Telecom
FG Applauds NCC’s Commitment to Enhancing Digital Skill in Youths
The Federal Government has applauded the commitment and dedication of the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) towards enhancing digital skills development among youths, through implementation of various Information and Communication Technology skill acquisition programmes.
L-R: Iyabode Solanke, Director, Projects, NCC; Prof. Adeolu Akande, Chairman, Board of Commissioners, NCC; Hon. Rauf Aregbesola, Minister for Interior, Federal Republic of Nigeria.
Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola, minister of Interior, and Prof. Isa Ali Ibrahim Pantami, minister of Communications and Digital Economy, gave the commendation during the inauguration of a Digital Nigeria Centre (DNC), a project executed by the Universal Service Provision Fund (USPF), an arm of NCC, at the Ijesa Muslim Grammar School, Ilesa, Osun State recently.
Representing President Muhamadu Buhari at the event, Aregbesola commended the NCC for timely and thorough implementation of the project, saying he was confident that the project will promote the connection of public secondary schools to broadband internet in Ilesa community and ultimately equip beneficiaries with 21st century skills.
“I would like to thank my very good friend and brother, the Honourable Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Prof. Isa Ali Ibrahim Pantami, for assenting to our request to have the first of this remodeled project in Osun State sited in Ilesa.
“I will also like to thank the Executive Vice Chairman of NCC, Prof. Umar Garba Danbatta and the entire Management and staff of NCC and the USPF, as well as their technical partners for a timely and successful completion of this laudable project,” he said.
On the sideline of the commissioning, Aregbesola also announced the establishment of President Muhammadu Buhari N100 million Technology Fund for Youth Empowerment, to nudge the emergence of world class technology experts.
The Minister of Interior stated that the Fund targets 2,000 youths in the next two years, who will be provided with devices for training in different areas such as software development and design, amongst others.
Adegboyega Oyetola, Governor of Osun State, who was represented by the State’s Commissioner for Innovation, Science and Technology, Dr. Babatunde Olawale, expressed the gratitude of the State Government to the Federal Government, the Ministry of Communications and Digital Economy and the Nigerian Communications Commission, for initiative and particularly for inaugurating the pioneer remodeled DNC project in Osun State.
Oyetola also informed the enthusiastic gathering that Osun State Government was willing and ready to collaborate with NCC to replicate the project in other parts of the State.
Speaking in the same vein, Pantami, who was represented at the event by the Chairman, Board of Commissioners of NCC, Prof. Adeolu Akande, also commended the NCC and USPF on the delivery of the DNC project on behalf of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
He declared that the project and similarly instituted ones were initiated by government to give expression to its vision to effectively digitise the nation’s economy for increased prosperity for all Nigerians.
Pantami stated that the Federal Government is focused on promoting digital economy across the country and that this had informed the renaming of the Ministry of Communications to the Ministry of Communications and Digital Economy.
On the heels of the re-christening, Pantami recalled that the Federal Government emplaced Digital Nigeria-oriented policies to reinforce the focus of existing policies in order to accelerate the delivery of derivable benefits of digital economy to Nigerians, regardless of their locations and circumstances.
Very central among the policies is the National Digital Economy Policy and Strategy (NDEPS) 2020-2030, a 10-year, eight-pillar focused blueprint for actualising Federal Government’s digital economy agenda unveiled in November, 2019.
Pantami asserted that the DNC inaugurated at Ilesa was a concrete implementation of the Digital Literacy and Skills, the second pillar of NDEPS.
According to Pantami, the overarching objective of the DNC project is to facilitate adoption of digital lifestyle in the schools as well as in the school communities.
The Minister averred that the project’s significance cannot be under-estimated, considering its ability to improve digital skill for the youths and subsequently make them globally competitive.
Pantami said the Nigerian government is determined to arm the youths with digital skills, strong literacy and numeracy skills, critical and innovative thinking skills, complex problem solving aptitude, the ability to collaborate, and deploy socio-emotional skills, which they require to transform their lives and build the economy.
