General News
Automation Key in Capital Market Resuscitation-Emmanuel
Amos Emmanuel, chief software architect/CEO, Programos Software Group, is first vice president, Information Technology (Industry) Association of Nigeria (ITAN) and member of other various industry Associations.
He also founder and president of Programos Foundation and national coordinator and designer of the SPACE4Nigeria – Strategic Planning, Acquisition and Control Education portal of the UN Infopoverty Initiative that now serve as the pivot for the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs.
The polyglot programmer is the UN World Summit Award Eminent National Expert for Nigeria and has authored many software products including the most populous African capital market software called CloudIntegraeTrade and IntegraFixPro5.0 OMS (Order Management System) Software utilized by over 100 African stockbroking organizations mostly in Nigeria and Ghana. Emmanuel founded the eAfrica.
He spoke to peter ugwu on software and Nigeria’s IT sundry issues.
Initiatives to Resuscitate Software for the Stock Market
The Nigerian stock market has been one segment of the nation’s financial sector that we have offered services in the last 15 years.
In addition, we have, from inception, introduced indigenous software called INTEGRA2000+ now been changed to a new product that is 100% cloud-based called CLOUDINTEGRA eTRADE.
It is an investment and e-Trade software that will enable stock market operators in Nigeria and indeed Africa to offer daily online services in a very transparent manner to local and foreign investors.
These were actually the things that eluded the Nigerian investment community before now. Besides, the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) has been developing a trading platform which calls for supporting software vendors to design fresh systems that can integrate the market with investors and dealers through a direct market access to the Nigerian Stock Market X-GEN FIXTrading Platform on daily basis and make investors trade directly, even from the comfort of their homes.
Programos Software Group has now being certified of the new IntegraFixPro5.0 OMS solution. This solution is the Orders Management System which empowers any stock market operator like the Dealer and customers to trade online over the new trading infrastructure.
Some of the benefits are that stock market brokers are able to offer transparent services.
Before now, investor do not know what transpires between their investment records, the stockbrokers, the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE), the Bankers, the Registrars and the Central Securities Clearing System (CSCS), as well as the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
These are the major organs in the market. However, with information technology (IT), we have been able to provide more transparency in the processes that at no point can any of the players engage in anti-best practice without being noticed.
We all know that before now an investor gives a mandate before a broker can carry out a deal; if that rule was kept we would not have had cases in the news of a broker selling shares without the knowledge of the owner.
Some of the anti-best practices happened in the past because the regulatory rested on human beings and not necessarily on automatable standards which we now offer.
So, we have been able to use technology to mitigate risks in the market with the launch of CloudIntegra eTrade software.
CloudIntegraeTrade Software and IntegraFixPro5.0 will be on exhibition at the Nigerian Pavilion of the World Congresson Information Technology, WCIT 2014 in Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico, September 2014.
Automation of the Stock Market and Investors’ Confidence
Automation is going to mitigate the risks and make the investment climate safer. Sincerely, it is the best time for you to penetrate the market, because you might be hearing that the market is coming up. The operating rules have changed and are still changing.
At the Americas Fix Trading Conference this year in New York, we were made to understand that the FIX (Financial Information eXchange) is designed to satisfy the investor.
Going by the investors’ appetite for optimal returns, mandates have become more challenging for the human mind as of the stockbroker to cope with on the new trading platform. So it is now more technology processes than more people-oriented processes.
According to Mr. David Jiboye, the IntegraFixPro5.0 OMS director at Programos Software Group, “Given the machine-to-machine architecture, risks have become better controlled”. With our CloudIntegra eTrade Solution, you can now manage your investment account as a self-service, because the automation empowers you.
From your CloudIntegra eTrade Account portal, as an investor, you are not only able to post buy and sell mandates of equities and bonds; you are offered online investment advisory services especially on your portfolio.
By this, the software knows what your average cost of investment has been and can actually give you basic trigger pricing information from time to time, to know when to salvage a loss or get out of an investment when it is nose-diving too badly, and consolidate into cash position to either withdraw or pick more valuable investment options.
So, investors are now able to watch their growth on investments, optimize their gains, take profits at target return shitting points like 15%, 20% etc.
Entrepreneurship Initiatives to Aid Youth and School Leavers
Programos Software Group funds its Programos Foundation for a variety of initiatives in this area. We mentioned the graduate capacity building where we train for free and supply to the labour market freely.
