West Africa
West African health ministers in joint fight against Ebola
Ministers of Health from Guinea – which is combating a new Ebola outbreak – and neighbouring countries have agreed on a unified front to combat the virus that re-emerged about three weeks ago. A UN statement on Wednesday said this was at a meeting held in Guinea’s capital, Conakry, on 2 March. Ministers and government representatives from Cote d’Ivoire, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Mali, Senegal and Sierra Leone attended the inter-ministerial meeting. “If in 2014 Guinea and the neighbouring countries were victims of Ebola, this time around Guinea and the region are resolutely facing up to Ebola,” said the Guinean Prime Minister, Dr. Ibrahima Kassory Fofana. The statement said the ministers agreed in a final declaration to set up a coordination mechanism, enhance cross-border collaboration, incl...
Nigeria has the Least Affordable Internet, Global Report Shows
Nigeria has the least affordable internet in the world, according to the Digital Quality of Life Index by Surfshark which takes in to account the quality of digital wellbeing in 85 countries (essentially 81% of the global population). In Nigeria, people have to work for 27 minutes 55 seconds to afford 1GB of mobile internet while the global average is 10 minutes. To pay for the cheapest broadband Internet, Nigerians have to work for 33 hours 42 minutes. The overall affordability is measured by combining the affordability of the cheapest mobile and broadband plans available in Nigeria. And essentially, people in 75% of the researched countries have to work more than the global average to afford the Internet. “Any country’s digital advancement has a tangible relation to its economic pot...
MTN Nigeria Subscribers Grow to 76.5 Million
Sourced from TheTechieGuy (https://thetechieguy.com/) MTN Nigeria has published its financial year results – ending December 2020 – which reveal an increase of 12.2 million mobile subscribers to total 76.5 million. The telco also recorded: Active data users increased by 7.4 million to 32.6 million Service revenue increased by 14.7% to NGN1.3 trillion Earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, and amortisation (EBITDA) grew by 9.7% to N685.7 billion EBITDA margin declined by 2.5 percentage point (pp) to 50.9% Profit before tax (PBT) grew by 2.6% to N298.9 billion Earnings per share (EPS) rose by 0.9% to N10.1 MTN Launches Supersonic AirFibre in South Africa MTN has launched its Supersonic AirFibre offering in South Africa. The product is said to overcome distance and a lack of infrastruct...
Ghana Set to Receive Free Covax COVID-19 Vaccines
Image sourced from TimesLIVE Ghana is set to receive 600,000 COVID-19 vaccines from Covax. After a year of disruptions and more than 80,700 Ghanaians getting infected with the virus, the path to recovery for the people of Ghana is expected to finally begin. “We are pleased that Ghana has become the first country to receive the COVID-19 vaccines from the COVAX Facility. We congratulate the Government of Ghana – especially the Ministry of Health, Ghana Health Service, and Ministry of Information – for its relentless efforts to protect the population,” reads a statement from UNICEF. “As part of the UN Country Team in Ghana, UNICEF and WHO reiterate our commitment to support the vaccination campaign and contain the spread of the virus, in close cooperation with all partners, including Gavi and...
Asiwaju Tinubu: How Lateef Jakande rejected calls to contest for president
National leader of the All Progressives Congress, APC, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, has recounted how late first civilian Governor of Lagos State, Lateef Jakande rejected calls to contest for the president in Nigeria. Tinubu revealed this on Friday during the eight-day Fidau prayer for Jakande in Ilupeju area of Lagos, Southwest Nigeria. He said Lagos State was luck to have a man like Jakande and that those in government had been extremely lucky to draw from his fountain of knowledge. ”To all of us in Lagos, we have been extremely lucky to have him, extremely lucky to draw from the fountain of his knowledge, Nigeria equally is lucky but when the crisis of military and many other arose, we met him, we said, we want Jakande but he said, he was no longer interested in becoming the president in the mi...
Facebook Launches Climate Science Information Centre in sub–Saharan Africa
Facebook has launched its Climate Science Information Centre to sub–Saharan Africa, beginning with South Africa and Nigeria. This is expected to be part of the social platform’s “commitment to connecting people to accurate, expert advice and information about global developments that affect their lives”. The centre, available in 16 countries aims to connect people on Facebook with resources from the world’s leading climate change organizations. Modelled on the Facebook COVID-19 Information Centre—which has so far, directed more than 2 billion people to information from health authorities—the Climate Science Information Center offers facts about climate change and actionable steps people can take in their everyday lives to combat climate change. /* custom css */ .tdi_3_ef0.td-a-rec-img{ tex...