“We have already made a number of giant strides in the development of our digital economy culture and the deployment of initiatives such as the Digital Nigeria Centre eloquently demonstrates the current administration’s commitment to connecting all Nigerians,” Pantami said as he equally expressed Federal Government’s commitment to its tripartite agenda of improving the economy, curbing corruption and enhancing national security through effective deployment of ICT in all nooks and crannies of the country.
In his remark, Danbatta, who was represented at the event by the Commission’s Director of Projects, Iyabode Solanke, said all the regulatory activities, initiatives and programmes that the Commission had undertaken since 2019, in collaboration with its critical stakeholders, including its arm, the USPF, have been targeted at giving concrete expression to Nigeria’s deliberate policy to migrate to a full digital economy.
He said the Commission achieves this by consistently committing itself to expansion of appropriate infrastructure to enhance digital literacy and skills in view of the economic and social impact of digitization on all sectors.
The NCC Chief Executive restated the Commission’s commitment to the overall objective of bridging the digital divide through the provision of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) as well as broadband access to the unserved and underserved institutions and communities in the country.
Earlier, the Principal of Ijesa Muslim Grammar School, Ramota Ilesanmi, thanked the President Buhari-led Federal Government for the project, saying that it will go a long way in meeting the ICT needs of students and residents of the city.
The DNC, formerly known as School Knowledge Centre (SKC), is one of the projects in the Access Programme framework of the USPF, conceptualized to promote the availability and utilisation of ICT and resources of the Internet in teaching and learning in public schools in underserved, unserved and rural areas.
Specific objectives of DNC are to increase ICT literacy among school teachers and students; provide a platform for accessing online educational resources; equip students with ICT skills; facilitate ICT adoption in teaching and learning; as well as increase pass rate in Mathematics, English language and other science subjects.
MTN Nigeria today held the opening ceremony for the 2025 edition of 21Days of Y’ello Care, the company’s annual employee volunteerism initiative.
This year’s campaign, themed “Connecting at the Roots – Connecting Communities through Digital Tools,” will run from June 1 to June 21, 2025, and focuses on supporting communities that continue to face barriers to digital access and connectivity.
MTN Nigeria kicked off on Sunday June 1 with trainings across different locations in Lagos where staff of the company volunteered to delivered training in valuable areas such as digital marketing and personal branding and employability skills.
In line with the Group-wide campaign theme, MTN Nigeria is implementing a series of grassroots initiatives aimed at expanding digital inclusion and connectivity in underserved areas.
Planned activities include equipping schools and community youth centres with devices, digital literacy workshops, deployment of community Wi-Fi access points, support for digital entrepreneurship and the establishment of an all-in-one Y’ello Pods across the country that will provide a digital hub for learning and support financial inclusion.
Speaking at the opening ceremony held in Lagos, Karl Toriola, Chief Executive Officer, MTN Nigeria said, Y’ello Care matters to us because we’re a digital company and we’re operating in an environment where there are so many needs. At MTN Nigeria, we care, and we want to show our direct connection and responsibility to the communities we operate in.
Now in its 18th year, Y’ello Care is a groupwide flagship MTN employee volunteering initiative that encourages MTNers to volunteer their time and expertise to support positive social change.
The campaign reflects MTN’s purpose to enable the benefits of a modern connected life for everyone and is anchored in the company’s core values.
In 2024, in a remarkable demonstration of corporate volunteerism, MTN staff, through the Y’ello Care initiative, reconstructed a school block at Iwerekun Community High School, Lakowe. This effort has restored hope and significantly improved learning conditions for both students and teachers.
For further information, updates on “21 Days of Y’ello Care”and MTN Nigeria’s commitment to social development, please visit yellocare.ng or follow us on social media.
Fresh, on-the-ground evidence from health planners and climate analysts in Rwanda, Nigeria and South Africa shows how the Open Buildings dataset, which maps more than 1.8 billion structures, is helping frontline projects close service gaps and strengthen community resilience.
