General News
Software Can Generate $10b Annually if Harnessed-Obaro
John Obaro is the managing director of SystemSpecs. He has had a distinguished IT management career and is regarded as one of the most respected personalities in the Nigerian IT industry.
Under his leadership, and with a team of professionals with varied experience, SystemSpecs has attained the enviable position of Nigeria’s leading software house and aspiring to become the de-facto software institution in Africa.
Before establishing Systemspecs, Obaro worked with United Bank of Africa, International Merchant Bank (IMB) among others.
He spoke on issues around software development in the country.
Evolution of SystemSpecs In the Software Space
I left Intercontinental Merchant Bank (IMB) in 1992 as Head of Systems Department to start SystemSpecs.
This was after I led a team that implemented Nigeria’s first international banking application on a network linking Lagos and four other towns.
By this laudable feat, I helped in pioneering Nigeria’s online real-time banking at a time when most banks were still debating its feasibility.
SystemSpecs started with a foreign financial and business application called SunSystems and due to demand from our clients then, we decided to develop HumanManager, a Payroll/HR application.
As the market developed and we began to envision the emergence of e-business and e-payment space in Nigeria, we went ahead to develop and introduce Remita, a world class e-Payment application into the Nigerian market.
Remita has today been adopted by all Nigerian banks and is used for the payment of all Federal Government contractors and employees under the Central Bank of Nigeria’s e-payment initiative.
Attaining leadership requires foresight, creativity, innovation, focus, excellence, discipline, hard work, resilience, patience and consistency; these are necessary roads that any successful entrepreneur must travel and we give God the glory for where we are today.
SystemSpecs is strictly a software company with focus on e-payments, financial and human resource management applications.
Challenges of Nigerian Software Industry
Nigeria, like most African countries that are in the developing nation’s league is predominantly plagued with “information poverty”.
Data is such a hard thing to find in Nigeria, so people just make up the numbers and the man that can shout the loudest gets the most attention. Unfortunately, you don’t really need to shout to win an argument if you have verifiable facts.
Today, no one can estimate the country’s earnings from software exports as they would for cocoa or oil export.
According to National Office for Technology Acquisition and Promotion (NOTAP), the country loses over $1billion annually to software importation simply because most Nigerian companies prefer to import foreign off-the-shelves software to meet local needs where indigenous software could have provided better solutions.
Any software that comes from abroad was built mainly for that environment and anyone who uses it here is just a secondary user.
This has further thinned the potential of the Nigerian software market which by now should be in excess of probably $10billion annually if well harnessed.
There are some people who don’t believe in themselves, therefore, they cannot even believein their immediate environment.
Their belief is that something must come only from the western world for it to be good. I put that to ignorance.
However, this is not to say that I am not mindful of some challenges with a few locally developed software such as low quality assurance, non-scalability, improper documentation and packaging among myriads of other issues. If we don’t deliberately share success stories, no one will believe the indigenous software space is really worth the effort.
SystemSpecs’ Critical Success Factors
We have done a lot with the Remita integrated solution. You can’t get that anywhere in the world because they, for instance, do not have “ghost worker” challenges.
So, I will say it is high time government further encouraged the use and adoption of indigenous software in the country. I think with the right policies and awareness, indigenous software will blossom in the country.
Trends & Opportunities in the Nigerian Software Industry
Today, we live in a world that is driven by information technology and the software industry which has been a source of galloping income for some countries is at the driver’s seat.
A faster and more powerful economic and technological development has taken off in Africa and the Nigerian Software industry is likely going to easily become the most significant regional player going by current developments in the country.
There are so many opportunities for the software industry in a developing economy like Nigeria given the low capital entry requirements as well as the industry’s high value, high growth, high technology and knowledge-rich profile of software activities.
It is apparent that the industry requires skilled manpower but few raw materials which are not in any way damaging to the environment.
There is a big opportunity to remake the software space because of the fundamental shift of the software business focus from just the corporate market to the consumer experience.
The need to bring the consumer experience into the development and use of software is good ground for easy harvests.
There should be sufficient home-grown software that can handle the day-to-day lifestyle of the Nigerian people.
