Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has rolled out a new ₦250,000 application fee for companies seeking temporary approval to test innovative telecom services, aiming to fast-track sector modernisation while safeguarding consumers.

NCC

The fee targets the newly launched Interim Service Authorisation (ISA), a short-term licence enabling telecom operators, startups, and tech firms to trial novel offerings in live markets before full commercial rollout. Contained in NCC’s freshly published General Authorisation Framework, the charge covers administrative processing, with successful applicants potentially facing extra costs for spectrum or numbering resources.

Under the rules, firms pay the ₦250,000 upfront upon application. Trials run for an initial three months, renewable once up to six months total, capped at 10,000 users and restricted geographically. Operators must prove their service is genuinely new, detail regulatory hurdles, outline consumer safeguards, and submit monthly reports, all while upholding data protection, security, and rights obligations.

NCC Executive Vice-Chairman Aminu Maida, who previewed the draft in July, said exploding tech advances had outstripped old licensing models, necessitating reform to foster innovation without skimping on public safeguards. The ISA lets providers gauge technical viability, market appetite, and risks, while regulators scrutinise quality and impact pre-scale-up.

“This framework strikes a balance—unleashing experimentation in spectrum sharing, Open RAN, and alternative connectivity, minus the pitfalls of unchecked rollouts,” an NCC statement noted. Participation offers no automatic path to full licences; commercial bids hinge on fresh evaluations and category fits.

Industry players hailed the move as a risk-reducer for unproven ideas, potentially slashing flop costs in Nigeria’s cut-throat telecom arena. With participation limited and monitoring rigorous, the NCC bets on controlled pilots to propel breakthroughs, cementing Africa’s giant as a digital vanguard.

As operators eye 5G-plus frontiers, the ISA arrives amid investor clamour for agile rules, positioning Nigeria to harvest homegrown tech leaps without consumer blowback.

Nigerian naira strengthened to a record high of about ₦1,400 to the US dollar at the official market during midweek trading, continuing an appreciation trend seen since the start of the week.

FX

Data released by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) showed that the currency appreciated by 1.26 per cent on Tuesday, January 27, at the Nigerian Foreign Exchange Market (NFEM), with the dollar quoted at ₦1,401.22. This represented a gain of ₦17.73 compared with the ₦1,418.95 recorded on Monday, January 26.

The naira had already posted significant gains in the previous session, closing at around ₦1,401.20 per dollar, its strongest level since the introduction of the Electronic Foreign Exchange Matching System (EFEMS).

The currency has recorded incremental daily gains in recent sessions, rising between 0.1 per cent and 0.36 per cent on some trading days. In the parallel market, bureau de change operators in Lagos quoted the dollar between ₦1,475 and ₦1,490 on January 27, with average buying and selling rates of ₦1,480 and ₦1,490 respectively.

Market analysts attribute the improved performance at the parallel market to enhanced foreign exchange liquidity and further regulatory reforms implemented by the CBN.

The naira has sustained its upward momentum into early 2026, building on the gains recorded in 2025, when it posted its strongest performance in over a decade, appreciating between 7 and 9 per cent against the US dollar.

Analysts generally expect the currency to remain within a relatively stable range in the medium term, with several projections indicating it will trade between ₦1,400 and ₦1,500 to the dollar this year, supported by improved liquidity and ongoing macroeconomic reforms.

The Nigerian Economic Summit Group has projected that the naira will trade at around ₦1,480 to the dollar in 2026. The group also expects Nigeria’s external reserves to rise steadily to about $52 billion, driven by the consolidation of recent reforms and sustained stabilisation efforts.

More than 570 cybercriminals were arrested as part of a sweeping international operation aimed at stopping online fraud operations.

Interpol’s Operation Sentinel, part of its African Joint Operation Against Cybercrime, focused on cybercrime that involved business email compromise, digital extortion and ransomware.

Business email compromise is a technique that uses the identity of a trusted figure, such as a company officer, to trick employees into providing money or revealing corporate secrets.

Digital extortion and ransomware are similar methods of stealing personal information or locking down a computer system and then demanding money from the victim to regain access.

The monthlong investigation in late 2025 recovered $3 million in stolen funds, shut down 6,000 malicious links and decrypted six distinct ransomware programs.

In one scam, fraudsters targeted a Senegalese petroleum company with a business email compromise attack. Attackers used the company’s internal email system, impersonating company executives to authorize fraudulent wire transfers totaling nearly $8 million.

Senegalese authorities stopped the transfers before the criminals could withdraw the funds, according to Interpol.

In Ghana, a ransomware attack against a financial institution encrypted 100 terabytes of data and stole approximately $120,000, disrupting critical services.

Using advanced malware analysis, Ghanaian authorities identified the ransomware software and developed a decryption tool that recovered nearly 30 terabytes of data.

Ghanaian authorities also helped to dismantle a major cyber fraud network operating across their country and Nigeria that stole more than $400,000 from more than 200victims.

Scammers used professionally designed websites and mobile apps to mimic well-known fast-food brands, collecting payments but never delivering orders. Authorities arrested 10 people in Ghana, confiscated more than 100 digital devices and took 30 fraudulent servers offline.

In Benin, authorities took down 43 malicious domains and 4,318 social media accounts linked to extortion schemes and scams, leading to 106 arrests.

Operation Sentinel was the latest takedown of cybercriminals across Africa. In August, Operation Serengeti 2.0 arrested more than 1,200 suspects, confiscated more than $97 million stolen from victims and shut down 25 cryptocurrency mining centers allegedly run by 60 Chinese nationals in Angola.

“The scale and sophistication of cyberattacks across Africa are accelerating, especially against critical sectors like finance and energy,” Neal Jetton, Interpol’s director of cybercrime, said.

As internet access expands rapidly across Africa — largely through mobile phone networks — cybersecurity and education continue to lag, leaving people and companies vulnerable to cybercriminals.

Countries with the largest online populations, including South Africa and Egypt, tend to suffer the highest number of cybercrime events. Security experts estimate that cybercrime accounts for 30% of all crime in West and East Africa.

Nigeria, in particular, has become a hotbed for internet fraud operations.

Among the region’s cybercriminals are so-called Yahoo Boys — teenagers trained by cybercrime operators to carry out online scams, often using social media platforms such as WhatsApp.

Jetton praised the 19 African nations that collaborated with Interpol to break up cybercrime operations across the continent.

“The outcomes from Operation Sentinel reflect the commitment of African law enforcement agencies, working in close coordination with international partners,” Jetton said.

“Their actions have successfully protected livelihoods, secured sensitive personal data and preserved critical infrastructure.”