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How Signal Alliance Rejigged Continental Re’s Processes with Cloud Tech

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(L-r): Adanma Onuegbu, Signal Alliance CEO presenting to Kanma Okafor, CIO Continental Re, the Most Innovative in the Cloud award during Signal Alliance 2016 Customer Week Enterprise Nights, recently.
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Office 365 has saved a lot of time and costs and helped improve productivity. This cloud-based software is actually more secure than on-premises platforms, said Kanma Okafor, CIO, Continental Reinsurance, while recounting how Signal Alliance reduced the company’s costs using Microsoft Cloud technology.

The Pan-African reinsurance outfit, Continental Reinsurance, needed to address power outages in its native Lagos, especially as the outages were leading to lost emails.

Okafor recalled that they implemented Office 365 and not only gained 99.9% availability (successfully handling the outage issue), but also a raft of further compelling benefits.

These range from dramatic cost savings and anytime, anywhere mobility to significant productivity gains and the removal of time-consuming, inefficient, paper-based processes.

Continental Reinsurance is a pan-African composite reinsurer that was founded in 1985, and started business as a private reinsurance company in Nigeria and, in 1990, became a composite reinsurer offering its services through insurance companies and brokers.

Today, it has six client service centers in Nigeria, Cameroon, Cote d’Ivoire, Kenya, Tunisia and Botswana. From its Nigerian headquarters, it has grown a diversified portfolio in more than 44 countries.

The company prides itself on being truly Pan-African and on being the ‘torch bearer’ for the African Reinsurance sector: in no way limited by physical borders. Because of the company’s adoption of Office 365, it is able to operate with a relatively small number of staff. It started with 50 employees and today has a total of 100 staff at its six client service centers.

The company had initially used Eudora email. However, following a lack of development and support, the latter’s functionality proved limited. On top of this, power outages in Nigeria were causing significant problems.

Kanma Okafor, CIO, Continental Reinsurance explained, thus, “Power supply in Nigeria is a major issue and our servers were losing power in the middle of the night. When the servers shut down, emails were dropped. So we didn’t get all of our emails. Of course, this was causing problems and slowing down some of our operations.” Rather than wrestle with its existing platform, the company decided to seek an alternative. “We were essentially looking for a platform that would address the power and bandwidth issues and guarantee availability. The technology market develops rapidly, and we wanted a platform that would offer more functionality and also support mobility,” added Kanma Okafor.

Solution
Following an appraisal of competing technologies (including a hosted Exchange platform from 123.com), the company chose Office 365.

Kanma Okafor said, “Of course, it provides hosted Exchange from the cloud, so it addressed the issue of availability and lost emails. However, at the same time, its other features were also really compelling.”

For instance, OneDrive is a cloud-based file hosting service that allows users to sync files and later access them from a web browser or mobile device. It provided Continental Reinsurance with an immediately accessible system for backing up documents and ensuring the latest document versions were available.

To achieve needed functionality, the company had previously had to write shell scripts, which required programming knowledge and was also time-consuming. Office 365 also delivers Skype for Business, a cost effective collaboration tool for businesses, as a central feature. Continental Reinsurance aimed to create a video conferencing platform using Skype for Business as the foundation. This would be used to connect its six client service centers.

Another stand out feature for Continental Reinsurance was SharePoint Online. The company immediately saw the value in SharePoint Online as a means for sharing, organizing and managing data online and replacing inefficient, time-consuming, paper-based processes.

Furthermore, as well as underpinning and advancing its mobility strategy by providing employees access to Office 365 from mobile devices, the cloud-based productivity suite was also set to drive significant savings as a result of significantly reduced license fees.

For Kayode Faseyitan, manager in charge of Microsoft Services and Licenses, this was a compelling benefit: “We knew we could achieve really big savings. Added to the collaboration features in Office 365, we had no hesitations about choosing it.”

The company engaged IT partner Signal Alliance, Africa’s leading Microsoft partner, to drive the roll out. It was achieved within 60 days across all six client service centers in Nigeria, Cameroon, Cote d’Ivoire, Kenya and Tunisia. The roll out also included the creation of electronic workflows in SharePoint Online.

Benefits
Alongside being the first company in Africa to implement Office 365, Continental Reinsurance gained a raft of compelling benefits: from high availability for emails to the removal of time consuming, paper-based processes and concomitant efficiency gains for significant cost-savings and more efficient business operations. “Office 365 has saved a lot of time and costs, and it helped improve productivity. This cloud-based software is actually more secure than on-premises platforms,” said Kanma Okafor.

