Ogungbade, Global Accelerex CEO to keynote NITRA 3rd quarterly forum

ITRealms:

As preparations for the Third Quarterly Forum of the Nigeria Information Technology Reporters Association (NITRA) reach fever pitch, organisers of the event have named Mr. Olatunde Ogungbade, Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer of Global Accelerex Limited as the Keynote speaker.

The NITRA 3^rd Quarterly Forum holds on Friday, October 13 at the R-Café Event Centre (opposite Renaissance Hotel), on Isaac John Street, GRA, Ikeja, Lagos.

Mr. Ogungbade as the Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer of Global Accelerex Limited brings his diverse competencies as a business executive, management consultant, entrepreneur, and technology leader to guide the corporate mission of the payment solutions company.

He obtained a Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Engineering from University of Ife (now Obafemi Awolowo University) and a Master’s Degree in Real Time Systems from London Southbank University, UK. He is a certified Project Management Professional and a professional member of the Global Project Management Institute (Lagos Nigeria Chapter).

He is also a certified SAP Technical Consultant with many other notable and relevant industry business leadership and information technology qualifications. He has an Executive MBA Degree from Robert H. Smith School of Business, University of Maryland. 

His over two decades of international business management experience and information technology expertise covers technology strategic planning and investment, enterprise system integration, custom software development, technology operations and infrastructure management, technology commercialisation, innovative (R&D) and technology project management.

Tunde was the Enterprise Architect and IT Division Manager at Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission where he was responsible for driving the enterprise architecture initiatives and evolution through business IT capital investment alignment and strategic planning across line and staff functions in the $1.3 budget organization.

Prior to the Commission, he spent over 10 years of management consulting at various Big-5 global consulting companies (PricewaterhouseCoopers, Cap Gemini Ernst & Young, Sogeti Group) working with industries lines in Government, Retail, Banking & Financial Services, Health Care, Pharmaceutical and Telcos.  

His career began as an entrepreneur, running his IT Consultancy Services firm working on strategic business projects for clients such as New Digital Systems, M. W. Kellogg on the Norsk Hyrdo and the NLNG Project and the BBC.

The Nigeria Information Technology Reporters Association (NITRA), an umbrella body for journalists reporting information and communications technology in Nigeria is organising the third edition of its quarterly forum entitled “Digital Payment: Prospects and Challenges of a Financially Inclusive Nigeria.”

The event which holds this Friday at the R-Café Event Centre on Isaac John Street, GRA, Ikeja, Lagos, will not only highlight the challenges and opportunities in the FinTech space in Nigeria but will provide knowledge and networking platform that will bring the Nigeria Fintech industry at par with its counterparts across the globe.

The event also offers the Banking, ICT and FinTech industries an excellent opportunity to showcase some of their achievements before the largest gathering of the sectors players under one roof as well as share their contributions to Digital Payments in addition to efforts towards actualizing financial inclusion in the country.

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Unusual Praise 2017: Yudala backs biggest Catholic Gospel concert

ITREALMS:

The latest edition of a mega Gospel Catholic concert, Unusual Praise 2017, has received a boost with Yudala throwing its weight behind the event to be held in December, this year in Lagos, reports ITRealms.

The event expected to attract a host of top Gospel artistes from Nigeria and beyond, ITRealms reports promises to be a night of divine praise, worship and blessings, and has been scheduled for Saturday, December 9^th 2017 at Admiralty Way, Lekki Phase 1, Lagos.

Hosted by the Catholic Church of Divine Mercy, Lekki, Unusual Praise 2017 is expected to surpass the massive turn-out recorded in previous editions of an event widely touted as the biggest Catholic Gospel concert in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Already, excitement is building up for the event which will feature a strong cast of Gospel Ministers numbering over 20 drawn from the genres of Rock Gospel, Urban Contemporary and Soul Gospel, among others.

Apart from increasing the number of top brands and other corporate organizations that have identified with the event, Yudala’s participation at the event will go a long way to raise the profile of the Gospel Concert which is expected to draw worshippers from all over the country and other nearby African countries.

In addition to the unique ambience it offers for Christians from all denominations to gather in praise and worship to God, Unusual Praise 2017 will also witness an extra dimension in welfare with the provision of food and drinks for all attendees. Plans are also being made to provide free buses to convey worshippers from various locations in Lagos to and from the venue.

The event, which will expectedly be streamed live to a worldwide audience, will also be covered by a host of local and international broadcast media outfits, with attendees in line for a soul-lifting and blessings-filled night of divine anointing, with miracles, spiritual grace and upliftment.