The major requirement for the software industry is human capital and with the country’s size and abundant supply of low cost software engineers or graduates, majority of whom are self-taught, the country stands a chance to provide highly skilled professionals with absolute wage comparative advantage in the international software market.
Nigerians are beginning to realize the importance of software for day-to-day activities and have therefore began to invest in this sector, although the rate at which the industry is growing is still at a very slow pace.
Cloud computing and mobile applications are also new trends in software development. In these areas there are so many opportunities for developers who know and understand these technologies.
Opportunities for Upcoming Software Developers
Software development is an art. You must develop some kind of stronginterest in it for you to succeed.
Apart from updating your knowledge and skills through training on new technologies, you must be focused and patient.
There are lots of institutions with the right development programmes springing up to help interested persons in software engineering and related fields. So get up and get trained!
Whether as an employee or a self-starter, you will require mentorship for product and industry understanding.
Mentoring helps you to gain good momentum and quickly exit when your venture is not likely to succeed.
Like I said earlier, you really have to be creative to succeed in the software industry. It may already be too late trying to develop a banking application in Nigeria right now because we have lost that to the foreign players but when you understand what banking means to you as an individual you can develop software around it to address specific unmet or undiscovered needs.
This is why the mobile money application was so successful in Kenya unlike Europe where there are so many banks with several transaction platforms.
To become a successful entrepreneur you must also develop certain skills in management, marketing and human relations.
Launching Pads for Entrepreneurs
Do not make money your goal, make the delivery of quality software your goal and remember this may take some time, and then money will come.
Be patient. A lot of software companies that will stand the test of time do take a long time to build.
You may need to learn three vocabularies; “Partnership, Collaboration and Team execution”. Even marathon races have support.
This is one of the ways you can create safety net for yourself and mitigate the risk of wearing out during the software development phase as a self-starter especially knowing fully well that there are some heavyweights in the industry lurking around to offer you jobs rather than partnerships as a small developer.
Don’t be afraid to make mistakes but don’t make the same mistake twice. Be ready to fail. Unfortunately, today there is the stigmatization of failure in our environment.
The whole idea about success without failure is really funny.
The Remita product that the whole nation boasts of today was a product of a failed bid! Be creative and resilient in the execution of your business plan and it’s not just about business plans but the thinking behind the assumptions of your business plan that matters.
Be professional in managing people and finances and go to school to learn same if need be.
If you happen to require loans, seek help first from informal sources. If your friends and family have not invested in you, why should someone else?
You must develop a thick skin especially to survive the Nigerian business terrain and by this I mean a strong staying power; the ability to stay focused on what you believe to be a solution that can sell.
Understand the intellectual property laws and rights, and don’t be in a hurry to give out your code without protection. It could be costly.
Prospective Entrants into the Software Industry
Software industry is such an amazing one because of its potential for the economy of individuals and nations. India today makes more money from software than Nigeria makes from oil.
The richest companies in the world today are in the computer industry.
Records have it that half of the ten richest men in the United States made their money from software-related businesses.
However, more than making the money is the fulfillment of helping to solve daily life’s problems for people.
If you must enter the industry as an employee or entrepreneur, I will leave you with three words and they are “innovation, innovation, and innovation”.
Innovation is apt in designs and architecture, in business models, and in monetizing your solutions using cost effective solutions distribution mechanism.
The court of appeal in Lagos has asked the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) to revoke the certificate of registration of “KPMG Professional Services”.
In a unanimous decision delivered on Thursday, the appellant court granted the reliefs sought by KPMG Nigeria against CAC and KPMG Professional Services.
The judgment was read by Abdullahi Mahmud Bayero, the judge.
The two other judges are Abimbola Obaseki-Adejumo and A.M. Talba.
In 2002, KPMG Professional Services was registered as a company with CAC despite the existence of KPMG Nigeria, comprising its audit, tax, and consulting arms.
The KPMG Nigeria has long been registered in Nigeria before 2002.
KPMG Audit was registered in 1969, KPMG Tax Consultants in 1990, and KPMG Consulting in 1969.
Displeased with the registration of KPMG Professional Services, KPMG Nigeria approached the federal high court.
The consulting firm had argued that the name “KPMG Professional Services” was deceptively similar to its long-established identity.