With the implementation of Office 365, alongside other cost-saving cloud projects, Continental Reinsurance now has ICT expenses that total about 0.7% of revenue compared to a global average of 3%; Savings of two-thirds on license costs, the company pays about one-third of what it estimated for license costs; High availability of email platform, 99.9% with no downtime; Integration of Skype for Business with Polycom technologies to create a video conferencing platform. This resulted in large savings on travel costs, as staff no longer need to travel so often between company locations and Skype for Business-based videoconferencing enables immediate collaboration between different locations across Africa.

Also, SharePoint Online leads to the creation of 20 online workflows; ranging from claims to onboarding new customers. This boosts productivity across the business; SharePoint Online-based workflows result in 50% savings on time previously spent on paper-based processes; Underpinning mobility with employees able to work from any location, including home, and access all relevant documents and emails; OneDrive provides an up-to-date repository for company documents; enabling employees to easily back up and access the latest versions of their documents; and Security is watertight with more security features than on-premises infrastructures.

Continental Reinsurance is a pan-African reinsurer with locations in Nigeria, Botswana, Cameroon, Cote d’Ivoire, Kenya and Tunisia. It has business operations in 44 countries worldwide.

 

 

 


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Check Point Reveals Nigeria as Second Most Targeted African Country for Cyberattacks in November

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The November 2025 Global Threat Intelligence report released by Check Point Research on Tuesday, shows Nigerian organisations faced an average of 3,374 cyberattacks per week.

Making the country as one of the primary targets for cybercriminals in Africa last month, with a record of a staggering volume of digital threats despite an overall decline in attacks across the continent.

The report shows that this figure places Nigeria second among the four major African nations analysed, trailing only Angola, which topped the list with 4,251 weekly attacks per organisation.

While Africa as a whole saw a 13 percent year-on-year decrease in cyber incidents, Nigeria’s high numbers reveal a persistent vulnerability within its digital infrastructure. Kenya and South Africa followed Nigeria with 2,384 and 1,863 weekly attacks, respectively.

The report also identified government institutions and financial services as the most targeted sectors across Africa. Globally, the education and research sector remained the most frequent victim, hit by an average of 4,656 attacks per week.

A significant highlight of the report is the emerging threat posed by Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI). Check Point Research found that one in every 35 GenAI prompts submitted within corporate networks globally posed a high risk of sensitive data leakage.

In Nigeria and abroad, employees are increasingly using AI tools that operate outside of formal security frameworks. The report noted that 87 percent of organisations using GenAI were affected by ‘high-risk’ prompts, which often included the input of proprietary code, customer data, or internal communications into public AI models.

Ransomware continues to be a primary tool for extortion, with global incidents rising by 22 percent year-on-year. While North America remains the most targeted region for ransomware, the impact is increasingly felt in emerging markets like Nigeria.

The most active ransomware groups identified in November were Qilin, Clop, and Akira, which primarily targeted industrial manufacturing and consumer goods sectors.


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JustMarkets Launches Global Boost Contest With Gold Prizes for Traders

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JustMarkets, a worldwide broker with more than 12 years of experience in the online trading realm, is launching the Boost Contest, which represents a large-scale trading activity with the purpose of motivating traders, with the most proficient traders being awarded for their exceptional performance through a number of valuable prizes. This activity will last until the 31st of January, 2026.

JustMarkets Launches Global Boost Contest With Gold Prizes for Traders

JustMarkets

A Competition Developed with the Goal of Providing More Opportunities for Traders Worldwide

Boost Contest competition participants will be traders with Standard, Pro, or Raw Spread accounts of the MetaTrader 4 or MetaTrader 5 platforms.

To participate, traders will only be required to have a minimum account balance of $100 with a minimum of 3 traded lots. These were the requirements set for participants. Of course, the purpose of such a competition is for every broker client to participate. At the same time, however, JustMarkets sought to encourage traders to conduct in-depth analysis, different strategies, risk, and discipline. It was with this objective that this form of competition was established.

Multiple-tier rewards system with real gold

What sets the Boost Contest apart is the Weekly Lucky Draws component, in which traders compete for real gold prizes, awarded in three levels, based on their cumulative trading volume achieved through the competition:

Tier I (more than 100 lots): 15 grams of gold (3 winners)

Tier II (50-99 lots): Gold worth 10 grams (5 winners)

Tier III (10-49 lots): 5 grams of gold (7 winners)

This competition design thus provides traders with different levels of activity with the same opportunity of benefiting from valuable rewards.

Weekly Draws to Encourage Continued Participation

Apart from the top-level prizes, the competition also includes a series of weekly prizes. Traders participating in the competition will qualify for entry into the draw if they execute a minimum of three trades per week. Five lucky traders will be awarded $200 every week.

The introduction of the Boost Contest meets JustMarkets long-term obligations in:

Engaging traders through effective rewards programs

Fostering regular and organized trading practices

Enhancing transparency and integrity within all promotion endeavors

Offering a welcoming space where traders with different skill sets can participate

This reflects the purpose of JustMarkets, which is not only to offer traders good trading terms but also opportunities that add value to the entire trading experience.