Electric Vehicles could Revitalise the Economy, says Nigerian Director General
Image sourced from CJ’s Electric Hyundai recently unveiled the first Electric Vehicle assembled in Nigeria. At the launch, Mallam Kasifu Inuwa Abdullahi, Nigeria’s Director-General of the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) says that the introduction of electric vehicles to the country is a sign of “advancing towards a vibrant economy”. He went on to say that a “digital ecosystem is a sure way in creating value, wealth and prosperity, especially now that Nigeria is on its course to become one of the leading digital economies in the world.” According to The Vanguard, this ecosystem is a way to create value that will enable growth, wealth and prosperity. Head of the National Automotive Design and Development Council (NADDC), Babatunde Raji Fashola says that “inno...
Airtel Africa Renews Spectrum License in Nigeria
Sourced from Comms MEA Airtel Africa has paid N71.6 billion to the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) to renew its 900 and 1800 MHZ spectrum licence for the next 10 years. Chief Executive Officer of Airtel Africa, Raghunath Mandava says that their current license was due to expire at the end of November 2021. He goes on to say that the Nigerian market is the “largest market and we remain focused on bridging the digital divide and expanding our broadband capability in the country.” “On behalf of Airtel Nigeria and the Group, I would like to thank both the government of Nigeria and the NCC for their cooperation and support in this important process.” The new license is expected to remain vaild until 30 November 2031. Nokia and Airtel Partner to Lay 5G Foundations in Kenya Nokia and Air...
Showmax Partners with MTN Nigeria to Launch Mobile Data Deal
Showmax and MTN Nigeria have teamed up to launch a special data deal for mobile subscribers. The deal that includes the monthly subscription and 2.5GB data – enough to stream 25 hours’ worth of movies, sports, series, kids’ shows and more. A Showmax Mobile subscription gives access to the full Showmax catalogue on a data-enabled mobile device and is available for N1250, including MTN data. Sports fans can get Showmax Pro Mobile and MTN data for N2100. Showmax Pro features all Premier League, Serie A and La Liga matches plus a wide range of live sport from SuperSport including pro boxing, international marathons and IAAF athletics on top of the full Showmax entertainment catalogue. “Keeping up with our digitally savvy, always-on-the-go customers is an exciting challenge that is made easier ...
Rangers forward Israel Abia wins Eunisell Boot award
Enugu Rangers forward Israel Abia has emerged winner of the prestigious Eunisell Boot Award for the top scorer in the 2019/20 Nigeria Professional Football League season. Instituted by Eunisell, West Africa’s largest independent chemical as well as oil and gas engineering solutions company, the Eunisell Boot seeks to instill greatness in players in the domestic top flight and celebrate their success story. Abia scored 12 goals last season after featuring for Sunshine Stars as well as Rangers and becomes the fourth player to win the glamorous award. After scoring seven goals at Akure based Sunshine during the first half of the season, he made an ambitious switch to the Enugu based side and registered five goals to continue his magical season, last term. A lot was expected from the forward, ...
Mondia Launches New Entertainment Platform in Nigeria
Mondia has announced the launch of Monsooq in Nigeria. This follows on the heels of the time-based entertainment platform’s initial launch in South Africa. Monsooq is a first-of-its-kind model which utilises time as the currency. Users pay only for the time they spend consuming content and are not required to take out any contracts or subscriptions. This platform allows consumers to buy entertainment time just as they would mobile airtime and use that time to consume any content they choose, including movies, sports, educational content, books, series, games and music – all on a single, convenient, end-to-end entertainment platform. Whether a consumer wishes to play a game for 30 minutes while commuting, or binge a new series for six hours, they are able to load that amount of time to...
Mondia Launches New Entertainment Platform in Nigeria
Mondia has announced the launch of Monsooq in Nigeria. This follows on the heels of the time-based entertainment platform’s initial launch in South Africa. Monsooq is a first-of-its-kind model which utilises time as the currency. Users pay only for the time they spend consuming content and are not required to take out any contracts or subscriptions. This platform allows consumers to buy entertainment time just as they would mobile airtime and use that time to consume any content they choose, including movies, sports, educational content, books, series, games and music – all on a single, convenient, end-to-end entertainment platform. Whether a consumer wishes to play a game for 30 minutes while commuting, or binge a new series for six hours, they are able to load that amount of time to...
