E-Business
NOUN’s Fight Against Technology

The positive impact that technology has brought to our world and in all aspects of our lives cannot be overemphasised. It is a known fact that technology has come, to forever, ease up the way we communicate, produce goods in factories, travel, healthcare delivery, education, etc.
It is, therefore, disheartening to note that, in this age when technology is reigning supreme in all spheres of our lives, people in some organisations are still fighting against instituting technology to ease up the way they run their day to day affairs.
I have always made recommendations on how of technology can improve our daily lives and the economy generally, but most of these recommendations seems not to gel with the authorities concerned. I have, however, seen a few of those recommendations made in this column implemented, whether coincidentally or not.
I remember writing on the then dangerous and retrogressive plans by JAMB to remove the CBT from the examination plans of the Board for reasons best known to those who run the Board. Thankfully, that plan seems to have been jettisoned, even though, we are still making a mess of the whole process as evidenced in the last examinations that JAMB conducted. A lot still has to be done to perfect the process.
One place where technology is being fought and brought to attention, is the National Open University of Nigeria (NOUN). I have looked into this issue and based on my findings, the big question is; why would a university, in this day and time, fight technology? I just cannot understand why.
This is because, I am currently running a course at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, (MIT), which will eventually qualify me to practice as a Startup coach and everything is being done online. This is a similar scenario that should happen in relation to students at NOUN. I just completed the first step of the course, remotely online.
The question is; why would an institution like NOUN be reversing the gains of technology? Is the management’s decision based on the assumption that Nigerian students are not tech savvy enough?
The disturbing decision by the management of the National Open University of Nigeria to abruptly shut down its erstwhile comprehensive iLearn platform and replace it with multiple weaker platforms, for me, is a fight against technology. This singular action has rendered thousands of students devastated, distressed and dejected.
Besides the negative implications which the decision had brought forth, the present administration of NOUN does not see the future in technology, one of the greatest innovations that has transformed learning across the world.
As a matter of fact, the goal of Open and Distance Learning, which NOUN stands for, is to supplement admission to our regular tertiary institutions.
Many Nigerians who may have sought for admission into tertiary institutions without success have found NOUN as a reliable alternative to bagging their degrees in various disciplines. The entire process of enrolment, lecture, submission of assignments, class work, examination and other forms of support were simplified as a result of a technology-enabled platform, (iLearn). These are some of the reasons the majority of NOUN alumni were able to acquire their degrees while still working.
They enjoyed some high level of flexibility, which NOUN had provided for over the years, through robust ICT deployment.
Today, the situation is different. You cannot see that flexibility anymore because of the closure of a number of ICT menus that handled a number of activities seamlessly on the iLearn.
It is now a herculean task to get in touch with lecturers for assistance, submit classwork, pay tuition fees, send applications, carry out online clearance etc. which NOUN was known for. Infact the main portal www.nou.edu.ng has been under maintenance for months now and students are directed to multiple websites such as www.nouonline.net, www.nounonline.com and www.nouedu.net.
As someone who has been in the game for almost a decade, I can boldly conclude that using multiple platforms that can be easily combined into one is a huge waste of time and resources as well as a drain on everyone’s productivity.
There is an urgent need for the current administration of NOUN to have a rethink because, there is no justification whatsoever, to run an Open and Distant Learning institution with a weak technological base.
Do not take my word for it. Find a current student of NOUN and ask about the situation before when the iLearn was on and after with the new sets of platforms. I honestly cannot make any sense out of the decision and I repeat, this is a fight against the adoption of technology.
There are many adverse implications associated with this crisis, of which I will highlight only a few of them.
First, the knowledge gap. Let us look at the wealth of knowledge provided by technology, through the iLearn platform, which I seriously believe NOUN students had benefited from.
It is a common trend in Nigerian universities today to find students jettison buying textbooks, rather preferring to spend their money on other stuff.
With the iLearn platform, which NOUN, hitherto, had provided, students did have access to smartbooks and insightful materials to help them online.
Secondly, payment of tuition fees, receiving lectures, interactions between lecturers and students, clearance, etc., were done seamlessly online. I am sure that the students, staff and management of NOUN are now bearing the brunt as this has now been yanked off and replaced with multiple platforms.
According to a reliable source, NOUN had less than 60, 000 students at inception. With the creation of iLearn, enrolment shot up to over 150,000 students in two years, due to the publicity and ease of getting information about NOUN through iLearn.
Rather than frustrate students, NOUN management should work hard to increase the numbers to say one million students, using the right technology and yes, it is possible.
Apparently, with the yanking off of iLearn, NOUN will exponentially record a decrease in the number of applications, and this will mean a significant decline in the institutions’ revenue. The reason is simple. The confidence level and flexibility that attracted many students are no longer available.
Importantly, we need to start appreciating the roles and significance of technology. The management of NOUN should be exploring ways of improving the existing technology and block loopholes instead of taking decisions that ultimately hurt students.
Technology has simplified the entire process. Whatever reasons there were to impede this, the intention cannot be right, therefore, the status quo should be reverted to.
