Author: user user

Nwosu’s infrastructural agenda for Anambra

The most common definition of democracy often associated with former President of the United States of America (USA), Abraham Lincoln, is ‘government of the people by the people and for the people.’ This presupposes that democracy does not exist in a vacuum, but revolves around the people in any society.

Similarly, the aim of development entails enhancing the wellbeing of the people. Thus, judging by the experiences from advanced democracies across the world, including the United States of America, United Kingdom, Canada and France, a correlation exists between democracy and development.

While democracy aims at engendering development, the latter sustains and enhances the former. However, the story appears to be different in Anambra State today under the All Progressive Grand Alliance (APGA) government led by Governor Charles Soludo. In the past three and half years of the Soludo administration, it appears that the people have been removed from the equation. Rather than pursue human centred development, the Soludo government has spent billions of Naira on cosmetic projects and programmes that have very little or no meaningful impact on the lives of the people.

For instance, education is globally acknowledged as the bedrock of development. Many people expected Professor Soludo, coming from an academic background, to prioritise education. The latest ranking of Anambra State as 33rd in education infrastructure and capital expenditure by Philips Consulting, a leading business and management consultancy firm in Nigeria is an indication that he has performed abysmally in the education sector.

Besides education sector, current government in Anambra is either giving half-hearted or no attention to other critical sectors, such as security, urban development, science and technology, rural development, health, agriculture, industry and commerce, infrastructure and human capital development.

The state of insecurity in Anambra state under the current administration in particular, has been unprecedented in the history of the state. Pundits believe that insecurity is thriving in the state because governance is not human centred.

It is this yawning gap in governance in the state that the Governorship Candidate of the African Democratic Congress (ADC), John Chuma Nwosu is eager to fill if elected into office as the Governor on November 8, 2025. Since the commencement of the campaigns in June, Nwosu has been traversing the 177 communities in Anambra, preaching the seven-point SHEEEMS agenda of ADC to the people.

‘My agenda is anchored on a social contract that guarantees focused attention on Security, Healthcare, Education Economy, Environment, Markets and Social Welfare for the people,’ Nwosu told journalists in an interview recently.

At this juncture, readers are invited to critically analyse the import of the ADC agenda. First and foremost, security is an enabler of investment. Being a businessman and entrepreneur, Nwosu appreciates the fact that no investor would take his fixed and floating capital to an ‘unsafe’ environment. This explains why he intends to adopt a hi-tech approach to combat insecurity in Anambra State, including the establishment of a digital Central Command Control Centre and mounting of Close Circuit Television (CCTV) cameras across the state.

Secondly, there is a saying that a healthy nation in a wealthy nation. This underscores the importance of healthcare in the ADC agenda. If elected into office, Nwosu proposes to priotise the rehabilitation and equipment of numerous comatose government owned health centres and hospitals in Anambra State, to transform them from their current state as ‘mere consulting clinics’ to top notch health institutions.

He also intends to ensure that these health institutions do not run short of drugs and other consumables all year round.

Thirdly, Nwosu’s agenda prioritises education. He plans to take Anambra from a bottom position in the ranking of states in education infrastructure and capital to the top position. He intends to allocate 40 percent to education in the state’s budget, surpassing 33 percent allocation to education by Governor Peter Mba in Enugu State. The ADC candidate proposes to assemble educational experts to formulate an educational policy for Anambra State, aligned with the national policy on education, focusing on Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM), with a view to making Anambra a hub for innovation in the country.

After Education, Economy is the fourth point of the ADC agenda. In this area, Nwosu intends to work collaboratively with development partners such as the World Bank, African Development Bank (ADB) and the United Nations Industrial Development Organisation (UNIDO) to boost agriculture and agri-business, in order to improve the economy of Anambra, both on macro and micro bases. This would be done through an integrative approach to harness both the human and material potential of the state.

Environment, which is the fifth focal point of SHEEEMS agenda, sees the environment as comprising land, water and air, including all the layers of atmosphere, all organic and inorganic matter, and living organisms and their interactive natural systems.