Programos Foundation in conjunction with Seone Foundation Inc, Houston have met with the Vice Chancellor and management of Bells University for the establishment of a Campus-to-Corporate Initiative for its undergraduates.
This will span more universities. In Programos, we have records of students who have done their SIWES through us become best students upon graduation.
Local Software Developers and International Certifications
The story of certification shows that Nigerians are top there! It is not about certification. You can get all the certifications in the world without achieving anything. Even in IT, Nigerians are top in any professional certification.
You can get all that abroad, on getting back to the country you get frustrated.
Sincerely, you need an environment where you offer a service and the market measures you based on your competence.
In my segment of the economy, I have made sure that no foreign software plays any role there.
Let the public make their research if there were foreign software running in the Nigerian stock market in the last 15 years.
And I also operate outside Nigeria, but who recognizes that? Who is even encouraging one? No body! Instead, people, especially government officials will be eavesdropping, searching one ways to frustrate you.
You have institutional degeneracy all over the place. As an entrepreneur, I run on generator at an average of almost 15 hours daily; nobody cares what your pains are.
It is unfortunate to see government functionaries embezzle tax payer’s money yearly without anybody doing something substantive.
We are not begging for funds, but space to operate, and the right conscience to know that they owe us the demand for our services and products.
In every aspect of IT innovation, Nigerians are innovative. Now, we have come to realize that we are worth more than what we are getting.
I feel, one day, we will get a government that will take advantage of what Nigeria has as human resources. We may not appreciate it today, but very soon, we cannot shy away from the fact Nigeria has very solid resources.
It is unfortunate we have generations in Nigeria that one produces only for the other to consume and not replicate or re-produce. That is why someone can steal my intellectual property without recourse.
In the media and entertainment industry in particular, it is a nagging issue. Our entertainment industry is facing a situation of almost extinction. Is that industry not the one we believed so much in? They create values and never reap from it. Who cares for their protection and continuous promotion?
Tomorrow we make noise of about million or billion dollar intervention fund that are never seen to address the challenges of the industry.
There is quite a lot the IT industry can do for this country. In the World Summit Award, my concerns are about the Governments themselves; offering e-services to its people and being accountable to the services.
IT will take care of tourism problems of this country. When we talk about IT inclusion, we have a larger population of this country in places that are not yet developed. We talk about internet penetration, there are still areas people do not understand the meaning of the word Internet.
There are some places that as you travel and cross a particular boundary all your signals are lost. We have a major challenge; we need innovations that will address the societal issues.
We need to bring those who are out of the system to understand there are areas or things they need to embrace. Outside that, we need to protect the Nollywood; we should not play with that industry. You talk about the Nigerian capital market today, it is and is going to be the wonderful work of technology that will revive the market that has defied many regulatory interventions; it takes technology to restore investors’ confidence, make the players to do the right for the public to see the transparency and decide to get back or not. Is it in health, aviation, education, you name it, innovation spans across several aspects of life.
Nigerians innovators crave to become actors of the socio-economic development of their societies.
Dangote Petroleum Refinery is reportedly nearing completion of a $2.5 billion private placement that values the company at about $40 billion ahead of its planned public listing.
Private placement is the direct sale of company shares or bonds to pre-selected investors instead of the general public and it is used to raise money quickly while avoiding strict public reporting rules.
People familiar with the transaction said investors acquired as much as 6 per cent of the refinery, according to a BusinessDay report.
The reported terms would value the business at approximately $40 billion.
Neither Dangote Group nor the refinery has publicly announced the final amount raised, the identities of most subscribers or the precise percentage sold.
The figures should therefore be treated as transaction details supplied by unnamed sources rather than confirmed company disclosures.
The reported $2.5 billion total is nevertheless significant as it indicates strong demand for exposure to a privately controlled refinery that has rapidly become central to Nigeria’s fuel supply and an increasingly important exporter of petroleum products.
The placement was said to have attracted more demand than the available shares, allowing the company to secure substantially more than the amount initially associated with the fundraising exercise.
Femi Otedola, chairman, First HoldCo, is the only major participant publicly identified in the report.
He reportedly committed $100 million to the transaction and sold his investment in Geregu Power Plc to finance the acquisition.
Nigeria’s pension industry was also reportedly cleared to participate.