Ogochukwu Nebenanya/GEE 

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Consequences of unregistered SIM cards await operators says NCC

ITRealms:

The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has insisted that there are consequences for any telecommunications operator in the country harbouring unregistered Subscriber Identity Module (SIM) cards, reports ITRealms.

NCC revealed this via its Director Public Affairs (DPA), Mr. Tony Ojobo, who spoke at the Special Independence Edition of the annual Conference of Directors and Heads of Public Relations organised by the Nigerian Institute of Public Relations (NIPR) at the Sheraton Hotel Lagos with the theme: Trackable Identity and Integrity in Business and National Reputation.

Dwelling on ‘Trackable Identity and the ease of doing business in Nigeria’ Mr. Ojobo noted the long-standing position of the Commission on tolerance of unregistered SIM cards by telecom service providers on their networks.

Ojobo also warned those buying  pre-registered SIM cards from persons and businesses that had done multiple SIM Cards registration in order to resell later, stressing that the burden of this practice lies with the Mobile Network Operators (MNO) who are expected to deactivate SIM cards that do not carry verifiable identities, “because operators are under obligations to have the identities of all callers on their respective networks.”

For Ojobo, trackable identity is the ability to identify an individual operating or transacting business in the cyberspace, noting that within Nigerian environment, “some identity objects are bereft of digital object identifiers, thus posing serious challenge to identifying someone transacting business in the cyberspace.”

He explained that the SIM cards registration policy was instituted by the Federal Government as a strategic response to the challenges of identity tracking, especially in the context of kidnappings, terrorism and other forms of criminality in the society globally.

Other measures of identity tracking in Nigeria, he said, include the establishment of the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) through the NIMC Act 2007 and other extant policies and programmes such as the issuance of International travel passports, Bank Verification Number (BVN), Driver's license, Voter's card, the activities of the National Population Commission and the SIM Cards registration programme supervised by the NCC.

Every SIM card, he said, is a subscription on a network and NCC has over 130 million records being verified, and all of that will be transferred later to NIMC as the nation's main custodian of identity management in Nigeria.

“We all need to be able to identify those we are dealing with especially in the cyberspace to reduce mistrust and fraud as well as to improve the integrity of transactions. The total experience of these practices will also help in the fight against economic and financial crimes,” he declared, maintaining that increase in the level of ICT interface and reduction in the instances of human, physical interface could reduce financial corruption.

Chuks Egbune/GEE

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Anambra breaks INEC records

ITRealms:

Anambra State has broken two records of the Independent National Electoral Commission (NEC) as the forthcoming governorship election in the state draws closer, reports ITRealms.

These records, ITRealms gathered comprised the fielding of some 37 political partners for the forthcoming governorship election slated for November 18, 2017, even without any court case on the dispute over party primaries and being a state without one of its Senatorial district currently sitting among the National Assembly since 2015.

Disclosing these during an interview session in Focus Nigeria, a programme of African Independent Television (AIT) monitored in Lagos, the National Commissioner for Information and Voter Education Committee (IVEC) at INEC, Prince Soyebi Adedeji Solomon, while responding to update in the proposed Anambra elections.

According to him, for the first time in the history of political parties in Nigeria, Anambra State governorship election has 37 political parties fielding for the exercise which entails by implication they are fielding 37 candidates.

This, he also said, entails that INEC has to print the ballot paper with all the 37 political parties well displayed and which means the ballot paper will be very long in size.

The INEC Commissioner also said that Anambra further record breaking is the fact that there is court case with regards all the primaries known to the Commission, barely 40 days to the governorship election.

In addition, Prince Soyebi Adedeji revealed that about 20 months to the expiration of the current life of this dispensation, Anambra State is the only state that has one of its Senatorial seats in contention in court.

“There are no court cases, they followed party primary guidelines,” he said.

Anambra Central, he said, is the only state without a senator sitting at the National Assembly, because of judicial pronouncement, “which is another record that Anambra is holding that barely 20 months to the end of the current tenure, INEC has not been able to conduct that Senatorial election there,” due to above reasons.

Nonye Dom/GEE

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Expert flays indiscriminate release of 760 Boko Haram suspects

ITRealms:

President of the Association of Industrial Security and Safety Operators of Nigeria, Dr. Ona Ekhomu has flayed the recent release of 760 Boko Haram suspects, advising the Federal Government (FG) to exercise extreme caution in the mass release of captured Boko Haram fighters, reports ITRealms.

Ekhomu also said the caution has become necessary for the protection of society from incessant terrorist attacks by ‘inadvertently recycling insurgents into the battlefield’.

