Banks across the country have raised fresh warnings to customers over the rising risk of digital fraud linked to the use of public Wi-Fi networks for banking and payment transactions, particularly during the festive season when electronic spending typically surges.

Wi-Fi

In customer advisories issued ahead of Christmas and New Year celebrations, banks cautioned that fraudsters are increasingly exploiting unsecured public internet networks in places such as airports, hotels, shopping malls and restaurants to gain unauthorised access to bank accounts.

Access Bank, one of Nigeria’s largest banks, over the weekend, via emails, alerted customers that the holiday period remains a prime window for cybercriminals seeking to harvest sensitive financial information through compromised networks.

“The festive season is here and there is no better time to keep your account safe. Please do not share your PIN, OTP, CVV, or full card number with anyone no matter how tempting the offer is. Verify transaction alerts via the Accessmore app and avoid using public Wi-fi for banking transactions”, the bank stated.

According to cybersecurity experts, public Wi-Fi networks can allow attackers to deploy techniques such as “man-in-the-middle” attacks, where fraudsters intercept communications between users and banking platforms, potentially stealing login credentials or transaction details.

Nigeria’s banking sector has continued to grapple with rising digital fraud as the adoption of mobile banking, instant payments and card transactions accelerates. Industry data from the Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement System (NIBSS) show that fraud losses across digital payment channels have remained in the tens of billions of naira annually, with spikes typically recorded during peak spending periods such as year-end festivities.

Banks say the growing sophistication of fraud schemes has made customer awareness a critical line of defence, especially as criminals increasingly target behavioural lapses rather than technical loopholes.

Access Bank advised customers to verify all transaction alerts through its AccessMore app and to act swiftly if suspicious activity is detected. “Block your account immediately by dialing *901*911# or chat with us via the LiveChat icon on AccessMore if you suspect your account has been compromised,” it said.

Other banks are also reinforcing similar messages, urging customers to rely on secure mobile data or trusted private networks for financial transactions, while avoiding links, offers or messages that promise unusually high returns or urgent payment requests.

Analysts note that while banks have invested heavily in cybersecurity infrastructure, fraud prevention remains a shared responsibility between financial institutions and customers.

The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has continually stressed that there was a need for Fintech innovation, collaboration and trust as it will shape Nigeria’s digital financial future, while insisting on regulatory compliance among Fintech players.

Its Governor, Olayemi Cardoso, while speaking during a keynote address at the opening ceremony of the ongoing Nigeria Fintech Week 2025 in Lagos, themed: ‘The Fintech Ecosystem Symphony: Orchestrating Nigeria’s Digital Future’, organised by Fintech Association of Nigeria (FintechNGR), explained that the Nigerian Fintech ecosystem would require harmony between innovators and regulators, between inclusion and security, and between competition and collaboration, adding that only through such balance can Nigeria orchestrate a future that advances innovation, strengthens trust, and enhances financial inclusion.

As digital payments continue to dominate Nigeria’s retail and commercial transactions, banks say vigilance will be key to preventing festive cheer from turning into financial loss. For customers, banks stress that caution, verification and restraint, especially on unsecured networks, remain the most effective safeguards against fraud.

By Tim Akano

Leo Stan Ekeh (LSE) is an extraordinary human being. He is extremely hardworking, hugely brave, and massively intelligent. He is a shrewd businessman but with a cathedral-size heart of butterfly

Leo Stan Ekeh

I’m a product of LSE’s generosity. But not only me, I am close enough to know. We are uncountable.

I was always with him after office hours in his office twenty years ago when he was constructing a church in his place of birth. He was so committed to details and beauty that when the church was roofed and he went for inspection and discovered some misalignment, he instructed the contractor to remove the roof and redo it, without minding the extra cost coming from his pocket.

There was this physically challenged fellow that LSE bought a car for, including a driver to make life easier for her.

During one of his birthday celebrations, he told me, Tim, I am not inviting my friends for any birthday party this year, all the money I would have used in buying expensive wine, I am donating everything to charity

LSE & I

He actually looked for me when I started New Horizons. He read my interview in the Vanguard news paper and asked his staff to look for me.

Prayer:
May each of us receive a telephone call before the end of 2025 that will change our life’s trajectory for good for ever in Jesus name, Amen.

I did.!

Our conversation on that fateful Friday went like this:

LSE: Tim, I read your interview in the newspaper. I would like us to meet.