Across the continent, artificial-intelligence tools are graduating from pilots to public-service workhorses, powering everything from crop-price forecasts to live language translation. Open Buildings—developed by researchers at Google Research Africa—is part of that shift, proving that open, locally guided AI can turn sparse data into timely decisions without locking African problem-solvers behind paywalls or proprietary gates.
In Rwanda, the Ministry of Health and Kigali-based Sand Technologies resited rural clinics with help from the dataset. Their new blueprint aims to bring 92% of citizens within a 30-minute reach of care, trimming journeys that put mothers and newborns at risk.
Across Northern Nigeria, epidemiologists at AFENET and geographers from WorldPop uncovered 10,250 buildings, guiding vaccinators who reached 70% of the zero-dose and under-immunized children identified through the mapping in just six months.
Meanwhile, the World Resources Institute (WRI) has already applied this flood-risk modelling in Dire Dawa, Kigali, Musanze, Gqeberha and Johannesburg, combining two-dimensional hydraulic simulations with building footprints to create block-by-block exposure maps.
The need is pressing: Nairobi is still recovering from the May 2024 floods that displaced more than 278 000 residents, while Johannesburg’s rapid growth along the flood-prone Jukskei River continues to heighten vulnerability
These projects tackle challenges felt across the continent. Africa still has about 8.7 million “zero-dose” children who receive no routine vaccines each year, while the urban population is projected to almost double to nearly one billion people by 2035— forcing new homes into high-risk floodplains and informal settlements.
By giving ministries, city engineers and NGOs a street-level view of where communities are growing and how they change over time, the Open Buildings dataset lets limited budgets flow to the people and places that need them most.
Dr Aisha Walcott-Bryant, Research Scientist & Head, Google Research Africa, “These projects show what happens when local expertise meets open, scalable technology: mothers reach clinics sooner, children receive long-overdue vaccines, and city planners get ahead of the next flood.
“We’re thrilled to stand beside partners who turn data into decisive action, proving that AI’s highest calling is to solve real-world challenges.”
From lifesaving clinics to climate-smart cities, these projects show how open AI is fast becoming Africa’s quiet engine for equitable progress.
The Open Buildings dataset—along with sample code, tutorials and its new 2.5D layer—is freely available at g.co/openbuildings.
To deliver simpler, smarter banking solutions, Union Bank of Nigeria has partnered with the Pan-African Payment and Settlement System (PAPSS) network, a Financial Market Infrastructure that provides hassle-free and convenient cross-border money transfers to some selected African countries.
This revolutionary payment solution for implementing the African Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCFTA) is designed to transform how payments are made across Africa.
With PAPSS, customers can send money instantly to Ghana, Kenya, Rwanda, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Gambia, Malawi, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Djibouti, Nigeria and more African countries in the future.
Using PAPPS offers numerous benefits to customers, including, but not limited to, instant payments or transfers, cheaper foreign transaction costs, no need to source FX, enhanced security, and intra-African trade opportunities.
Commenting on this partnership that goes across borders, Peter Amadi, Head of Transaction Banking at Union Bank of Nigeria, said,
” At Union Bank of Nigeria, we are committed to driving innovation and excellence in banking. Our focus is on providing seamless and efficient banking through simpler, smarter solutions that meet the evolving needs of our customers.
“We believe in fostering strong relationships and delivering exceptional value to our customers, ensuring their success in today’s dynamic financial landscape.”
Mike Ogbalu III, CEO of PAPSS, commenting on this partnership, said, “I am very excited and proud to see Union Bank of Nigeria, a bank with over a century of banking legacy, joining the PAPSS network.
“This shows how PAPSS will be a game changer for the continent by enabling infrastructure to spur the growth of intra-African trade and commerce, with the active participation of regional economic communities, private sectors, and other stakeholders.”
Union Bank’s partnership with PAPSS marks a significant milestone in the Bank’s commitment to driving innovation and excellence in banking.
By providing seamless and efficient banking solutions through simpler, smarter means, the Bank aims to meet the evolving needs of its customers.
This collaboration enhances the Bank’s service offerings, fosters strong relationships, and delivers exceptional value to customers, ensuring their success in today’s dynamic financial landscape.
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