Duo will be renamed Google Meets later this year Meet has become a more powerful platform for official meetings, group calls, and chats for organisations in the last couple of years. On the other hand, Duo has been more of a…

Subscriptions for internet across mobile, fixed, and VoIP networks in the country increased to 148 million in April this year. Statistics obtained from the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) reveals that telecom operators recorded 2.5 million new subscriptions in the month. Despite losing 13.8 million internet subscriptions between January to May last year due to the government’s suspension of SIM registration and activation between December 2020 and April 2021, the telecom operators in the industry have risen above the challenge to gain a remarkable ground, with mobile network operators taking the lead. Records of December 2020 showed that subscriptions across all…

The Asantehene, Otumfuo Osei Tutu II, has praised Vodafone Ghana for its enormous support for sustainable development in the Ashanti Region. According to him, apart from Vodafone’s support for the prestigious Asantehene Open Golf Championship, it has introduced interventions that benefit everyone, especially women and children, for which he commended the company. Otumfuo Osei Tutu II said this when the senior management team of Vodafone Ghana paid a courtesy call on him at the Manhyia Palace last Friday. The purpose of the visit was to announce plans to extend the sponsorship of the Asantehene Open Golf Tournament, which Vodafone has…

Olayiwola Osoba is a member of The Chartered Institute of Marketing, UK, and a member of the Advertising Practitioners Commission of Nigeria AppZone, Sub-Saharan Africa’s payment infrastructure company, today appoints Olayiwola Osoba as its new Vice President of Marketing and Corporate Communications. Osoba joins AppZone from Tek Experts, where he led Marketing and Corporate Communications across the company’s Africa region. In his new role, Osoba will oversee the marketing, branding, and storytelling efforts at AppZone. Founded in 2008, Appzone, Africa’s no.1 Fintech Software Engineering firm has evolved into a payment infrastructure company. Its Layer-1 Blockchain network digitises fiat payments and…