Access to more than $17 billion in retirement assets would broaden the refinery’s potential investor base beyond wealthy individuals and conventional institutional buyers.
Participation by Pension Fund Administrators would, however, require careful attention to valuation, liquidity and portfolio-concentration limits.
Retirement funds must balance the attraction of a large Nigerian industrial asset against their responsibility to protect contributors’ savings.
The implied $40 billion valuation represents investor expectations about the refinery’s future earnings rather than only the physical cost of constructing the facility.
Its ability to process 650,000 barrels of crude daily gives it a central role in supplying Nigeria and other markets, but its commercial performance remains connected to crude availability, product prices, exchange rates and regulation.
The refinery has struggled to obtain all the Nigerian crude it requires under the government’s naira-for-crude arrangement.
It has consequently purchased some feedstock internationally and recently moved local petroleum-product pricing into dollars to align sales revenue more closely with its foreign-currency expenses.
Those constraints will be important during any public offering.
Prospective shareholders will want greater clarity on crude-supply contracts, debt, operating margins, export revenue and the company’s relationship with Nigerian regulators.
It is also unclear whether the private placement involved newly issued shares, a sale by existing owners or a combination of both.
That distinction determines whether the reported $2.5 billion becomes fresh capital for the refinery or proceeds received by selling shareholders.
The transaction could provide a useful price reference for the planned initial public offering.
Federal government will next month launch Nigeria’s first national organized crime strategy to strengthen the country’s response to terrorism, cybercrime, human and drug trafficking, kidnapping, illicit financial flows, and other forms of organized crime.
Major General Adamu Laka, national coordinator of the National Counter Terrorism Centre under the Office of the National Security Adviser, disclosed this in Abuja during the validation of the strategy document.
He said the strategy provides a coordinated national framework for tackling organized crime through improved intelligence sharing, stronger collaboration among security agencies, and closer cooperation with the criminal justice system, civil society organizations, and international partners.
Major General Laka explained that the document was developed through a partnership involving the Federal Government, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), the United States Government, and other stakeholders.
Speaking at the event, Cheikh Toure, UNODC representative, said the strategy would strengthen Nigeria’s capacity to combat transnational crimes, including drug trafficking, cybercrime, human trafficking, kidnapping, and illicit financial flows.
Also speaking, Douglas Grane, acting director of the United States Department of State’s Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, reaffirmed the U.S. government’s support for Nigeria’s efforts to tackle organized crime through stronger inter-agency and international cooperation.
Representatives of the National Institute for Strategic Studies, the Nigeria Financial Intelligence Unit, and the National Cyber Security Centre also endorsed the initiative, describing it as a major step towards improving Nigeria’s fight against organized crime.
FATE Foundation, with funding from the Citi Foundation, has launched the Youth Entrepreneurship Incubation Programme to equip young people in Nigeria with financial literacy and entrepreneurship skills.
Delivered through free, safe, and accessible platforms, the programme supports the incubation and scaling of youth-led enterprises, enabling income generation and job creation.
In October 2025, FATE Foundation was selected as a recipient of Citi Foundation’s 2025 Global Innovation Challenge to Accelerate Youth Employability. Joining the cohort of 50 organisations globally, the Foundation will receive $500,000 over two years to advance its youth employability initiative.
“We are excited to be selected for Citi Foundation’s 2025 Global Innovation Challenge,” said Ayomide Akindolie-Igwe, Executive Director of FATE Foundation.
“This support enables us to equip young entrepreneurs in Nigeria with the financial literacy and skills needed to build and scale sustainable businesses.”
The programme addresses youth employability by tackling Africa’s growing jobs crisis. By 2030, the African continent will be home to 40% of the world’s youth, and with one in three under 35 already unemployed, this initiative will support Nigerian youth with a two-phase approach. It begins with financial literacy training before progressing to entrepreneurship development, incubation support, and access to tools needed to build viable, job-creating businesses.
“Through this innovative initiative, FATE Foundation is supporting low-income Nigerian youth to develop essential financial and entrepreneurial skills using accessible platforms.
“This support is not just helping individuals to succeed; it is building a solid foundation for sustainable enterprises that will drive job creation and contribute significantly to our nation’s economic vitality. This initiative is empowering and investing in the future of Nigeria, one youth at a time,” said Nneka Enwereji, MD/CEO Citibank Nigeria Limited.
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