Reacting to the recent mass release of 760 Boko Haram suspects by the Joint Intelligence Center of Operation Lafiya Dole, Ekhomu said in a press statement made available to ITRealms that such a release of suspected insurgents should be based upon concrete evidence of repentance and conversion to true Islam which extols peace.

“There must be ample evidence of deradicalization” he warned, describing the release of 760 suspects as rather hasty and ill-advised which tends to worsen the threatscape of the region.

Ekhomu insisted that “The mass release of suspects without rigorous investigation of each suspect would tend to worsen an already fragile security eco-system. The JIC is an intelligence authority and not an investigative agency.”

He pointed out that the Criminal Investigation Department of the Military Provost would have been better placed to conduct these inquiries and make recommendations to the political executive for a final decision” he averred.

Ekhomu, who is the first chartered security professional in Nigeria said that in 2017 a total of 2,603 Boko Haram suspects have been released. Stressing that prior to the latest mass release, the activities of the previously released detainees should have been documented and analyzed to determine the performance of the mass release programme.

“Without such a protocol, then the insurgent release programme would appear to be opaque and arbitrary,” he decried.

Equally, the security analyst called upon the Federal Government to adequately fund the security programmes in the northeast, maintaining that frequent mass release of suspects is based upon the fact that the military authorities are not equipped to indefinitely detain prisoners of war.

“Turning the suspects over to the Borno State government appears to be a way to transfer responsibility away from the military,” he said,

Ehkomu elucidated that “ironically, it’s a nation that fights a war and not its military alone. In other words, other agencies are supposed to play their roles – the Police, the Prosecutors, the Judiciary and the Prisons. It is the general failing of these other agencies of state that is over-burdening the military and resulting in these questionable mass release programs that may have the unintended consequence of prolonging the war in the northeast.”

According to Dr. Ekhomu, the Boko Haram conflict is classified as a 4^th generation warfare, thus its an asymmetric warfare, which Boko Haram’s operational strategy is appropriate messaging to different publics and use of lethal tactics. Captured Boko Haram fighters will quickly assure their captors that they have experienced ideological rebirth as a survival mechanism, even when such assertion is untrue. However, these fighters are free to resume attacks after being handed over to the poorly-resourced Borno State government.

He urged the Federal Government to be acutely aware of the paradigm shift in warfare and formulate prisoner release decisions based upon the realities of 4^th generation warfare, adding that “When a suicide bomber blows himself or herself up in a mosque, it is a win for the insurgents.”

Ekhomu praised the Nigerian military for its bravery and brilliance in battle. However, he lamented that the military was being over-stretched by different internal security threats, and there was no need to prolong the Boko Haram conflict longer than necessary by making faulty decisions.

He called for the building of high security prison facilities in Borno State where suspects can be held for longer periods of time and be exposed to psychologists and moderate imams who can work on their conversion to mainstream Islam prior to their release. 

He said that the decision to release terrorism suspects must be made after careful psychological testing and evaluation by credentialed professionals. 

“That should form the basis for the decision to reintegrate each fighter into civil society. He said that the Borno State Government does not have the capacity to carry out the intricate assessment and evaluation of deradicalization and ideological reorientation of each Boko Haram fighter handed over to them,” he cautioned.

Chuks Egbune/GEE

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TEDxIkeja to gather thought leaders, tackles troubled world

ITRealms:

Thought leaders from different spheres of life who are adept at applying native intelligence to solve problems would meet at the 2017 edition of TEDxIkeja to offer panacea to a world troubled by myriad of challenges.

TEDxIkeja is a TED New York licensed conference. It tells native stories and showcase unusual ideas worth sharing to inspire people to change their lives, communities, and the world. Annually, the forum attracts thought leaders who offer innovation, enterprise, and optimism as antidotes to global challenges.

Themed where do we go from here, TEDxIkeja 2017 would dissect the various ugly incidences that are occurring in Europe, Asia, USA, and Africa, and offer native solution to these incidences through storytelling techniques.   

In a statement released by the curator and organiser of TEDxIkeja, Ademola Adeshola, the world is at a crossroads and the present crop of leaders have not provided solutions to terrorism, terrorism financing, recession, food shortage, tsunami, and global warming.

“The fang of terrorism has sunk deep into the social-political structure of the world system while immigration has become a burden. Technology is disrupting everything. The new world has not spared our belief systems, culture, and philosophy. Yet the dividing lines between the truth and facts has blurred”, Adeshola said.

Expatiating on the thought leaders expected on October 14 at the forum, Adeshola said TEDxIkeja 2017 would aggregate ideas that facilitate new thinking. Such ideas include social reputation algorithm, suspended thinking, soft power, visual metaphor, Lassa fever detecting kits, something for the girls, stories from Internally Displaced Persons [IDP] and in need of ideology.