Tim: You are our LEADER in the Technology ecosystem, Sir.
I can come to your house tomorrow Saturday morning for a breakfast.

LSE: Tim, that’s good, I will be expecting you by 8am tomorrow in my house.

By 8am the following day, I was in his massive, intimidating house.
As I entered the premises I said a simple prayer: The God Almighty who is blessing LSE, please Daddy God be kind to me also in my entrepreneurship journey Amen.

That day the breakfast meeting went well. He wanted to see the man behind the ambitious vision of transforming the ICT education in Nigeria.

He saw tomorrow!

1 LSE First Intervention: Two years after I started my company, New Horizons, I ran out of cash, even to pay salary was a prayer item every 30th of the month. That was May, 2007 it remained just 72 hours for Heaven to fall on my head, metaphorically speaking, that is!

I needed N10M to stop HEAVEN FROM CRASHING ON MY HEAD!
Banks in Nigeria are irrelevant to Start-ups, except and until you START WALKING, Banks will not come to your assistance in Nigeria.
It is O.Y.O (On Your Own) for every Start-up. If you don’t have God 100% on your side, don’t dabble into entrepreneurship in Nigeria!

This is why over 80% of Start-ups failed in Nigeria. In America, it is about 50%.

LSE was in Abuja on this particular Thursday. I called him and requested to see him. He told me to come.

Our conversation went like this:

LSE: Tim, I know you are keeping well.

Tim: My chairman, I am strong in faith, but in reality, heaven is hot on my side o! I need help, Chairman.

LSE: What is the matter, Tim?
Tim: I need N10M soft loan to keep afloat. It is urgent, critical and time- bound.

LSE ok, Tim, see me on Monday (that meeting took place on a Thursday).

Tim: My chairman, I am not exaggerating the criticality of my situation. by Monday it would be too late because Heaven would crash on my head in another 72 hours without the N10M! And it would be all over.

LSE adjusted himself, he breathed in , he looked me straight in the eyes. I wouldn’t know what LSE saw in my eyes that day.

But he stood up, went to the inner room and he came out with his cheque book. He gave me an Access Bank cheque for N10M, which I later refunded 3 months later without interest.

I survived, heaven didn’t fall that day, glory be to God and thanks to LSE.

LSE intervention 2:

This time we had grown, having survived the ABIKU YEARS (The first 5 years of Start-up are the ABIKU YEARS, years of premature, sudden death. If you survive the first 5 years, your chances of living to celebrate your 20 years in business are bright). We did, all gratitude to God.

I got a business that required huge capital to execute- very big money, which was beyond my capacity.

I went to my destiny- helper again. He is never tired of seeing me. He picks my calls on the first ring. But I don’t abuse the access too. No frivolous conversations. No irrelevant calls. Every call is about matter and mission critical

This particular day LSE was looking extremely tired, having over flogged his body.

He told me he had been sleeping in the office for about 3 days, busy putting his papers together to enable him close a massive business deal, which he eventually got, after fighting like a lion whose cub was taken by a lone leopard!

LSE overwhelmed every opposition. He fought like Mohammed Alli, the world’s greatest boxer of all time. LSE won.
And that changed everything for him, too, forever. Fortune favours the Brave

Our conversation that day went like this:

LSE: Tim, congrats you are doing well, I can see. Indeed I instructed all my staff to make sure they read any article you published (“I felt flattered”).

Tim: Chairman, I need your help, KONGA is not ready to give me the products I needed on credit and I don’t have cash to pay and the client will not pay me until after 9 months.

Tough one, indeed.

LSE: Tim, I will be honest with you, there is no way KONGA would give you products worth N500M (10 years ago money!) on credit.

Indeed, we held a meeting on Monday over your matter, the resolution of the Zinox Group is that you must look for cash before you can get the products. Let me tell you, my staff made me to sign-off on our resolution that as the Chairman of Zinox , I, LSE will not go behind to do the opposite of what we all agreed to, and I signed. Tim, I am sorry, my hands are tied!

As of that time, some of the young people LSE helped disappointed him badly. So bad, some souls are ungrateful.

Tim: Chairman, I know some of the people you helped even went to the extent of wrongfully blackmailing you in the media. I know that for a fact.

But Chairman, I am different. I am Tim Akano, I won’t disappoint you.
I will remain eternally grateful if you can still think out- of -the box and help me out.