The Soludo administration has been unable to address, not to talk of tackle aggressively the existential threat posed by environmental degradation. Hence, Nwosu prioritized the environment because it is from our environment that we make our living. The ADC government intends to tackle environmental degradation and climate change challenge vigorously, unlike the APGA government pursuing cosmetic development, the APGA government having failed to fulfill its promise of clean, green, planned and sustainable cities, communities and markets in Anambra.

The sixth point in the SHEEEMS agenda is markets. This point is important because Anambra State has the largest concentration of markets in Southern Nigeria, including Onitsha Main Market, which is the biggest market in West Africa.

Currently, under the Soludo administration, the markets exist for the purposes of revenue collection.

Nwosu plans rehabilitate the markets and equip them with modern facilities, including fore fighting equipment to put an end to frequent losses, often running into billions of Naira, incurred by traders during market fire disasters.

The last point in the SHEEEMS agenda is social welfare for the people. This is another area where the APGA government has failed abysmally. The ADC government intends to provide the people, not only with basic amenities, but also support women, children through welfare programmes to be executed simultaneously in the 177 communities in the state.

In sum, the SHEEEMS agenda seems to be anchored on the belief that good governance is about visible service delivery and the responsibility to protect the citizens. Both, according to Nwosu, are anchored on the people being satisfied enough to trust the government and benefitting from measurable and sustainable development. He also sees both as confidence building measures.

Nwosu believes that both APGA and the federal ruling party, the All Progressive Congress (APC) are united in their record of disappointment for the Anambra people, especially in the area of security and citizens’ welfare. He calls the analogous amalgam as APCGA. Indeed, for JCN, as the governorship hopeful is fondly called, the balloting on November 8 has become very easy for our people. By this he means that the people have taken the ADC as the credible and inclusive alternative.

Responding to a question on the inclusiveness of the ADC ticket, Nwosu had noted: ‘What is more? The ADC parades a balanced religious ticket comprising a catholic and an Anglican, because my running mate, Dr Ndubuisi Nwobu, an Anglican comes from Anambra Central Senatorial Zone. Together, we satisfy the zoning arrangement that guides the distribution of political offices among the three Senatorial Districts of the state.’

Lokpobiri hails Tompolo on peace in Niger Delta, seeks expansion of security contracts

The National President of the Ijaw Youth Council (IYC) Worldwide, Jonathan Lokpobiri, has lauded High Chief. Government Oweizide Ekpemupolo, alias Tompolo for his frantic efforts in restoring peace in the Niger Delta region through his pipeline surveillance contract job by empowering thousands of youths, men and women in the region over the last three years, while appealing to the Federal Government for expansion of the scope of Tantita Security Services and Maton Engineering contracts.

Lokpobiri made the commendation and appeal on Tuesday at the Community Critical Stakeholders Appreciation meeting held at the EUI Event Centre in Port Harcourt City, courtesy of Tantita Security Services Limited and Maton Engineering Nig Limited, two major oil and gas infrastructure surveillance contractors in the region.

The ceremony’s mandate was to review significant progress and officially appreciate the vital role community leaders and traditional rulers play in securing Nigeria’s critical energy assets.

Addressing a room filled with traditional leaders, security chiefs, and youth representatives, Sir Jonathan Lokpobiri Snr lauded the host companies for their consistently increasing capacity, which he directly linked to a crucial boost in Nigeria’s daily oil production figures.

The IYC President then made a powerful and sincere acknowledgment of Chief Government Oweizide Ekpempolo (Tompolo), recognizing his ‘huge sacrifices and role in the sustenance of peace and security in the Niger Delta region.’

‘His name resonates positively with all sons and daughters of the region, especially given his background in the arms struggle,’ Lokpobiri stated emphatically. ‘Today we are enjoying relative peace and security in the region courtesy of his efforts.’

Building on the proven success of the security contracts, the IYC leader pivoted to a demand for strategic expansion. Sir Lokpobiri strongly appealed to the Federal Government to significantly increase the funding and mandate of Tantita Security Services and Maton Engineering.