“We are fighting for the rights of everything and everybody from climate change, gay right to job cut. It feels like the history of humanity is swallowed up by liberalism”, Adeshola said.

He added that those expected at TEDxIkeja 2017 are the CEO of Inlaks, Femi Adeoti; CEO of Quadrant Company, Bolaji Okusaga; Head of Digital banking, Alat, Dele Adeyinka; winner of Big Brother Naija reality show, Efe Ejemba; MD/CEO, Studio 24, Ifeanyi Oputa; CTO, Social Lender, Bade Adeshemowo.

Others include Visual Artist, Visual Collaborative LLC; Comic Republic, spoken word artist, Cherry Enterfield and other thought leaders that would share native intelligence at the event.   

Mo Abudu, Joe Odumakin, Tunji Olugbodi, Yele Okeremi, Deremi Atanda, Kenny Black, and Deolu Akinyemi are among previous speakers.       

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NITRA 3rd forum: Banks, Global Accelerex, CWG Plc, Yudala drum support

ITRealms:

All is now set for the third quarterly forum of the Nigeria Information Technology Reporters Association (NITRA) billed for Friday, October 13, 2017, as more industry players in the ICT, banking, and FinTech sectors of the Nigerian economy drum support for the event, reports ITRealms.

The latest to declare their support for the flagship ICT reporters association quarterly seminar are Global Accelerex, an effective and secure payment solutions provider; Yudala, fast rising e-commerce operator and Nigeria’s first ever composite online and retail chain; and CWG Plc, a total ICT solutions provider.

Others are three of Nigeria’s leading IT-driven commercial banks namely, Fidelity Bank Plc, Wema Bank Plc and Zenith Bank Plc.

The Nigeria Information Technology Reporters Association (NITRA), an umbrella body for journalists reporting information and communications technology in Nigeria is organising the third edition of its quarterly forum entitled “Digital Payment: Prospects and Challenges of a Financially Inclusive Nigeria.”

The event which holds this Friday at the R-Café Event Centre on Isaac John Street, GRA, Ikeja, Lagos, will not only highlight the challenges and opportunities in the FinTech space in Nigeria, but will also provide knowledge and networking platform that will bring the Nigeria Fintech industry at par with its counterparts across the globe.

At the event, the Banking, ICT and FinTech industries will be offered an excellent opportunity to showcase some of their achievements before the largest gathering of the sectors players under one roof as well as share their contributions to Digital Payments in addition to efforts towards actualising financial inclusion in the country.

Mr. Austin Okere, Founder/Vice Chairman of CWG Plc, had since accepted to chair the one-day event.

It should be noted that digital disruption has been changing how traditional banking services, payments, and remittances are now offered in the digital economy, as almost all sectors of financial services are being re-imagined by non-traditional providers and FinTechs, while the traditional incumbent providers are reinventing themselves very quickly to understand better, the puzzle presented by FinTech and how they can leverage on the digital movement.

Uj. Dominic/GEE

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Bayelsa to establish 3 community radio outlets

ITRealms:

The Bayelsa State Government on Monday said says it would soon establish community radio stations in the three senatorial zones of the state as part of measures to increase public awareness and enlightenment to the grassroots, reports ITRealms.

The Commissioner for Information and Orientation, Daniel Iworiso-Markson, made the announcement in Yenagoa shortly after taking over from his predecessor, Jonathan Obuebite.

According to him, public information should not only be centered on the capital city Yenagoa but should reach people in the rural areas to properly inform them on government programmes and policies.

Iworiso-Markson explained that the‎ community radio would be very useful and would be run in local languages with very rich content. 

He said, "We will pursue public enlightenment with great vigor. Our people need to be reached with what the government is doing. This government under the able leadership of His Excellency, Honourable Henry Seriake Dickson has done so much for our people and they need to know. 

"From education revolution, where the declaration of a state of emergency since inception has recorded massive growth in infrastructure and thus effectively changed the fortunes of students in appreciable performance to the award of scholarships at home and abroad, giant leaps in public infrastructure as we have in institutional buildings, quality roads and bridges across the state, to economic diversification, we need to let them know and there is a whole lot to be done and we can achieve them working together.  

"The idea of the community radio will encourage the confidence of out people, make them have a sense of belonging and constantly bring them up to speed with the progress made in a language they so understand."

Iworiso-Markson, thanked Governor Seriake Dickson for the new opportunity and his predecessor for the many‎ achievements he had recorded and promised to build on it for the overall good of the government and people of the state.

