E-Business
Why NITDA Should Consider Partnering with B2B e-commerce Companies
By Lere Ojedokun
The National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) in the pursuit of its vast mandates that focus on fostering the development and growth of Information Technology (IT) in Nigeria has different activities running to proactively facilitate the development of the nation into a sustainable digital economy.
The agency, which acknowledges that the information and communication sector is growing and creating thousands of new jobs every year and providing opportunities for development, has an all-inclusive ICT capacity building intervention for different segments including executives, People With Disabilities (PWD), women, even as children are not left out in the digital literacy plan. In September, over 300 children were graduated by NITDA from the STEM Bootcamp for children in Lagos.
Director General of NITDA, Mallam Kashifu Inuwa Abdullahi at the graduation ceremony, said the programme was aimed at bridging the gap that currently exists in the educational sector, adding that it resonates deeply with the ongoing efforts toward implementing the National Digital economy policy for digital Nigeria.
Moreover, during the Nigeria Computer Society (NCS) courtesy call on NITDA’s DG, where the society presented a ‘Proud Ambassador’ award to the DG for his outstanding leadership, the DG assured that NITDA has an ambitious target of making Nigeria a start-up nation and to train one million programmers between now and next year to achieve 95 per cent digital literacy in Nigeria by the year 2030.
He was quoted to have said. “We believe we cannot succeed in isolation. That is why we collaborate with organisations like yours.”
Meanwhile, as NITDA’s numerous works are commendable, it will be suggested the agency looks more in the way of partnering e-commerce firms with existing presence in some underserved areas especially in the South West region, to deepen its efforts and fasten the realisation of the 95 per cent digital literacy goal in Nigeria by the year 2030.
These e-commerce firms contribute immensely in human capital development. For example, Alerzo, a business to business (B2B) firm, founded in Ibadan, Oyo State in 2019 and has spread across the nation, has invested heavily in its over 150,000 informal retailers as part of its efforts in driving the nation’s digital economy.
At a recent media parley, Alerzo’s Group CEO, Adewale Opaleye, stressed the need for partnership, while saying that the firm embraces technology to solve the challenges informal retailers face.
He did mention that the firm developed its entire infrastructure from the scratch, including its over 40 warehouses and over 400 vehicles for fast and timely delivery.
Opaleye said Alerzo has foot soldiers who through the infrastructures created go from shop to shop teaching informal retailers how to download apps, register on the apps, know what to click, how to select products, how to check out and operate the Veedez bookkeeping app. Adding that as an organisation, Alerzo delights in helping informal retailers adopt digital innovations in operating profitable businesses even as they are equipped with skills of the future.
Recalling, Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Prof. Isa Ali Ibrahim while recently applauding consistent growth in ICT contributions to the Nation’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP), which hit 17.92 per cent in the last quarter of 2020 and in the first quarter of 2021, assured of the Federal Government’s commitment to the development of a robust digital economy.
However, as the government invests in ICT and pushes for less dependency on oil to boost the economy of Nigeria, there is hope that the collaboration of NITDA, Alerzo and other e-commerce firms particularly in the South West will further impact on the socio-economic development of the region and by extension the nation and continent.
Ojedokun, a development and policy advocate, contributes this piece from Lagos.
Transcorp Hotels Plc has delivered a stellar performance in the first half of 2025, recording a 60% year-on-year surge in revenue to ₦47.57 billion, up from ₦29.72 billion in H1 2024. Gross profit climbed 71% to ₦36.21 billion, maintaining a strong 76% margin despite inflation and operational headwinds.
The hospitality giant, a subsidiary of Transnational Corporation Plc, also announced an interim dividend payout of ₦1.024 billion — offering ₦0.10 per 50 kobo ordinary share to shareholders.
In a bold move, the company unveiled Nigeria’s largest corporate venue — the 5,000-seat Transcorp Centre — staking its claim as the new leader in event hospitality. Chairman Emmanuel Nnorom described the results as proof of Transcorp Hotels’ transformative strategies and unwavering investor commitment. MD/CEO Uzo Oshogwe attributed the success to relentless execution and a resilient business model.
Transcorp Hotels, renowned for iconic assets like Transcorp Hilton Abuja and its digital platform Aura, says it isn’t just leading Nigeria’s hospitality sector — it’s redefining excellence across Africa.
Chinese “threat actors” have hacked Microsoft’s SharePoint document software servers and targeted the data of the businesses using it, the firm has said.
China state-backed Linen Typhoon and Violet Typhoon as well as China-based Storm-2603 were said to have “exploited vulnerabilities” in on-premises SharePoint servers, the kind used by firms, but not in its cloud-based service.
The US tech giant has released security updates in response and has advised all on-premises SharePoint server customers to install them.
“Investigations into other actors also using these exploits are still ongoing,” Microsoft said in a statement.
The firm said it had “high confidence” the hackers would continue to target systems which have not installed its security updates.
It added that it would update its website blog with more information as its investigation continues.
Microsoft said it had observed attacks in which hackers had sent a request to a SharePoint server “enabling the theft of the key material by threat actors”.
Charles Carmakal, chief technology officer at Mandiant Consulting firm, a division of Google Cloud, told reporter, it was “aware of several victims in several different sectors across a number of global geographies”.
Carmakal said it appeared that governments and businesses that use SharePoint on their sites were the primary target.
A number of adversaries who stole material encoded by cryptography were then able to regain ongoing access to the victims’ SharePoint data, he said.
“This was exploited in a very broad way, very opportunistically before a patch was made available. That’s why this is significant,” Carmakal said.
Carmakal said the “China-nexus actor” was deploying techniques similar to previous campaigns associated with Beijing.
Microsoft said Linen Typhoon had “focused on stealing intellectual property, primarily targeting organizations related to government, defence, strategic planning, and human rights” for 13 years.
It added that Violet Typhoon had been “dedicated to espionage”, primarily targeting former government and military staff, non-governmental organizations, think tanks, higher education, the media, the financial sector and the health sector in the US, Europe, and East Asia.
Meanwhile, Storm-2603 was “assessed with medium confidence to be a China-based threat actor”.
National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) has issued a public warning that it is not associated with NINcard.com.
According to the commission, the website has been circulating online to offer services for Nigerians seeking National Identification Number (NIN) services.
NIMC, in a post on its official X account on Wednesday, said, “NINcard.com is not in anyway affiliated to NIMC. Stay vigilant!”
The warning was accompanied by screenshots of fake payment receipts and OTP request pages from the website, both of which were boldly stamped “FAKE” by NIMC to alert the public.
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