He argued that their capacity should be expanded beyond securing pipelines and oil infrastructure to include the protection of Terminals and well heads, ensuring they can continue to deliver maximally on national security and production goals.

Furthermore, Lokpobiri issued a passionate call for environmental equity, urging the Federal Government to immediately extend the ongoing clean-up exercise in Ogoniland to all communities across the entire Niger Delta region. He stressed that these host communities are negatively affected by daily oil exploration activities and deserve comprehensive remediation.

In commending the contractors’ leadership for their ‘human face’ approach in involving critical community stakeholders, Sir Lokpobiri confirmed that the Niger Delta environment is ‘gradually healing’ from the widespread damage caused by illegal oil bunkering and oil theft.

The high-level attendance underscored the deep commitment of regional stakeholders to maintaining this trajectory of peace and infrastructure protection.

How I learned to mind my business after being beaten on set – Opebe

Actor Yomi King, popularly known as Opebe, has opened up about some of his early struggles in the movie industry, revealing that many of the beatings he received on set were not scripted but real.

Speaking in a recent interview on Behind The Fame Podcast on YouTube, the comic actor recalled that some of his experiences during filming went far beyond acting.

‘Those sufferings were beyond acting; they were real beatings. That’s what they call acting, you have to do it well and real for people to know it truly happened. Baba Suwe doesn’t mind. Anyone that knows him well knows he will beat you directly; ask the director,’ he said in Yoruba, translated to English.

Opebe recounted one particular incident involving his colleagues Baba Suwe and Yinka Quadri, which turned serious during the production of the Yoruba movie Eku Meji.

‘A sample happened in a year, I won’t say the name of my boss Yinka Quadri, I won’t mention his name. They had a misunderstanding, real, I thought of it – that if I don’t support Baba Suwe, who would I support? Is it a stranger? I supported Baba Suwe in fighting Yinka Quadri.

‘If he passed, I would neglect him because we were all together in Lagos. He’s like a big brother to me in Lagos. We all grew up in Lagos, do you understand? He’s a big brother. I began to support Baba Suwe.

‘Baba Suwe had a job -PM used to call actors. We wanted to do a movie called Eku Meji and we would shoot it at Meiran. Meiran was like a village, Meiran at Ijaiye -it wasn’t civilized then.

‘That movie Eku Meji, I had a role with Yinka where he ought to fight me and beat me. And you know that Opebe is lame. And I and Yinka didn’t talk to each other. But when we got to the set, and it was a beating role, I had abused him earlier. When he replied me, it was a slap and a severe beating. I began to shout, ‘Cut! This isn’t a movie anymore.’ I was angry.’

The actor said he soon realised the beating was personal, stemming from his decision to take sides in their earlier dispute.

‘He laughed and said, ‘In your life, you won’t interfere in people’s fights again.’ The person I supported -Baba Suwe- was laughing at me. That day, I said to myself, ‘If you abuse each other, it’s none of my business.’ Since then, I know my boundaries.’

LASTMA recognised as best state traffic agency at national transport awards

The Lagos State Traffic Management Authority (LASTMA) has been recognised as the best State Traffic Management Agency of the Year at the 2025 Nigeria Transport and Logistics Leadership Summit and Awards.

According to the organisers, the recognition followed a rigorous nationwide nomination and online voting process that identified LASTMA as Nigeria’s leading state traffic management institution.

The award, they noted, celebrates the Authority’s consistent commitment to operational excellence, innovation, and the promotion of road safety and traffic efficiency in Lagos State.

Receiving the award on behalf of the General Manager, Mr. Olalekan Bakare-Oki, LASTMA’s Director of Logistics and Transport, Mr. Jubril Oshodi, expressed gratitude to the organisers and the voting public for acknowledging the Authority’s efforts in ensuring traffic fluidity and promoting a disciplined motoring culture across the state.

