News
Institute Develops Solution to Fight Pest Invasion of Tomato Farms

National Horticultural Research Institute (NIHORT), Ibadan, said it has developed a technology, Tuta Absoluta Trap Tray, to tackle the invasion of tomato farms by Tuta Absoluta pest, according to News Agency of Nigeria (NAN).
Akeem Olaniyan, acting executive director of NIHORT, said this at the institute’s 2018 In-House Review and Planning Meeting in Ibadan on Wednesday.
At the meeting themed “Enhancing Economic Growth through Horticultural Value Chains’’, Olaniyan said that NIHORT developed “NIHORT-LYPTOL’’, a fabricated machine for bio-pesticide extraction, for the containment of the invasion of tomato farms by Tuta Absoluta.
“The tray trap brought down the level of Tuta Absoluta invasion in the five major tomato producing states that experienced the pest invasion heavily,” he said.
Olaniyan said that plantain or banana peel and stalk waste, which could have resulted in environmental menace, were also converted into various types of soap by NIHORT.
He said that the institute was also training youths, women and farmers in skills acquisition and empowerment schemes with regard to horticultural crops.
The acting executive director said that starter kits and funds were given to the trainees to support them in efforts to start horticulture-related businesses.
“The institute, among others, had organised a capacity building workshop on plantain and tomato value chain for farmers in Oyo State; it also organised an empowerment training on mango and mushroom value chain in Ilorin,’’ he said.
Olaniyan, however, said that NIHORT was facing challenges like encroachment by land speculators, exorbitant electricity bills and uncompleted new biotechnology laboratory for propagation of disease-free planting materials.
Also speaking, retired Maj.-Gen. Mohammed Garba, chairman of NIHORT Governing Board, said that research institutes should play a key role in the Federal Government’s efforts to diversify the nation’s economy through agriculture.
He urged research institutes, especially NIHORT, to be self-sustaining so as to facilitate Nigeria’s efforts to achieve food security.
“The current administration is ready to do its best to improve the agricultural sector to better the national economy; so, you should think of how to generate funds internally.
“You should come up with viable proposals; once you can justify the use, releasing funds to you won’t not be a problem. So, it all depends on you,” he added.
In his keynote address, Mr Peter Jegede, the Chairman of Quality Foods Manufacturing Enterprises, Ibadan, urged scientists to produce flowers that could make manufacturers to attain self-sufficiency in honey production.
Jegede also underscored the need for Nigeria to harness its natural resources to facilitate national development.
“For us Nigerians to grow more, we must drop the habit of mediocrity and be positive in all we do. Honestly, there is no crop grown in the world that Nigeria cannot grow,” he said.
The highlights of the occasion include the launch of some NIHORT projects and the tour of exhibition stands.
News
FG Unveils AI Public Services Platform

Federal government has launched GovGuideNigeria, an artificial intelligence (AI)-powered digital platform designed to streamline access to public service information through WhatsApp and the web.

The platform consolidates information from more than 35 federal ministries and over 60 government agencies, marking a significant step in Nigeria’s drive to expand AI-enabled public infrastructure and digital government services.
According to Bosun Tijani, Nigeria’s minister of communications, innovation and digital economy, the initiative aims to simplify interactions with government services, particularly for underserved communities that often face challenges navigating complex public-sector systems.
Developed in collaboration with the National Centre for Artificial Intelligence and Robotics, Meta, and Publica AI, GovGuideNigeria uses conversational AI to provide real-time responses via WhatsApp and a web interface in English, Hausa, Igbo and Yoruba.
Sade Dada, head of public policy at Meta, said the multilingual rollout highlights the growing use of natural language processing within African public institutions to improve digital inclusion and broaden access to services.
Ignatius Willie, chief executive of Publica AI, said the platform demonstrates how Africa’s next generation of digital public infrastructure can be developed locally using African languages.
GovGuideNigeria is intended to address longstanding challenges in Nigeria’s public information system, where citizens often struggle to access reliable guidance because of fragmented government websites, poor communication channels and the expense of travelling to physical offices.
Through AI-driven automation, users can obtain information on immigration procedures, documentation requirements, public programmes and agency-specific services through chat-based interactions.
The launch also reflects Nigeria’s broader ambition to integrate AI into digital governance, while strengthening partnerships between government agencies, global technology companies and local AI startups to modernise public service delivery.
News
Elon Musk to Become First World’s Trillionaire with SpaceX Historic IPO

Elon Musk is poised to become the world’s first trillionaire after SpaceX, his company, confirmed plans to go public.