Even in the traditional tertiary institutions today, the management should have passion for technology rather than the rusty, manual ways of doing things. This is more so, for an Open and Distant Learning institution like NOUN.
Surprisingly, this issue has been on for sometime now and there seems to be no positive way of resolving it. Matters of such magnitude should be dealt with swiftly instead of waiting for a total collapse of the system.
I, hereby, request all well meaning Nigerians, to prevail on the NOUN management to revert to the status quo, powered by technology. Time is of essence because, NOUN students are already frustrated by the fight against the adoption of technology in the institution.
CFA is the Founder, www.CFAtech.ng & Co-producer/Presenter,Tech Trends on Channels Television
E-Business
AI Slows Down some Experienced Software Developers, Study Finds

Contrary to popular belief, using cutting-edge artificial intelligence tools slowed down experienced software developers when they were working in codebases familiar to them, rather than supercharging their work, a new study found.
AI research nonprofit METR conducted the in-depth study, on a group of seasoned developers earlier this year while they used Cursor, a popular AI coding assistant, to help them complete tasks in open-source projects they were familiar with.
Before the study, the open-source developers believed using AI would speed them up, estimating it would decrease task completion time by 24%. Even after completing the tasks with AI, the developers believed that they had decreased task times by 20%. But the study found that using AI did the opposite: it increased task completion time by 19%.
The study’s lead authors, Joel Becker and Nate Rush, said they were shocked by the results: prior to the study, Rush had written down that he expected “a 2x speed up, somewhat obviously.”
The findings challenge the belief that AI always makes expensive human engineers much more productive, a factor that has attracted substantial investment into companies selling AI products to aid software development.
AI is also expected to replace entry-level coding positions. Dario Amodei, CEO of Anthropic, recently told Axios that AI could wipe out half of all entry-level white collar jobs in the next one to five years.
Prior literature on productivity improvements has found significant gains: one study found using AI sped up coders by 56%, another study found developers were able to complete 26% more tasks in a given time.
But the new METR study shows that those gains don’t apply to all software development scenarios. In particular, this study showed that experienced developers intimately familiar with the quirks and requirements of large, established open source codebases experienced a slowdown.
Other studies often rely on software development benchmarks for AI, which sometimes misrepresent real-world tasks, the study’s authors said.
The slowdown stemmed from developers needing to spend time going over and correcting what the AI models suggested.
“When we watched the videos, we found that the AIs made some suggestions about their work, and the suggestions were often directionally correct, but not exactly what’s needed,” Becker said.
The authors cautioned that they do not expect the slowdown to apply in other scenarios, such as for junior engineers or engineers working in codebases they aren’t familiar with.
Still, the majority of the study’s participants, as well as the study’s authors, continue to use Cursor today.
The authors believe it is because AI makes the development experience easier, and in turn, more pleasant, akin to editing an essay instead of staring at a blank page.
“Developers have goals other than completing the task as soon as possible,” Becker said. “So they’re going with this less effortful route.”
E-Business
Firm Uncovers $500K Crypto Heist Through Malicious Packages

Kaspersky GReAT (Global Research and Analysis Team) experts have discovered open-source packages that download the Quasar backdoor and a stealer designed to exfiltrate cryptocurrency. The malicious packages are intended for the Cursor AI development environment, which is based on Visual Studio Code — a tool used for AI-assisted coding.
The malicious open-source packages are extensions hosted in the Open VSX repository that claim to provide support for the Solidity programming language. However, in practice, they download and execute malicious code on users’ devices.
During an incident response, a blockchain developer from Russia reached out to Kaspersky after installing one of these fake extensions on his computer, which allowed attackers to steal approximately $500,000 worth of crypto assets.
The threat actor behind these packages managed to deceive the developer by making the malicious package rank higher than the legitimate one. The attacker achieved this by artificially inflating the malicious package’s downloads count to 54,000.
After installation, the victim gained no actual functionality from the extension. Instead, malicious ScreenConnect software was installed on the computer, granting threat actors remote access to the infected device.
Using this access, they deployed the open-source Quasar backdoor along with a stealer that collects data from browsers, email clients, and crypto wallets. With these tools, the threat actors were able to obtain the developer’s wallet seed phrases and subsequently steal cryptocurrency from the accounts.
After the malicious extension downloaded by the developer was discovered and removed from the repository, the threat actor republished it and artificially inflated its installation count to a higher number – 2 million, compared to 61,000 for the legitimate package. The extension was removed from the platform following a request from Kaspersky.
“Spotting compromised open-source packages with the naked eye is becoming increasingly difficult. Threat actors are using increasingly creative tactics to deceive potential victims, even developers who have a strong understanding of cybersecurity risks — particularly those working in the blockchain development field.
As we expect adversaries to continue targeting developers, it is recommended that even experienced IT professionals deploy dedicated security solutions to safeguard sensitive data and prevent financial losses,” commented Georgy Kucherin, Security Researcher with Kaspersky’s Global Research and Analysis Team.