He dedicated the honour to the Executive Governor of Lagos State, Mr. Babajide Olusola Sanwo-Olu, describing him as a visionary leader whose commitment to modernising the state’s transport architecture has positioned LASTMA as a national model for traffic management.

Oshodi also commended the leadership of the Ministry of Transportation for their support and strategic guidance in enhancing the Authority’s operational impact.

In his post-award remarks, the General Manager, Mr. Bakare-Oki, described the award as an honour and a renewed call to higher service, reaffirming LASTMA’s resolve to uphold professionalism, discipline, and innovation in line with global best practices.

He said the Authority remains committed to leveraging technology, training, and stakeholder partnerships to tackle Lagos’s evolving challenges of urban traffic management.

The summit featured keynote addresses from top figures, including the Honourable Minister of Transportation, Senator Sa’id Ahmed Alkali, and the Corps Marshal of the Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC), Shehu Mohammed.

Commercial disputes could take nearly 13 years from filing to final Supreme Court judgment- Osinbajo

Prof. Yemi Osinbajo, former vice president of Nigeria, has highlighted that delays in commercial disputes could take nearly 13 years or more from filing to final Supreme Court judgement which is bad for business and investment.

Such delays could also attracting global criticism.

In a compelling address at AELEX law firm’s 19th annual lecture titled: ‘Rule of Law and Economic Development: The Nigerian Experience’, the former vice president dissected the root causes of Nigeria’s sluggish investment climate, drawing connections between judicial inefficiency, policy inconsistency, and economic stagnation.

He mapped a pragmatic path forward: efficiency, digital reform, institutional discipline, and people-centred governance.

Delayed justice system

Speaking on broader commercial disputes, Osinbajo presented fresh findings from the Justice Research Institute, which he described as staggering. According to the report, ‘a commercial case sits in the high court for between four years and two months. If appealed, it will spend another three years and four months in the court of appeal. And if it goes on to the Supreme Court, it takes another six years and six months more to conclude.’

He summed it up saying, ‘Altogether, a commercial dispute can take nearly 13 years from filing to final Supreme Court judgment.’

He also recalled a 2015 case before the UK Court of Appeal involving the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), where the court referred to the delays in the Nigerian court as catastrophic. saying it could take a further 30 years to resolve the case.’

Speaking from experience, he outlined practical reforms to restore confidence in governance, strengthen investor trust, and refocus policy on citizens’ welfare.

The landlord’s dilemma: When delayed justice kills investment

Osinbajo began by recounting a troubling trend in Lagos when investors were turning away from property development and channelling funds into stocks and bonds instead.

‘They were preferring to invest in stocks and bonds rather than building houses for rent,’ he said, explaining that ‘many landlords simply lost confidence in the courts.’

The reason was simple but devastating. ‘The magistrate court process was painfully slow. Tenants would often pay for a couple of years, three years’ rent in advance, and then stop paying, betting that if the landlord sued, the case would drag on for years while the tenants stayed rent-free.’

To address the crisis, Osinbajo and his team launched mediation centres under the Lagos State Citizens’ Rights Project, providing faster and fairer resolutions.

‘We enlisted trained volunteer mediators, most of them lawyers in the Ministry of Justice. In one year, the mediation centres resolved over 8,000 landlord and tenant cases, whereas the magistrate court had completed only 2,000 within the same year.’

Sanctions, costs and court discipline

To reverse this decay, Osinbajo advocated for adverse and heavy sanctions and court discipline.

He recounted a personal experience from his advisory days at the Ministry of Justice, ‘The court fined us about £200,000 for just being late. It’s only heavy costs, in my opinion, that will discourage non-results.’ That, he said, was an effective deterrent.

Open, digital scheduling and case tracking

He further recommended the creation of specialised commercial courts and the digitisation of court processes.

‘It’s no longer rocket science,’ he said pointedly. ‘Everyone else everywhere else is doing all these things. Open, digital scheduling and case tracking, would curb corruption and increase transparency’.

