Telecom
Academy Halogen Deepens Cyber Security Conversation with Digitization Confab
Academy Halogen, the Halogen School of Security Management & Technology, has emphasized the need to create a clear policy direction for Nigeria’s digital economy to facilitate effective cyber security practice.
This is because, in today’s digitized world, cyber security has become a vital component of enterprise risks solution helping organizations to deliver their bottom-line.
Dr. Wale Adeagbo, Chief Operating Officer of Academy Halogen, echoed the importance of a strong cyber security policy direction at the opening of a policy development session hosted at the Ikeja GRA, Lagos campus of the institution.
Tagged ‘Digitizing Nigeria; A meeting of Town and Gown’, the cyber security policy confab was a joint initiative of Academy Halogen and the ICT-Driven Knowledge Park of the Obafemi Awolowo University, OAU.
The Academy Halogen boss described the cyber security knowledge sharing session between industry experts and thought leaders from the academic community as a gathering meant to “trigger vital public discussion on how best to digitize Nigeria for the benefit of commerce and knowledge management”.
Professor Eyitope Ogunbodede, Vice-Chancellor of Obafemi Awolowo University, while delivering his keynote address expressed happiness on the collaboration between his University and Academy Halogen on cyber security knowledge development on one hand and plans to work with Troyka Group on other levels.
He noted that OAU now have a sustainable policy of engaging with the community and organizations within the industry towards producing graduates who are both academically sound and industry savvy.
Professor Ogunbodede further gave assurance that the cyber security learning session is a product of thoughtfulness between OAU and Academy Halogen for the good of Nigeria.
“This is an initiative we are driving together for the benefit of the entire country.
“The purpose is not about making money, the purpose is to contribute effectively towards digitizing Nigeria in the area of cyber security”, the Vice-Chancellor said.
Speaking earlier, Professor Ganiyu Aderounmu, Co-Centre Leader, OAU ICT Driven Knowledge Park noted that the institution is already bridging knowledge gap between the academic and the industry through collaboration with many corporate big players in the ICT and allied sectors for industrial knowledge transfer to graduates.
“At OAU, the ICT-Driven Knowledge Centre is already blocking the leakage of students lacking practical and industry experience.
“We have a lot of partners. We are partnering with Academy Halogen to further enhance our growing collaboration in the area of cyber security.
“We are committed to stimulating creativity and excellence in research and innovation in ICT”, Professor Aderounmu explained.
In his presentation on competencies and requirements in addressing cyber security, Professor Ndubuisi Ekekwe, a Micro Electronics and Medical Robotic Engineering expert added his scholarly perspective to the cyber security discussion and the need for a robust digital policy direction.
“The world is made up of numbers. Everything we do as humans is about numbers.
“We can reduce frictions in business by deploying right technology. Companies are moving from the physical to the digital realm.
“Digitizing Nigeria will bring about a new nexus of opportunities. Our nation will only be bounded by the limitation of the mind”, Professor Ekekwe analyzed.
Vice-Chairman Troyka Group, Mr. Jimi Awosika in a presentation tagged ‘Business and the need for safety in an open world’ observed that we now live in an open world full of risks, which requires security and intelligence to survive.
“On the part of business and society is the requirement for appreciation of the present danger of the open world and the need to invest not only in these services but more so the propagation of the knowledge that the open world presents for as they say, the panacea for the spread of any communicable disease conditions is knowledge”, he explained
In a presentation titled Enterprise Risk in Cyber, Director General, Association of Enterprise Risk Management Professionals (AERMP), Mr. Olayinka Odutola, who stood in for the Association’s President, Mrs Taiwo Ige noted that cyber security is an enterprise risk management issue: not just an information technology issue.
Other participants commented on the benefits of digitization to the private sector in terms of collaboration, the need to digitize the Nigerian populace and the lack of central data for quality policy formulation.
Academy Halogen’s policy development session is in furtherance of the Academy’s commitment to continuously raise conversation for effective enterprise security risk management and policy formulation.
The institution which is reputed to have trained about a million security personnel of various cadres in the Halogen Group’s over 25 years of existence, was formally known as Halogen School of Security Management & Technology, transforming, in a recent re-branding exercise to Academy Halogen.
Academy Halogen which offers a wide range of enterprise security risk related certificate, diploma & MBA courses in partnership with top universities like Babcock and Elizade universities, is also deeply involved in capacity development programmes in the area of enterprise security risk management for various corporations, small, medium and top businesses as well as public enterprises, government institutions and security agencies.
Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) and Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) have finalized a consumer protection framework to swiftly resolve complaints from failed airtime and data purchases caused by network outages, system errors, or user mistakes.
