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Over 100,000 Farmers Benefit from Social Lender-OCP Africa Collaboration
As part of efforts to alleviate the suffering of Nigerians in the rural communities during the Covid-19 crisis, over 100,000 smallholder farmers have got personalized financial services, even as Social Lender – a fintech company and OCP Africa – one of the largest fertilizer companies in Africa are working together.
More than 60% of smallholder farmers in Nigeria do not have Bank Verification Number (BVN) and are currently unbanked or under-banked. To alleviate this problem, Social Lender has collaborated with OCP Africa to bring financial services to Nigerians especially those in the value chain.
Millions of smallholder farmers lack BVN. It is one of many indicators of the absence of financial inclusion. This has led to a lack of economic inclusion and poverty among these farmers and other stakeholders.
Caleb Usoh, the Country Manager, OCP Africa Fertilizers Nigeria, said that the aim of the partnership “is to ensure financial inclusion of a larger percentage of smallholder farmers in the country through BVN registrations and financial literacy training”.
According to him, the collaborative effort will alleviate their sufferings and help them to improve their lives.
He added that the collaboration with Social Lender would help to prepare the farmers to gain access to competitive financial services provided by top institutions in Nigeria and beyond, and help improve their livelihood.
Explaining how the partnership was formed with Social Lender, Usoh said the company emerged as one of the winners of the prized grant of the OCP-supported Impulse Start-up Accelerator challenge fund programme.
“This has boosted the partnership and is reflected in the increased number of beneficiaries who have accessed the services on offer”, he said.
The partnership would allow Social Lender the opportunity to leverage OCP Africa’s existing 51 retail input distribution hubs called the One Stop Shop, which is spread across rural farming communities in Nigeria.
Social Lender would provide several services to the farmers which include a series of financial literacy training, financial inclusion through the creation of BVN accounts, mobile money and credit profiling as well as helping the farmers to obtain small scale loans.
Faith Adesemowo, the Chief Executive Officer of Social Lender, reiterated the importance of the partnership by inviting other organisations interested in serving the huge market segment to collaborate with Social Lender. She informed that her company “is currently building a low cost distribution infrastructure” model needed to serve the unbanked and under banked.
“We are building an innovative solution to serve this market effectively. The Social Reputation score is our main asset. For the offline market, we have started with a pilot in 2018 with CGAP, a division of the World Bank. Working with EFINA, we have scaled to six states including two Northern states. With OCP Africa partnership, we will add 31 locations and cover 14 states,” she said.
Adesemowo said the company is a fintech that works across all industries. “We have just chosen to have a strategic focus in agriculture due to the fact that a large number of the financially excluded are a part of this demography. Social Lender may someday become a full agritech but for now, we are fintech working in agriculture”, she said.
The Chief Operating Officer of Social Lender, Mudiaga Ogboru said that partnership with OCP has further unlocked the value in the agricultural value chain, as more farmers have gained access to formal financial service like agro-loans, equipment leasing financing, fertilizer on credit, quality seeds and other agro-necessity.
“We are building a network for trust, credit and much more. For us, financial literary is the bedrock for financial inclusion and economic inclusion. We have built a robust financial literacy curriculum that is sufficiently equipped and digestible to the farmers because it is communicated in a language that is most comfortable for the farmers,” he said.
Many farmers have already benefited from the partnership. One of them, Jibril Mansur, from Kaduna, lauded the initiative. He has joined the financial ecosystem programme because it was brought to his community.
Hajiya Aisha, another beneficiary from Kano expressed how the opportunity has changed her life. She is currently gradually being upgraded from an unbanked customer with no bank account, BVN, and access to credit into the formal financial system. “This is a level 10 on Social Lender’s digital financial inclusion journey”, Ogboru explained.
Ogboru said the partnership was launched as part of the OCP Africa Covid-19 palliative intervention which was implemented in 32 locations across 12 states in Nigeria.
Southeast Asia cybercrime networks are expanding operations into Africa as crackdowns intensify in the subregion, according to a recent report from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).
The massive, unintended geographic shift triggered by intense pressure from international task forces in Myanmar and Cambodia,have seen highly sophisticated criminal networks now establishing footholds in major tech hubs across Kenya and Nigeria, transforming local technical talent into accomplices for industrial-scale digital theft as reported by https://streamlinefeed.co.ke/
This strategic migration represents a critical evolution in the $17 billion crypto scam economy.
Transnational scam syndicates are organized criminal networks that run industrial-scale online fraud using trapped or trafficked labor.
The UNODC has documented this diversification, noting that African nations are increasingly targeted as operational bases due to robust internet infrastructure and a surplus of unemployed tech workers.
In response, local authorities are engaged in a frantic game of catch-up against well-funded foreign cartels.
Recall that in 2025, UNODC, described the shift as part of a broader trend in which crime “spreads like a cancer,” into regions with weaker enforcement and limited digital safeguards.
The report pointed to the rapid proliferation of online fraud operations, including cryptocurrency scams and phishing schemes, moving from countries like Myanmar and Cambodia into new footholds in Africa—particularly Nigeria.