Discouraging the interference of courts with arbitration proceedings

Osinbajo also criticised the tendency of Nigerian courts to interfere with arbitration proceedings, warning that it undermines an essential mechanism for quick dispute resolution. ‘The moment a court gets into arbitration, it means that the entire alternative dispute resolution method is drawn into the slow judicial process,’ he cautioned.

Referring to conflicting appellate judgments on the issue, he emphasised that ‘we must, as a matter of legal policy, discourage even more intensely the interference of courts with arbitration, except in the most extreme and urgent cases.’

Encouraging early enforcements of judgements and bureaucracy

Even after litigants secure a judgment, Osinbajo observed that enforcement remains a major hurdle.

He also lamented the difficulty of enforcing judgments against government entities, pointing to Section 84 of the Sheriff and Civil Processes Act, which requires the Attorney General’s consent before enforcement.

‘That consent is unlikely to ever come. There are far too many bureaucratic inefficiencies, procedural complexities, a lack of cooperation sometimes from law enforcement agents. Enforcements are abandoned because of the high cost and the low success rate’, he said.

Policy continuity to increase investor confidence

Osinbajo then turned to another major deterrent to investment: policy inconsistency. ‘Study after study has shown that when you have policy reversals, it generally hampers investment for local and foreign direct investment,’ he said.

From sudden bans on agricultural imports to erratic telecoms regulations, he argued, such unpredictability regularly affects expansion plans.

He therefore called for institutional reforms and cross-party collaboration to ensure continuity. ‘There should be stakeholder consultations before policy shifts,’ he advised. ‘We can also create a national investment channel and get cross-party support. making it more difficult for government to arbitrarily abandon what its predecessors have done.’

People-centred development and the duty of the state

At the heart of his address was a moral and economic argument: development must serve people, not just profit. ‘The business of government, the fundamental business of government, is the security and welfare of the people,’ he reminded his audience.

Osinbajo rejected the trickle-down development model, asserting that ‘the bottom of the pyramid is too large for us to ignore.’ With nearly 70 per cent of Nigerians under 25, he warned that ‘the failure to address these needs will threaten security, which means it will threaten economic development.’

‘By putting ordinary people first,’ he said, ‘by expanding opportunity at the bottom of the pyramid, we can make our society more stable and growth more sustainable.’

A call for collaborative reform

Osinbajo noted that Nigeria’s problems are not of lack of policy or laws, but of weak execution and human failure. ‘We must reduce human discretion in the operation of our regulatory agencies,’ he urged.

He called for a ‘meeting of the minds’ between the executive, legislature, and judiciary, alongside the private sector, to drive reform. ‘Every problem is human. Each of these sectors must see how one failure affects the others and decide to collaborate intentionally to deliver economic development.’

PDP state chairmen distance forum from suit seeking to stop national convention

The forum of state chairmen of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) on Wednesday dissociated itself from the lawsuit currently before the Federal High Court, Abuja, seeking to halt the planned elective national Convention scheduled for November 15 and 16 in Ibadan, the Oyo state capital.

Speaking with newsmen, chairman of the forum and chairman of the party in Edo state, Tony Aziegbemi, took a swipe at some of their colleagues, Austine Nwachukwu (Imo) and Amah Abraham Nnana (Abia), for dragging the party to court seeking to halt the PDP convention.

He said as a result of this, the Forum has decided to suspend the two Chairmen, while calling on the National Working Committee to take disciplinary action against any NWC member found to be directly or indirectly connected to the court case.

Aziegbemi said, ‘We distance ourselves completely from the suit and the plan to use it to stop the PDP from holding its National Convention. This is not right. We want to state clearly that we are solidly behind the Damagum-led NWC, and we will give our full support to ensure a hitch-free convention.

‘The evil plot of the APC to turn Nigeria into a one-party state will never succeed. We hope other organs of the party will draw inspiration from our decision. We must all stand firm and make the right choices.’

Nigeria earns IMF praise for revenue drive, FX transparency

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has commended Nigeria for making notable progress in revenue collection and for improving transparency in its foreign exchange (FX) and reserves management.