NCC, CBN
Developed after months of consultations with Mobile Network Operators (MNOs), Value Added Service (VAS) providers, Deposit Money Banks (DMBs), and other stakeholders, the framework responds to surging reports of debits without service delivery and prolonged resolution delays.
It unites telecom and financial sectors by pinpointing root causes—like debits without service credits—and enforces a Service Level Agreement (SLA) defining roles for all parties in transactions and refunds.
Key provisions include refunds within 30 seconds for debited but undelivered airtime or data (extendable to 24 hours for pending cases), mandatory SMS notifications on transaction status, and remedies for errors such as recharges to ported numbers, wrong purchases, or misdirected transactions.
NCC Consumer Affairs Director, Mrs. Freda Bruce-Bennett, highlighted a new Central Monitoring Dashboard, co-hosted by NCC and CBN, for real-time tracking of failures, culprits, refunds, and SLA violations.
“Failed top-ups are among the top three consumer complaints. True to our mandate, we prioritized a rapid solution,” she stated.
Bruce-Bennett thanked stakeholders, especially CBN leadership, noting that MNOs and banks have already refunded over N10 billion pending formal approval.
Implementation begins March 1, 2026, following regulator approvals and technical integrations by MNOs, VAS providers, and DMBs.
National Agency for Science and Engineering Infrastructure (NASENI) has announced the launch of an Inter-Agency Innovation Competition and Awards to stimulate creativity and technological advancement among Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) of the Federal Government.
NASENI
In a statement issued on Wednesday in Abuja, NASENI said the initiative was designed to harness innovative ideas from public servants that can drive indigenous industrialization, job creation and national progress.
According to the agency, the competition will provide a platform for MDAs to propose solutions in critical sectors such as health, agriculture, education and infrastructure, leveraging science and technology to improve public service delivery and enhance the quality of life for Nigerians.
“The competition seeks to promote collaboration and creativity among MDAs while addressing pressing national challenges through innovation,” the statement said.
NASENI urged interested MDAs to submit their entries through its innovation portal at naseni.gov.ng/innovation.
The agency reiterated its statutory mission “to develop and maintain a dynamic infrastructure to drive Nigeria’s indigenous industrialization, job creation and national progress,” adding that the competition would further strengthen efforts to unlock the nation’s potential through science and technology.
Users of satellite internet service provider Starlink in Nigeria are being required to complete a biometric Know Your Customer (KYC) process as a precondition to continue enjoying their services, according to .biometricupdate.
According to local reports, more than 66,000 Starlink subscribers in the country had a December 31 ultimatum from the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) to complete the biometric verification or have their connection discontinued.
The process essentially entails linking a Starlkink account with the subscriber’s national digital ID.
The NCC, which is Nigeria’s telecoms industry regulator, is said to have first issued the directive in August last year, setting a three-month deadline which was to elapse on November 19, TechCabal reports.
The body however later extended it to December 31 after consultations with industry stakeholders. The internet account-NIN linkage, the NCC said, is to enhance identity verification and strengthen security within the country’s telecoms space.
Just a few days to the December 31 deadline, Starlink’s Nigeria office sent an email to its subscribers reminding them of the KYC requirement, and warned that all those who fail to comply would be disconnected.
And that once disconnected, reconnection would depend on network capacity in the concerned area.
The service provider said in its email that the process takes less than two minutes and users can complete it by logging in to their account via an app.
One user, quoted by TechCabal, said one needs to upload their selfie biometrics, provide their national identification number (NIN) and then give their consent for the account to be linked to their ID information.
Starlink’s internet service is present in about 155 countries with nine million users, as of 2025. Its growth in Nigeria is said to be rapid, making it the second largest internet service provider in the country, according to The Traffic.
Biometric identification for Starlink subscribers could become a continent-wide trend given that some countries have expressed reservations in opening up their internet space to the company over security concerns.
There’ve been fears that jihadists in countries like Mali and Nigeria may have exploited Starlink terminals to coordinate terror operations, and cybersecurity experts have also warned of risks related to weak regulation, digital sovereignty and data breaches.
The requirement for Starlink internet users to have their accounts linked with the NIN is similar to the SIM-NIN linkage policy which the Nigerian government battled to implement for many years, with many deadline extensions.
In October last year, the NCC, which is was at the forefront of the policy implementation, announced that all active SIM cards across all network providers had complied with the directive which was issued in 2020.
The idea, the federal government argued, was to strengthen security and curb criminality such as kidnappings which are aided and abetted by improperly identified mobile phone numbers.
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