Elon Musk
Because Musk owns the majority of the shares, it could push his net worth over the trillion dollar mark.
The entrepreneur is known for his leadership of Tesla, SpaceX, X, and xAI.
Musk has been the wealthiest person in the world since 2025; as of May 2026, Forbes estimates his net worth to be $788 billion.
SpaceX has filed for a blockbuster public listing in the United States, paving the way for what could become the largest stock market debut in Wall Street history.
The company, formally known as Space Exploration Technologies, announced plans to begin trading under the ticker symbol “SPCX” as early as next month.
The listing values SpaceX at about $1.25 trillion, with Musk’s majority ownership potentially worth more than $600 billion alone.
Combined with his existing holdings in companies including Tesla, the IPO could push Musk’s personal wealth above the $1 trillion mark.
The long-awaited filing also offered investors a rare look into SpaceX’s finances.
The company reported $18.6 billion in revenue last year but recorded a net loss of $4.9 billion. In the first quarter of this year, SpaceX generated $4.7 billion in sales while posting a $4.3 billion net loss.
Financial disclosures showed the company holds $102 billion in assets, including rockets, launch infrastructure and satellite systems, while carrying debts totalling $60.5 billion.
Despite the losses, analysts suggested investors were unlikely to be deterred given SpaceX’s dominance in commercial space launches and satellite internet services.
Ruth Foxe-Blader, managing partner at Citrine Venture Partners, described the planned flotation as “extremely exciting.”
“SpaceX is just an absolutely sprawling, enormous project with so many different selling points, and so many points that really point to the future,” she said.
SpaceX operates the Starlink satellite internet network and also owns Musk’s artificial intelligence company, xAI.
The IPO filing revealed that xAI recently reached a major commercial agreement with rival AI company Anthropic, maker of the Claude chatbot.
Under the arrangement, Anthropic will reportedly pay $15 billion annually to access data centre infrastructure linked to xAI operations in the American South.
The filing also disclosed that SpaceX expects to incur more than half a billion dollars in legal costs from multiple ongoing lawsuits and regulatory disputes.
Among the cases listed were claims alleging that xAI’s chatbot Grok had been used to create sexualised deepfakes of women and girls, alongside patent infringement disputes, music copyright claims, data breach allegations and investigations into compliance with European Union content moderation rules.
Musk has previously said he plans to dissolve xAI as a standalone company and pursue his AI ambitions directly under SpaceX.
The filing came shortly after Musk lost a high-profile legal battle against OpenAI and its chief executive Sam Altman.
Musk had accused OpenAI of abandoning its non-profit mission after shifting towards a commercial model, but a jury dismissed the lawsuit, ruling that he had waited too long to bring the claims.
News
Moniepoint Boosts UK Payments Security

African financial services platform Moniepoint has partnered with open banking software-as-a-service provider tell.money to deploy a transaction security system in the UK market.

The companies said the partnership will allow Moniepoint to implement Confirmation of Payee, an account name-checking service designed to verify recipient details before payments are processed.
The integration will be rolled out through Monieworld, Moniepoint’s UK remittance subsidiary, as part of the company’s broader European expansion strategy.
Tell.money will provide the underlying verification technology, which the companies said is intended to reduce misdirected payments and help protect users against cross-border fraud.
Ravi Jakhodia, CEO of Monieworld, said: “Our goal with Monieworld is to build financial services for Africans in the diaspora.”
He added that tell.money was selected because it manages compliance and accreditation requirements, allowing the fintech company to focus on customer service.
Moniepoint is entering a competitive UK-to-Africa remittance market that includes established providers such as Wise, WorldRemit and Remitly, as well as African fintech firms including Flutterwave’s Send App.
According to data from the World Bank’s KNOMAD programme, remittance flows to low- and middle-income countries are estimated at about $620 billion annually, with digital -first platforms capturing increasing market share through open banking integrations and automated compliance systems.
The rollout reflects a broader trend of African fintech firms expanding into developed markets by adopting local regulatory and open banking standards.
Industry analysts expect diaspora-focused platforms to evolve beyond money transfers into services such as multi-currency banking, credit and investment products.
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