The Fund made these remarks during a press briefing on the Global Financial Stability Report, held as part of the ongoing World Bank/IMF Annual Meetings in Washington, D.C on Tuesday.

Those who addressed journalists at the session included: Tobias Adrian, financial counsellor and director of the IMF’s Monetary and Capital Markets Department (MCM); Vamvakidis Athanasios, deputy director of the department; and Jason Wu, assistant director. The briefing was moderated by Meera Louis, communications officer at the IMF.

During the discussion, the IMF officials highlighted that movements in exchange rates play a critical role as a natural buffer that helps economies adjust to external shocks. They explained that a depreciating exchange rate is not inherently negative and can, in fact, be beneficial in restoring balance and competitiveness within the domestic economy.

The IMF further observed that Nigeria has implemented important policy steps aimed at strengthening its macroeconomic framework, particularly in the area of monetary policy. It reiterated its support for Nigeria’s transition toward a more flexible exchange rate regime, describing it as a vital reform that aligns with the broader goal of enhancing the country’s economic resilience.

According to the IMF officials, Nigeria has not only improved its capacity for revenue collection but has also made significant progress in increasing transparency around its foreign exchange operations and reserve positions. These actions, combined with tighter monetary policy measures by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), have helped to reduce inflation from above 30 percent last year to around 23 percent this year while also bolstering the nation’s external reserves.

‘The direction of travel appears to be positive,’ one IMF official noted, expressing cautious optimism about Nigeria’s economic trajectory.

Despite the progress recorded, the IMF warned that Sub-Saharan Africa as a region continues to face notable headwinds. It pointed out that although growth across the region has remained relatively robust amid ease of global financial conditions and the resumption of capital inflows, the cycle of heavy inflows followed by abrupt withdrawals remains a risk. A sudden reversal, the Fund cautioned, could expose underlying vulnerabilities, particularly in economies that are heavily dependent on foreign investments.

The IMF therefore emphasised the need for countries across the region, including Nigeria, to continue consolidating recent gains by maintaining sound fiscal and monetary policies, improving debt management, and accelerating structural reforms, especially those that boost domestic revenue mobilisation.

Nigeria’s growth forecast

The IMF further raised Nigeria’s economic growth forecast for 2025 to 3.9 percent, an upward revision of 0.5 percentage point from its earlier projection.

The announcement came during the launch of the Fund’s latest World Economic Outlook in Washington DC.

The IMF also revised Nigeria’s 2026 growth projection upward by 0.9 percentage point to 4.2 percent, citing improved macroeconomic conditions, better investor confidence, and stronger oil output.

According to the Fund, the enhanced outlook reflects reduced uncertainty in the domestic environment and limited exposure to the recent United States tariffs, which have had little direct impact on Nigeria’s economy due to its relatively low trade linkages with the U.S.

The IMF explained that since July, Nigeria’s exchange rate has appreciated, financial conditions have strengthened, and investor sentiment has improved. The Fund added that Nigeria’s fiscal stance remains supportive, while the hydrocarbon sector has benefited from higher oil production and improved security around key installations. ‘These factors together underpin the stronger growth outlook for Nigeria,’ the IMF said.

In addition to the 2025 and 2026 revisions, the Fund also adjusted its 2024 growth estimate for Nigeria to 4.1 percent, up by 0.7 percentage point from the previous forecast. It attributed this to the recent rebasing of Nigeria’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP), which now provides a more comprehensive picture of the economy by capturing a wider range of economic activities, including contributions from the informal sector that were previously unrecorded.

Addressing the regional outlook, the IMF said Sub-Saharan Africa continues to show resilience supported by macroeconomic stabilisation efforts and reform momentum in key economies such as Nigeria and Ethiopia. It, however, warned that resource-dependent and conflict-affected countries still face significant headwinds. The Fund noted that low-income economies are struggling with widening per capita income gaps compared to advanced economies, and it urged countries to strengthen institutions, double down on reforms, improve revenue mobilization through tax reforms, and enhance debt management and transparency to unlock growth potential.