I added: Chairman, you recall you were the one who looked for me that you would give me a helping hand in life.
I think my last statement touched him.
LSE Tim, I will give you my personal cheque. Here is the cheque for you, take it to KONGA and pay for your goods to meet your deadline.

Tim On getting to KONGA, from my steps and tone, the staff knew something positive had happened.
I confidently presented my cheque to Loretta & Co, the lady managing our account in KONGA then
They were shell shocked that God pulled it through for me another time, using Leo Stan Ekeh.

There were many more positive interventions, which I will reserve for my memoir.

Lessons: The reason behind the rise and rise of Leo Stan Ekeh (LSE) has to do partly because of his massive generosity, most of them are done silently.
Yes, LSE is a shrewd businessman, but he has a heart of a butterfly.

2 LSE is unconquerable and himself and his lineage will remain so because of several lives he has impacted positively

3 We are all products of people’s generosity. No one is a self-made man. In my own corner, through the TIM AKANO FOUNDATION, I am giving back in thousands folds all the kindness I am enjoying from people like LSE & others. I’m not withholding any kindness from people who need it when it’s within my capacity. God saw my heart, too, that when he must have helped me to stand, I will light thousands of candles.

It was William Shakespeare who admonished his followers to tell him all the good things they wanted to tell him while he was still alive because tributes written in beautiful prose means nothing to a dead person.

I congratulate LSE children, they have a great father in and his legendary generosity will always speak for them up to the 4th generation., as the Holy Bible said. LSE children should be proud of their father, he is a Lion, an Eagle and a butterfly, (LEB) all together at the same time.

@LSE: Sir, if you manage to read this short public appreciation, which I was inspired to write in a wedding event (the couple is taking over one hour to come out, instead of joining people who are anxious, I decided to use my idle time to pay you this tribute today), I want you to feel proud of yourself; what you have achieved will take an average person 10 lifetimes to achieve.

Your positive numerous interventions in my entrepreneurship journey have germinated and I am also touching lives- like you- in thousands across Africa, not only in Nigeria, especially with regards to Youth Empowerment.

I am eternally grateful, my chairman, my destiny-helper.

My prayer for you my Chairman, LSE: The Lion, the Eagle, the Butterfly (LEB) is for God to keep you continuously in sound, divine health, peace and happiness- that you will still remain strong at 120 years of age like the Biblical Moses who miraculously escaped physical depreciation in his eyes, strength and mental magnitude.🙏

Gratitude!
Gratitude!!
Gratitude!!!

[email protected]

National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) has clinched three prestigious Service Compact with All Nigerians (SERVICOM) awards at the annual Ministry, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) Awards ceremony, earning acclaim for its outstanding citizen-centred service delivery.

NITDA

The honours spotlight NITDA’s leadership in digital transformation and efficient public service, as evaluated by SERVICOM on key benchmarks of timeliness, transparency, and customer satisfaction.

NITDA Director General, Kashifu Inuwa Abdullahi, received a personal commendation plaque during the event, recognising his unwavering support and commitment to prioritising citizens in agency operations.

The agency also secured a Special Recognition Award from the SERVICOM Office, celebrating its sustained initiatives to bridge government and citizens through high-quality service delivery.

In a further mark of excellence, NITDA was named the 2nd Best Performing Public Service Unit (PSU) Team B within the competitive MDAs category.

SERVICOM Framework Drives Public Service Reforms

SERVICOM, established to enhance service quality across Nigerian public institutions, assesses MDAs based on rigorous standards that ensure responsiveness to public needs.

NITDA’s triple honours reflect its strategic focus on leveraging technology to streamline services, foster accountability, and promote inclusive digital governance.

The awards align with broader federal efforts to reposition public service delivery amid Nigeria’s push for digital economy growth.

NITDA’s Digital Leadership Under Spotlight
Since its establishment, NITDA has spearheaded national ICT policies, infrastructure development, and capacity building, positioning Nigeria as an emerging digital hub.

The agency’s SERVICOM success underscores effective implementation of the National Digital Economy Policy and Strategy (2020-2030), enhancing e-government services and citizen engagement.

Kashifu Inuwa Abdullahi’s leadership has been pivotal in initiatives like the National Centre for Artificial Intelligence and Robotics, alongside partnerships driving broadband expansion and cybersecurity.

These recognitions come amid NITDA’s ongoing campaigns for data localisation, digital skills training, and startup ecosystem support.