The threat actor behind the attack published not only malicious Solidity extensions but also another NPM package, solsafe, which also downloads ScreenConnect. A few months earlier, three additional malicious Visual Studio Code extensions were released — solaibot, among-eth, and blankebesxstnion — all of them have already been removed from the repository.
E-Business
NITDA Reaffirms Commitment to 95% Digital Literacy by 2030, as UBEC Pledges Collaboration

Kashifu Inuwa CCIE, the Director General of the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), has reaffirmed the Federal Government’s unwavering commitment to achieving 95% digital literacy across Nigeria by the year 2030, with an ambitious milestone of 70% by 2027.
This disclosure was made in total alignment with the present administration’s priority areas of reforming the economy for sustained inclusive growth and accelerating diversification through industrialisation, digitisation, creative arts, manufacturing, and innovation.
Making this known during a collaborative meeting hosted by the Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC), Inuwa highlighted the government’s strategic prioritisation of human capital development as central to its national transformation agenda.
“We started this journey in 2023 when President Bola Ahmed Tinubu came on board and he made it clear that economic diversification and inclusivity are part of the administration’s agenda,” he noted.
“And the president outlined this in 8 priority areas to achieve the vision, with priority number 7 specifically focused on accelerating industrialisation, digitisation, creative arts, manufacturing, and innovation,” he added.
Recognising the importance of digital fluency in achieving this agenda, he stated that NITDA is committed to investing in the digital empowerment of citizens through the development of the National Digital Literacy Framework (NDLF), a strategic blueprint aligned with international best practices.
He added that to tailor the framework to Nigeria’s specific needs, 6 core competency areas were incorporated to include device and software operations, information and data literacy, communication and collaboration, content creation, safety, and problem solving.
He explained that the framework would address all levels of digital fluency, from basic, intermediate to advanced levels, to make digital skills accessible to every Nigerian, from primary school pupils to working professionals.
According to Inuwa, despite data limitations, NITDA estimates that Nigeria’s digital literacy rate currently stands at 50%, up from 44% in 2021, based on extrapolations from the World Bank’s Better Life Report.
The NITDA DG disclosed that the agency has been working closely with the Nigerian Educational Research and Development Council (NERDC) in developing a curriculum for digital literacy, which can be infused into formal education. Stating that the visit is a continuation of NITDA’s ongoing engagements with key education stakeholders, including the Federal Ministry of Education, the National Universities Commission (NUC), and the Nigerian Educational Research and Development Council (NERDC), all aimed at advancing digital literacy across all levels of learning.
Inuwa also revealed ongoing collaborations with global platforms such as Coursera to train teachers using AI-powered lesson generation tools and provide scalable online training.
It is worth recalling that late last year, NITDA partnered with the Nasarawa State University in collaboration with CISCO in launching the Digital Learning for NSUK (DL4NSUK) initiative to enhance digital literacy in tertiary institutions, and equipping graduates with the skills needed to be digitally proficient and globally competitive.
While stressing that the entire process, from curriculum development to classroom delivery, would require a whole-of-government and whole-of-society approach, Inuwa said, “This is not a journey we can walk alone; we must bring everyone on board, education stakeholders, technology providers, state governments, and international partners.”
In response to the DG’s remarks, UBEC Executive Secretary, Hajiya Aisha Garba, confirmed that the Commission has officially received the digital literacy curriculum developed by NITDA and NERDC and has commenced internal review processes.
She acknowledged the curriculum as robust and forward-looking but stressed the need for simplification to suit early learners and teachers, citing challenges such as curriculum overload, limited teacher capacity, and inadequate infrastructure as key barriers to effective implementation.
She pledged that UBEC, in partnership with the State Universal Basic Education Board (SUBEB), will lead efforts to equip schools with computers and solar-powered infrastructure to support real learning.
“We’re committed to working with NITDA and NERDC to refine the curriculum, train teachers, and ensure effective delivery. Let us align the technical vision with grassroots realities to make a lasting impact,” she concluded.
To formalise the implementation of the meeting’s resolutions, a joint inter-agency committee was established to develop strategic plans that will ensure the effective rollout of the digital literacy initiative, to equip young Nigerians with the essential digital skills required to thrive in an increasingly dynamic and technology-driven global landscape.
- News3 days ago
JAMB Accuses Student of Securing Admission through Identity Fraud
- News3 days ago
Check Point Report Finds Africa as Top Target for Cyber-attacks
- E-Financial3 days ago
EFCC Recovers Funds Lost to CBEX Fraud
- Telecom2 days ago
NCC Speaks of Plans to Secure Telecom Infrastructure Nationwide
- General News2 days ago
Airtel Nigeria Drives BFSI and Utility Sector Innovation with Industry-wide Workshop
- E-Financial3 days ago
Financial Fraud in Nigeria Surges by 45 Percent, 70 Percent of Losses Linked to Digital Platforms – CBN
- Telecom2 days ago
Africa’s Lawmakers Commit to Strengthening AI, Digital Health and Smart Manufacturing Frameworks
- E-Business3 days ago
Firm Uncovers $500K Crypto Heist Through Malicious Packages