Earlier, the former Commissioner, Jonathan Obuebite highlighted some of his achievements including the revival of the ministry's magazine, Bayelsa Strides and the establishment of a news website, Bayelsa Watch.

Obuebite added that he has no doubt that his successor would succeed because of his capacity and experience as a seasoned media practitioner and public relations expert.

While appreciating the Permanent Secretary, Directors and staff for their support, he encouraged them to also extend same to the new commissioner to enable him succeed on all fronts. 

Uboshe Uboshe/GEE

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MDXi ‘Take a break’ campaign targets enterprise customers across West Africa

ITRealms:

The West Africa’s premier data center solutions provider, MDXi, a MainOne company has launched an advertising campaign aimed at reinforcing the company’s position as the data center provider of choice for enterprises in the region, tagged “Take a Break” reports ITRealms.

The campaign, ITRealms gathered, would increase awareness of the MDXi brand as the most interconnected and reliable West African data center company and urges C-level executives across the region to take a break from the rigors of managing in-house Information Technology (IT) and outsource their IT infrastructure needs to MDXi.

ITRealms reports that the campaign, which began in October in Nigeria and Ghana includes a redesign of the MDXi website and press adverts in numerous national publications, building on the company’s expansion efforts across Nigeria and West Africa.

MDXi General Manager, Gbenga Adegbiji, said, the campaign is expected to spotlight the company’s data center initiatives not only in Nigeria, but across West Africa including its Accra facility, a new Data Center in Sagamu, Ogun State Nigeria as well as planned development in Abidjan, Cote D’Ivoire.

“Unknown to local enterprises that outsource their data center needs off-shore, MDXi is home to numerous large multinationals that West Africans interact with daily online as we have raised the bar to provide world-class ICT and Data Center solutions, at par with similar facilities in Europe, Asia and America. Our Data Centers have undergone rigorous compliance audits to ensure we are able to provide same level of service locally that our international customers are used to” he said.

ITRealms recalls that MainOne’s MDXI has put Nigeria on the global map, with its premier Tier III Lekki Data Center, the only data center in West Africa that is authorized to process and store payment card information with its PCI DSS certification. MDXI is also certified as ISO 27001, 9001 compliant and is the only SAP certified provider of hosting services in the region. 

The company ITRealms further gathered, has contributed significantly to deepening Nigeria’s digital economy with its highly available, carrier-neutral ICT infrastructure, enabling network operators and content providers exchange traffic within its data center. As West Africa’s most connected data center and home of the Internet Exchange Point of Nigeria (IXPN), MDXi has impacted internet traffic in-country, by localizing traffic, reducing transmission costs and improving user experiences.

Chuks Egbune/GEE

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Digital Economy: ICANN studies e-friction, social media usage in 15 MENAT countries

ITRealms:

The study on the status of the regional digital economy, entitled “Accelerating the Digital Economy in the Middle East, North Africa, and Turkey” by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), has revealed that the study would focus on 410 million people living in 15 countries, reports ITRealms.

The study, ITRealms reports, identified the dynamics of the current digital economy and recommends points of development in the Middle East, North Africa and Turkey (MENAT), of which ICANN had commissioned a similar study in 2014 with the same aim in a global context: “Greasing the Wheels of the Digital Economy”.

ITRealms gathered that this study serves as part of ICANN's efforts to foster engagement between ICANN and the broader Internet community, and to help build a strong and competitive domain name industry in the region. The study focuses on 410 million people living in 15 countries: Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Iran, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Morocco, Oman, Palestine, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, Turkey, and the United Arab Emirate (UAE).

The ICANN’s Vice President of Global Stakeholder Engagement in the Middle East, Baher Esmat said, “It tackles issues such as social media usage, content in local language, Internet connectivity, Internet start-ups, e-friction and legislations in the Internet sphere.”

Esmat also said that ICANN commissioned the study to investigate the current status of the digital economy in the MENAT region and to outline the opportunities of growth in various areas, including the domain name market that could help us make better use of the digital potential in the region.

“We believe the recommendations that derive from this study provide a guide for policy makers and businesses to nurture digital transformation in the region,” he said.

The findings of the study indicate that there is a need for governments to lead by supporting long-term efforts in four areas, including “Provision of ubiquitous, affordable connectivity, availability of relevant content, building of digital capabilities, establishment of supportive policies and practices.”

ITRealms gathered that the study concluded that in order to enhance the digital economy of MENAT, a collective effort by all stakeholders, from public to private sector, is required.

“The study will be discussed in the upcoming ICANN60 in Abu Dhabi, UAE. Remote participants will be able to join this discussion here,” he said.

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