In 2005, the lower court dismissed KPMG Nigeria’s case, citing an alleged merger between KPMG Nigeria and Akintola Williams Deloitte as reason the company could no longer assert rights to the name.
The lower upheld the second respondent’s (KPMG Professional Services) counterclaim and ordered that KPMG Nigeria’s name be struck off the CAC register.
The lower court had premised its decision on newspaper articles stating that KPMG Nigeria reportedly merged with Akintola Williams Deloitte.
Delivering the judgment, Bayero ruled that the lower court erred by relying on newspaper articles to ascertain that KPMG Nigeria allegedly merged with another company.
The judge said the documents showing the alleged merger were not presented before the lower court, and the form of the alleged merger could not have been known.
“In any event, the only branch of KPMG, if any, that entered into a merger with Akintola Williams as stated in the newspaper articles 18, is KPMG Audit,” the judge ruled.
“The other spheres were totally unaffected. It would therefore be wrong to state that the merger (which has not been shown to this Court) of KPMG Audit with Akintola Williams means all the other areas of business, including KPMG Consulting and KPMG Tax Consultants, also ceased to exist.
“Even if the Appellants (KPMG Nigeria) had ceased to do business as the Court seemed to have held, the 2nd Respondents (KPMG Professional Services) should not have been carrying on business until the Appellant’s certificate of registration is withdrawn or set aside.
“They cannot use the name until the Appellant’s certification of registration is withdrawn or set aside. They cannot use the name until the name is removed from the 1st Respondent’s (CAC) Register of Names.
“The 1st Respondents can only assign the name to the 2nd Respondents after first taking it away from the Appellants.”
The court ruled that CAC erred by registering KPMG Professional Services despite the existence of a business name, which is already registered.
The judge reversed the earlier ruling of the lower court and reaffirmed the primacy of statutory protection for existing business names under Nigerian corporate law.
Air Peace has announced the launch of direct flights from Abuja to London Heathrow and Gatwick airports, with operations scheduled to begin on October 26, 2025.
The airline said in a statement on Sunday that round-trip fares for the Abuja–London service will start from N1m, making it the first Nigerian carrier to offer direct connections from the capital to both of London’s major international airports. This was contained in a press release issued on Sunday by the airline’s spokesperson, Efe Osifo-Whiskey.
“Direct international flight services from Abuja to both London Heathrow and London Gatwick Airports, effective October 26, 2025.
“Air Peace becomes the first Nigerian carrier to offer direct services from Abuja to both of London’s major international airports, further solidifying its role as a leader in regional and intercontinental aviation.
“Travellers originating from any of Air Peace’s domestic destinations across Nigeria can now book through fares via Abuja to either Heathrow or Gatwick using a single ticket, eliminating the need for multiple bookings or baggage re-checks,” the statement read.
Similarly, the new route opens convenient access for inbound passengers from the UK to cities across Nigeria.
“Travellers from London can access multiple destinations across Nigeria using a single Air Peace ticket through Abuja every morning. These destinations are Lagos, Port Harcourt, Enugu, Benin, Warri, Owerri, Kano, Yola, Gombe and Asaba, for now. Other destinations will be added later,” Osifo-Whiskey stated.
Air Peace is also offering what it describes as unprecedented value in pricing and service.
Osifo-Whiskey said, “It provides a distinct competitive advantage, enabling passengers to travel between Nigeria and the United Kingdom with greater ease, efficiency, and value, due to the possibility of choosing multiple cities entry and exit points.
“Has the cheapest fares ever, starting from only 1 Million Naira round trip. Huge baggage allowance.”
The Abuja–London launch comes months after the airline began Lagos–London Heathrow flights, which started earlier in 2024.
General News
Prateek Suri CEO Maser Meets Zambia’s Education Minister to Propel Student Housing and Education Projects
Prateek Suri, CEO of MASER and recognized as the richest Indian entrepreneur in Africa, was welcomed this week by Zambia’s Education Minister, Hon. Douglas Munsaka Syakalima, for a high-level meeting in Lusaka that focused on student housing and broader education infrastructure initiatives.
The meeting, held at the Ministry of Education’s offices, opened with warm greetings and a presentation by Mr Suri detailing Maser’s plans to support Zambia’s rapidly scaling education sector. Suri, who led Maser to become Africa’s seventh unicorn, emphasized the company’s commitment to infrastructure that benefits students, educators, and communities across the continent.
