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Nigcomsat, Main One Launch Teleport

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Engr. Timasaniyu Ahmed-Rufai, NIGCOMSAT Chief Executive
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Nigerian Communications Satellite (Nigcomsat) Limited in partnership with Main One Cable Company has launched Teleport to boost access to bandwidth by last mile Internet users.

The hub, which is located within the premises of Main One Cable in Lekki, Lagos will significantly reduce the dearth of bandwidth in rural areas especially, thereby providing services to the underserved or not served areas in West Africa and African nations, where NigComSat-1R has footprints.

Prof. Turner Isoun, chairman, Nigcomsat Board of Directors who led a delegation of some board members said this is a breakthrough for the country as the relationship will greatly enhance access to the internet via broadband and create dividends of democracy for the people.

Isoun, a former Science and Technology minister, said “the two indigenous companies decided on this cooperation for the benefit of our people.”

Besides this, the partnership will augment capacity building in the information and communications technology (ICT) industry. Above all, it will lead to a major crash in the cost of bandwidth which has been on the high side.

Main One Cable and Nigcomsat will serve their customers seamlessly. Nigcomsat will carry traffic from the Teleport to far flung places where cable cannot get, via satellite.

Isoun said this is a win-win situation for both companies, the end-users and the country.

Funke Opeke, chief executive officer of Main One Cable said this relationship will lead to a significant price crash “to the benefit of our end-users especially those in the last mile domain which cable can hardly reach.”

The hub consists of two satellite dishes, a major 6.3 metre hub able to transmit information to locations across Nigeria and another smaller dish, which serves as a tracking antenna to keep the hub aligned with the satellite.

The Nigcomsat hub at Main One brings together Main One’s submarine cable network and IP next generation network with Nigcomsat’s satellite technology.

It is based on the agreement signed between the two companies in late 2011 whereby Main One will provide bulk Internet connectivity while Nigcomsat will provide last mile connectivity to distribute such services around the country.

Both projects are home grown out of Nigeria and designed to broaden internet access and reduce the cost of accessing the Internet across all parts of Nigeria.

Nigcomsat’s role in this regard is particularly important because the country lacks a national backbone network and is thus, overtly reliant on networks controlled by the GSM providers for Internet access.

Nigcomsat’s satellite provides an alternate distribution platform that is as accessible in rural parts of the country as it is in metro areas and is quick to deploy without having to undertake hundreds or thousands of kilometers of civil works that the deployment of fiber optic networks require.

By partnering with Main One, Nigcomsat is now positioned to start having a major impact on deploying broadband services to all parts of Nigeria, especially rural areas or areas not as well connected.

It is expected that with this partnership, we will start to see a lot of government agencies and academic institutions spread around the diverse areas of the country start to come online.

These developments are poised to continue to drive growth in the ICT sector and further economic development of Nigeria.


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FG Unveils AI Public Services Platform

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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.


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Elon Musk to Become First World’s Trillionaire with SpaceX Historic IPO

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

Elon Musk to Become First World’s Trillionaire with SpaceX Historic IPO

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.


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Moniepoint Boosts UK Payments Security

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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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