A recent case publicized June 12, 2025 by the WeChat public account West Africa Chinese Voice illustrates the trend: Nigeria’s Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) arrested 177 Chinese nationals in Lagos and Abuja between December 2024 and January 2025.
The suspects were allegedly running scam centers under the guise of corporate offices, where local Nigerians were trained to carry out online investment frauds—many following the “pig-butchering” model, which builds trust with victims before luring them into fraudulent crypto investments.
Authorities seized hundreds of SIM cards, high-performance computers, and prewritten scam scripts during the raids
Ugochukwu Eze, a 47 year-old man, was on Thursday arraigned before a Federal High Court in Lagos for allegedly hacking into the server of SunTrust Bank to steal a total of N800m.
Ugochukwu also known as Amazon, was arraigned before the court by the operatives of the Department of State Security (DSS).
DSS accused Ugochukwu of fraudulently hacking into the server of SunTrust Bank to remove and divert the sum of N800 million into several accounts in other financial institutions.
M. Bajela,prosecuting counsel, DSS, in the charges filed before the court alleged that the defendant and others now at large, between 2023 and 2026, conspired among themselves and unlawfully and seriously hindered the function of Suntrust Bank Plc’s computer system server and in the process fraudulently diverted over N800 million belonging to the bank.
Ugochukwu was also accused of concealing and transferring various sums of money traced to the unlawful cyber-attacks to some account in some financial institutions.
The offences alleged to have been committed by the defendant according to the prosecutor contravened sections 5; 6(1) and 8 of Cybercrimes (Prohibition, Prevention etc) Act, 2024. And Sections 10, 20 and 18(2)(D) of the Money Laundering (Prevention and Prohibition) Act, 2022.
The defendant pleaded not guilty to the allegations.
Based on his plea of not guilty, the prosecutor asked the court for a trial date, and prayed the court to remand the defendant in the facility of the correctional services pending the time trial will commence.
However, E. Afrogha, defendant’s lawyer, told the court that she has filed her client’s bail application. adding that her client has been in the DSS custody for over a month.
But the prosecution counsel told the court that he has not been served with the bail application, not withstanding that his witnesses are available.
Based on the counsels’ submissions, Justice Friday Ogazi, presiding judge, adjourned the matter to August 24,2026 for hearing of the bail application.
The judge also ordered that the defendant be remanded in the custody of the Nigerian Correctional Services (NCS) pending the hearing of the bail application.
One of the counts against the defendant reads: “That you UGOCHUKWU EZE (AKA AMAZON) (M) (47 YEARS) sometime between 2023 and 2026 in Lagos, and other places within the jurisdiction of this honourable court, unlawfully seriously hindered the function of SunTrust Bank Plc’s computer system, and in the process fraudulently diverted over N800, 000,000.00 (Eight Hundred Million Naira) belonging to the said SunTrust Bank thereby committed an offence contrary to and punishable under Section 8 of the cybercrime (prohibition, prevention etc.) Act, 2024.”
Liquid Intelligent Technologies is using light-beam technology developed by Google spinout Taara to supply data centres and large enterprise networks in Lagos, addressing the high costs and delays of laying underground fibre in dense urban corridors.
The deployment includes nearly 12 live optical links serving banks, hotels, and utilities across commercial districts, proving optical technology can supplement traditional physical infrastructure where trenching cables is impractical.
High-capacity bandwidth is being distributed directly from points of presence at Africa Data Centres and other Lagos facilities to enterprises beyond the reach of fibre cables.
This reduces network downtime in areas where physical cable cuts take days to repair. The rollout follows a two-year deployment by Liquid to strengthen network resilience for local internet service providers.
Nigeria remains one of the largest economies on the continent, with Lagos acting as its primary commercial hub. Expanding network infrastructure across dense urban environments requires operators to blend multiple technologies.
Using focused beams of light transmitted through the air, the technology allows operators to establish links within days rather than weeks, complementing existing physical networks.
Liquid is now assessing expansion into Abuja, Ibadan, and Kano.
“For Liquid, deployment speed has been one of the most significant advantages,” said Eugene Uka, acting chief executive officer of Liquid Intelligent Technologies Nigeria.
He added: “Traditional fibre deployments are not always a possibility, especially across difficult terrains. Taara links can often be installed and activated within hours, allowing Liquid to fulfil its mission to create a digitally connected future that leaves no African behind.”
Bhavesh Mistry, regional lead for Taara in Africa, commented: “As demand for connectivity continues to grow, operators need more flexibility in how they expand and reinforce their networks.
“Fibre remains an essential part of modern communications infrastructure, and will for some time, but there are many situations where deploying fibre quickly or cost-effectively can be difficult. Wireless optical communication gives operators another tool to extend capacity, reach customers faster, and build more resilient networks without compromising performance.”
The Taara Lightbridge system delivers up to 20 gigabits per second of capacity across distances up to 20 kilometres using invisible light beams.
The platform avoids trenching, spectrum licensing, or extensive civil engineering work. Taara claims its system is active in more than 20 countries with telecommunications operators, including T-Mobile, Airtel, Digicel, Liquid, and SoftBank.
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