Minister Syakalima underscored the urgency of addressing Zambia’s student accommodation gap, citing the country’s expanding net enrollment and the need for safe, affordable housing for tertiary students. Under his leadership, the Government has embarked on a bold infrastructure agenda: over 82 secondary schools already completed, 46 set to be finished in 2025, and 120 new institutions under construction, alongside 169 ECE hubs and 145 satellite centers to reach underserved areas.
During the meeting, Suri shared Maser’s vision for modern student housing built through public–private partnership models. He outlined a multi‑phase plan utilizing sustainable building design, digital infrastructure, and vocational training facilities integrated into these campuses. “Zambia’s youth deserve world-class learning environments,” Suri remarked. “Maser is prepared to leverage its experience to co-create impactful educational infrastructure.”
Minister Syakalima responded positively, stating, “We welcome the opportunity to collaborate with Maser. The CEO’s entrepreneurial success and the company’s commitment to Africa’s education development are exactly the kind of partnership we need to scale our infrastructure goals.”
Beyond housing, the dialogue extended to opportunities in blended learning, vocational skills, rural outreach, and digital inclusion. With Zambia implementing its forward‑looking 2023 Education Curriculum this year—including early childhood, primary, and Form 1 levels—the minister highlighted the need for supporting infrastructure at all levels to enable effective rollout.
Under Minister Syakalima’s tenure, the education sector has seen notable progress: 4,200 new teachers hired recently, bringing the total teacher workforce to over 40,000 in three years; strengthened focus on foundational learning via teacher training programmes like the “Catch Up Programme”; and ambitious expansion of school infrastructure across Zambia’s provinces.
Maser, co‑founded by Prateek Suri, transformed from an African startup in consumer electeonics and large infrastructure projects into a multi‑sector unicorn operating in real estate, renewable energy, mining and education technology. Its rapid rise and African focus have made Suri a leading figure in bolstering India–Africa economic relations.
As the richest Indian in Africa, Prateek Suri’s influence spans beyond business success—it represents growing bilateral investment aimed at credible, sustainable societal impact. His partnership with Zambia’s Ministry of Education signals a new era of cross-border collaboration in education infrastructure.
With both parties committing to inclusive planning and scalable implementation, the Maser‑Zambia dialogue could mark the beginning of transformative initiatives: from affordable student housing to cutting‑edge learning facilities, vocational training hubs, and digital classrooms.
In closing remarks on the significance of this dialogue, Suri stated, “Education infrastructure is the foundation for future growth. Our partnership with Minister Syakalima and the Government of Zambia is a testament to collective investment in youth, equity, and sustainable development.” Minister Syakalima echoed this optimism, saying that with strategic public–private investment, Zambia’s education sector is poised for a significant elevation.
This meeting lays the groundwork for collaboration that bridges government strategy and corporate innovation—ultimately aiming to empower Zambia’s students and accelerate national development.
Microsoft Server Hack Likely Solo Actor, Thousands at Risk
CSCS Inaugurates Custodian Portal to Enhance Digital Access, Operational Efficiency
Reps Investigate 25 Insurance Firms for Financial Infractions
Flaw in Microsoft SharePoint Sparks Global Cybersecurity Concern
Naira Slides Again, Hits ₦1,532.34/$ Despite CBN’s Dollar Push
General News2 days agoPrateek Suri CEO Maser Meets Zambia’s Education Minister to Propel Student Housing and Education Projects
News1 day agoUN Appoints Sa’id, Nigerian to Nuclear Panel
E-Financial1 day agoUBA’s LEO Becomes Africa’s First Chatbot to Enable Cross-Border Payments
E-Business1 day agoNIMC Enrolls 122m for NIN, Cuts Extortion by 40 Percent
Telecom1 day agoMTN Urges Nigerian to Regards Telecom Infrastructure as National Assets
General News1 day agoAppeal Court Nullifies Registration of ‘KPMG Professional Services’
E-Financial1 day agoPolaris Bank Equips 500+ Journalists with Digital Tools for Modern Storytelling
E-Financial1 day agoSEC to Introduce USSD Codes to Fight Ponzi Schemes