Ayra Starr, Rema to release new single ‘Who’s Dat Girl’

Afrobeats singer Ayra Starr is set to release a joint single, ‘Who’s Dat Girl’ featuring Rema on Friday, October 17, at 1 a.m. WAT.

The announcement buzzed on X, where Ayra Starr dropped a teaser video capturing their electric onstage synergy, while Mavin Records followed up with an official promo post.

Ayra Starr announced the news on Instagram with a striking visual that immediately sent fans spiraling.

In the photo, both artists lift their shirts over their faces, revealing airbrushed portraits of each other on their tees.

Rema flaunted his toned torso and signature tattoos, while Ayra mirrors him with effortless cool, pairing a white crop top with patterned jeans.

This studio pairing builds on their shared stage moments, like the Global Citizen Festival, and promises a fresh vibe blending Afrobeats flair with R and B smoothness.

QoreID records 100m identity verification across Africa

QoreID, the identity verification arm of VerifyMe Nigeria Limited, has facilitated over 100 million real-time identity verifications across Africa.

The company serves more than 1,000 organisations, including fintechs, neobanks, financial institutions and government agencies.

Founded to make data accessible and verifiable, QoreID has become a key partner for businesses seeking to validate identities, reduce fraud and streamline customer onboarding.

Miracle Onyebuchim, Head of Products at QoreID, said in a statement on Thursday that digital identity is essential to building trust in Africa’s digital economy.

Its platform connects to multiple data sources, enabling real-time identity checks and risk assessments across sectors such as finance, insurance and e-commerce.

‘Unlocking economic potentials and enabling digital access, one verified identity at a time. Identity sits at the center of digital trust,’ Onyebuchim said.

Each verification represents a practical outcome: a business accessing credit, a customer opening a digital wallet or an individual gaining access to services. However, gaps in identity coverage remain a challenge. Although 78 per cent of eligible individuals in 36 Sub-Saharan African countries have official identification, coverage varies across regions and demographics.

‘The foundation of any digital economy is trust. Our mission is to solve identity verification at scale and support broader economic participation,’ Onyebuchim added.

While many companies adopt identity verification for compliance, such as Know Your Customer (KYC), Anti-Money Laundering (AML) and Bank Verification Number (BVN) checks, QoreID sees identity as a driver of economic activity.

By improving onboarding and reducing fraud, the platform helps financial institutions, insurers, and marketplaces serve more customers. This is particularly important in a region where nearly half of the adult population remains unbanked.

Africa’s move toward digital finance has also led to increased fraud. In Nigeria alone, financial fraud losses reached tens of billions of naira in 2024.

‘We address these risks using technology that combines AI authentication, document and biometric verification, liveness detection, address checks and fraud analytics-built with local realities in mind and designed to scale. Fraud is not hypothetical. We are addressing real losses with real solutions,’ Onyebuchim said.

QoreID’s tools are accessible to organisations of all sizes. Its modular APIs and low-code options allow banks, telecom providers and SMEs to integrate identity systems efficiently.

From basic ID checks to more complex verification for high-risk products, QoreID supports a range of organisations across the continent.

‘One verification can mean that a small business gets credit, a worker opens a wallet or a policyholder receives a faster claim,’ he noted.

The company’s growth aligns with broader efforts to expand digital identity infrastructure in Africa, such as the World Bank’s ID4D initiative and national ID rollouts. While the government works to expand ID coverage, companies like QoreID help make these identities functional and secure for public and private use.

‘When a company can verify a customer reliably, it can serve that customer. That is how you drive growth and inclusion.’

QoreID’s milestone of 100 million verification reflects ongoing progress toward a more secure and connected digital economy.

How judiciary, IP valuation, investors’ rights re-enforcement will spur economic growth

In Nigeria, people are innovative and creative, yet their financial gain ends at the court of law. Whether it is music or technology, the owners of intellectual property (IP) are finding the difficulty of receiving reasonable compensation when their rights are violated, not because the law is deaf and dumb, but because it is not valued.