A Global Platform Built on Trust and Innovation

As a globally recognized trading platform, JustMarkets continues to invest in initiatives that elevate client experience while adhering to high operational standards. The company maintains a robust technological infrastructure, offers multilingual support, and upholds strict security principles, all foundational elements behind long-term client trust.

The Boost Contest shows JustMarkets dedication to create a convenient and transparent trading environment where everyone can reach their full investment potential by clear rules, transparent rewards, and a stable trading ecosystem.


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Microsoft Empowers 350,000 more Nigerians with AI Skills

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Microsoft, in collaboration with the Federal Government of Nigeria, Data Science Nigeria, and Lagos Business School, today announced a major milestone in its AI National Skills Initiative (AINSI), with more than 350,000 Nigerians reached with AI skills through the programme. This achievement builds on Microsoft’s longstanding partnership with the government, which has delivered digital training to over 4 million people since 2021.

Microsoft empowers 350,000 more Nigerians with AI skills

Microsoft

The milestone underscores Nigeria’s commitment to inclusive, technology-driven growth and reflects strong progress in preparing individuals and organisations to thrive in the digital economy.

“Nigeria cannot afford to wait,” said Abideen Yusuf, General Manager, Microsoft Nigeria and Ghana. “AI is reshaping every sector, and the countries that move fastest on skills will lead. We must equip people now, at scale and with intent, so the immense opportunity presented by AI doesn’t pass us by.”

Olayinka David-West, Dean of Lagos Business School, emphasised this point: “AI skilling is no longer optional for Nigeria’s digital future—it is the foundation of our competitiveness. At Lagos Business School, we believe that equipping leaders and citizens with AI capabilities is essential for driving inclusive growth, innovation, and national transformation.”

As it stands, a significant percentage of Nigerian graduates are still to acquire digital skills, highlighting the importance of workforce readiness. Launched in January, the second phase of the Nigeria skilling programme, under Microsoft’s AINSI, aims to reach 1 million citizens over three years, strengthening Nigeria’s AI capability and national competitiveness. AINSI is helping drive a range of different programmes designed to embed AI skills across every sector of the economy.

Empowering organisational leaders

Over the past year, AINSI has advanced ethical and inclusive AI leadership in Nigeria’s public sector. Working with Lagos Business School, the Federal Ministry of Communications, Innovation and Digital Economy, and the National Centre for Artificial Intelligence and Robotics, Microsoft has trained 99 public sector leaders, including Members of the National Assembly and senior executives from 58 ministries and agencies. These sessions equipped leaders with strategies for AI-powered reporting and sector-specific roadmaps.

Equipping developers for the future

Developer-focused programmes are creating a strong pipeline of technical talent. Through government-driven initiatives like Developers in Government (DevsInGov) and the 3 Million Technical Talent initiative, led by the Ministry of Communications, Innovation and Digital Economy, developers in public sectors have gained new skills. Around 645 participants have been trained in analytics and AI integration. Another 1,000 developers learned advanced skills in areas such as DevOps, machine learning and data science. These efforts are helping Nigeria’s workforce prepare for the future by advancing AI fluency across the digital ecosystem.

Bringing AI skills to every tech user

To reach everyday tech users, developers, and business leaders, Microsoft hosted a flagship programme, Microsoft AI Skills Week – engaging over 235,000 participants through AI digital literacy workshops, business leader strategy sessions and an Agentic AI hackathon. Partnering with VISA, TeKnowledge, UNICEF, Data Science Nigeria, and Lagos Business School, the initiative trained more than 11,400 individuals and certified over 1,700. A standout moment was the Agentic AI hackathon, showcasing innovative solutions for document verification, risk assessment, and fraud detection, demonstrating the real-world impact of AI skills in fintech.

“Our collaboration with Microsoft has demonstrated that AI readiness requires coordinated investment across every stakeholder group — government, developers, educators, and communities. By building capacity for evidence-driven governance, responsible innovation, classroom integration, and community adoption, we are laying the foundation for a globally competitive workforce. True digital transformation happens when the entire ecosystem moves forward together,” commented Dr. Bayo Adekanmbi, CEO/Founder, Data Science Nigeria.

Looking ahead, Microsoft and its partners will continue driving Nigeria’s digital transformation through targeted upskilling in AI and cybersecurity, expanded access to AI education, and ongoing developer training. These activities aim to build local expertise at all levels and support Nigeria’s young population in taking an active role in Africa’s digital future.

“Nigeria is on track to capture 43% of Africa’s projected $136 billion AI-driven productivity gains by 2030,” concluded Yusuf. “By collaborating with the government to equip leaders, developers, and tech users, we’re building a future-ready workforce and helping Nigerians adopt and adapt the technology, thereby maximising its potential.”


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