Author: ITPulse

Many of us treat AI like a suspicious new neighbour. We greet it carefully, watch it from the window and warn the children about it. Meanwhile the same neighbour has been helping us all along, unlocking our phones, catching scam emails before they land, and warning us about traffic before we leave the house. If you own a smartphone in Nigeria, you already use artificial intelligence every day. You just don’t call it that. Google’s Gemini app recently passed one billion monthly users, the fastest growing product in the company’s history, and most of those users are ordinary people doing…

South Africa’s Standard Bank Group is in talks to acquire a stake in Nigerian fintech company OPay Digital Services ahead of its planned initial public offering in the United States, according to a report by Bloomberg. The proposed investment would see Africa’s largest lender by assets take a stake in OPay before the fintech proceeds with its planned US listing, people familiar with the matter told Bloomberg. In May, it was reported that OPay was planning a US initial public offering targeting a valuation of approximately $4 billion, with Citigroup, Deutsche Bank, and JPMorgan Chase appointed to manage the offering.…

By Martin Ekpeke The Federal Ministry of Communications, Innovation and Digital Economy (FMCIDE) has officially unveiled the National Digital Cloud Policy in a major move to transform Nigeria into West Africa’s primary digital hosting hub and unlock a cloud infrastructure market projected to reach $782 million by 2031, The policy document establishes a comprehensive framework to govern how the nation builds, regulates, and consumes cloud infrastructure while attracting substantial foreign and domestic investment. Speaking on the strategic vision behind the framework, the Minister of Communications, Innovation and Digital Economy, Dr. Bosun Tijani, emphasized that the policy provides the structural foundation…

Nigeria’s National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) has issued a security advisory warning Zoom users about a critical vulnerability that could allow cybercriminals to remotely hijack accounts without requiring valid login credentials. The alert was released by the NITDA Computer Emergency Readiness and Response Team (NITDA-CERRT) regarding the flaw tracked as CVE-2026-53412. According to the agency, the vulnerability stems from improper input validation, allowing an unauthenticated attacker to execute remote account takeovers over a network. NITDA-CERRT warned that an exploit could grant unauthorized access to confidential video meetings, chat histories, cloud recordings, and shared enterprise files. Additionally, compromised accounts could…

Dangote Petroleum Refinery & Petrochemicals FZE is advancing preparations for what could become the largest stock market listing in African history, as it secured a $400 million underwriting commitment from international investors ahead of its planned initial public offering The funding commitment was disclosed in an emailed statement cited in a report by Bloomberg, which is being provided by Marob Strategies and Consulting DIFC Ltd. and Lilium Capital Group, which have also been appointed as co-financial advisers to the refinery for the transaction. According to the advisers, the $400 million commitment is structured to take effect upon the official launch…

By Ivy Samuel The Central Bank of Nigeria has officially reopened Open Market Operations (OMO) securities to individual and corporate investors, expanding the range of high-yielding fixed-income options available to domestic market participants. Under a policy circular issued on August 12, 2026, individuals, companies, and non-bank financial institutions are now permitted to participate in both primary and secondary OMO markets through Deposit Money Banks. The policy decision reverses a major restriction first implemented in 2019 and arrives during a period of heightened investor appetite for high-yielding, short-term debt instruments. Open Market Operations serve as a core monetary tool used by…

Digital Encode has announced the launch of DEPAS AI (Digital Encode Penetration Autonomous System), an enterprise penetration testing platform designed to counter the growing threat of AI-driven cybercrime. The launch comes as artificial intelligence accelerates the scale and sophistication of global cyberthreats. According to IBM’s 2026 Cost of a Data Breach Report, AI-enabled breaches now account for 25% of all malicious incidents, a 56% year-over-year increase with average costs reaching US6.04millioncomparedtotheglobalaverageofUS4.99 million. Regionally, attack activity is led by North America (29%), Asia-Pacific (27%), Europe (25%), Middle East & Africa (10%), and Latin America (9%). “AI is now being weaponized by…

By Kehinde Ogundare If you were to step away from your business for 30 days, what would happen? Would it continue to grow, remain stable, or begin to decline? For many founders, answering this question honestly reveals an uncomfortable truth: something would inevitably slow down. This is often because the business depends too heavily on the founder’s memory, personal relationships, and a flurry of WhatsApp messages. This is a structure problem. Nigeria has produced some of the world’s most resilient entrepreneurs. They have built customer bases amid infrastructure constraints, navigated economic uncertainty, and generated revenue in highly competitive markets. However,…

There is a strange thing about regulation: everybody wants clarity until clarity comes with a bill. Given that is probably why the conversation around Nigeria’s proposed 1.5% stamp duty on virtual asset transactions has quickly become a debate about the number. Is 1.5% too much? Will it make crypto more expensive? Will users simply move elsewhere? Those are legitimate questions, but after spending years building in this market, I think there is a more important one: what behaviour are we about to create? That question matters because markets rarely obey policy in the neat way policy papers imagine. Put a…

Meta, in partnership with the Federal Ministry of Communications, Innovation & Digital Economy (FMCIDE), has announced the launch of AI Academy Nigeria, a national capacity-building initiative designed to strengthen the country’s artificial intelligence talent pool and digital innovation ecosystem. The initiative is being executed through the Ministry’s 3 Million Technical Talent (3MTT) programme, the National Centre for Artificial Intelligence and Robotics (NCAIR), and Robotics and Artificial Intelligence Nigeria (RAIN). AI Academy Nigeria aims to provide Nigerian developers, startups, students, and early-career professionals with practical learning, hands-on technical training, and startup funding—creating direct pathways from foundational AI concepts to market-ready products.…