The economic value of IP is still not judicial. Most courts continue to see infringement as a moral offense and not an economic harm. The outcome? Token awards that are not based on commercial reality.

In the case of the Pupayannis vs MTN and Others, the artist was only able to claim N20million of that which he was entitled to at 10%. Similarly, N2 million was awarded in Okiki Bright vs 9mobile, Globacom and Others, after six years of litigation, which is hardly enough to incur legal expenses. Such verdicts reveal a structural loophole: the lack of viable IP Valuation evidence in a court of justice.

By accepting and using expert evidence of valuation, a court makes an effective statement, the creative works are not an afterthought; they are assets. Where they use professional IP valuations, the damages are based on the realities in the market, they discourage infringement, and are consistent with international practices.

Courts in advanced jurisdictions such as the United States and the United Kingdom regularly rely on the services of IP valuation professionals who advise on the award of monetary damages in copyright, patent, and trademark cases.

They know that without economic evaluation, justice is symbolic and not compensatory. A similar commercial discipline is required in Nigeria’s judiciary.

The International Valuation Standards Council (IVSC) identifies IP, such as copyrights, trademarks, patents, and industrial designs, as intangible assets that can be valued using three primary methods, which are Cost, Market, and Income. These are practical techniques, which are the Relief-from-Royalty, Discounted Cash Flow (DCF), and the Excess Earnings models. Both of them offer an organized system to evaluate actual losses, projected profits, and reasonable compensation.

In cases where the economic value of IP is valued by courts, their decisions are both legally and financially credible.

To the inventors and rights’ owners, IP valuation is not merely a tool of the courtroom – it is a source of money. A sound valuation gives them strong bargaining power in the negotiation of disputes, licensing, and investment. It also sends a warning to those who may want to infringe that there are some economic repercussions of doing that. Such a change of attitude promotes licensing, prevents piracy, and re-characterizes the IP controversies as moral fights in the context of financial responsibility.

The judiciary in Nigeria has the key to unlock the huge potential of the nation’s creative economy. A value-based compensation judicial system creates investor confidence and allows IP-backed financing of industries like entertainment, technology, and pharmaceuticals. IP-backed financing is already a multi-billion-dollar asset class around the globe. Nigeria can develop its own form should valuation enters judicial opinion.

To do so, the judges working on IP cases need to be exposed to the principles of valuation in organized settings. The roster of certified IP valuation experts of the judicial courts should be maintained to offer independent technical opinions.

The judiciary, in partnership with the Nigerian Copyright Commission (NCC), Trademarks Registry, and financial institutions, ought to come up with valuation policies, disclosure procedures, and licensing and royalty transfer databases. Such data infrastructure will enhance comparability and increase the credibility of the expert reports.

Once IP valuation becomes a common court procedure, then innovation is bankable. Start-ups are able to collateralise their IP, investors can price intangible assets with confidence, and inventors are able to be fully compensated on a full-value basis. Its ripple effects will be increased expenditure in R and D, employment, and quantifiable input in the growth of GDP.

Nigeria is the place of innovation and justice. Should the judiciary institutionalise IP valuation as a standard of evidence and economic valuation, it will accomplish not merely the reinforcement of the rule of law, but the transformation of the creative into the capital, which is a rather obvious departure from oil dependence.

By judicial reform, here I do not mean legal reform, but economic reform. Some court results on reliable IP valuation create confidence in securitization, licensing, and financing innovation. Once the logic of valuation is used consistently by the courts in Nigeria, the creative and knowledge economy of the nation can finally become performance-oriented as opposed to potential.

– Lekan Akinwumi, an Estate Surveyor and Valuer, Principal Partner, Lekan Akinwumi and Co, is a specialist in Intellectual Property (IP) Valuation and Securitization. He is a PhD student who wrote from Lagos, is working on ‘Developing a Framework for Intellectual Property Valuation and Securitization in Nigeria.’