Telecom
Nigeria Oils Machine for Launch of Sat2, 2nd Satellite — Pantami
Nigeria is to launch a second satellite (Sat 2) into orbit with a view to boosting the nation’s satellite communications capacity, according to Isa Ali Pantami, minister of Communications and Digital Economy.
Pantami said he has secured the approval of for purchasing the Satellite.
He disclosed this during a one-day working visit and interaction with the staff of the Nigerian Communications Satellite in Lugbe Abuja.
The minister also informed that he had gone further to lobby the Minister of Finance to ensure that this is included in the 2022 Budget.
Though the Minister refused to disclose the amount approved and how many satellites are to be purchased, our findings show that the Federal government earmarked the sum of N2.5 billion for the Satellite 2 project in the 2022 budget estimate.
The existing Sat1R, which was launched in 2011 with a life span of 15 will expire in the next four years.
Recall that the Federal government had in 2017 announced plans to raise $550m required for the construction of two new communications satellites for Nigeria, which the Chinese Export and Import Bank accepted to provide.
According to NIGCOMSAT, the approval of the Chinese bank followed representation by Nigeria that it could not afford the 15 per cent counterpart funding required for the country to access the loan of $550m for the construction of the two new communications satellites.
Also, the minister said he had approved the establishment of some subsidiaries under NIGCOMSAT, as part of the ongoing effort to revive the institution back to the part of progress and productivity.
‘‘Since 2019, I have been so passionate about the success of NIGCOMSAT. Starting with the suspension of the privatization of NIGCOMSAT. As a matter of fact, I have secured the approval of Mr President for purchasing another Satellite. I went further to lobby the Minister of Finance to ensure that this is included in the 2022 budget. I have also approved the establishment of some subsidiaries under NIGCOMSAT as part of efforts to revive the company and make it innovative and productive.’’
Pantami, who told the staff of the company that the innovation in the agency is not enough and needs to be improved upon, charged them to turn the institution around in order to justify the suspension of the proposed privatization plan.
The Minister said, ‘‘Core values should be the guiding principle that must be adopted without compromise, to ensure that any institution is successful. You need to be customer-centric, discover the failure of services before they realize it, fix the problem and come up with innovative ideas. The innovation in the agency is not enough and needs to be improved upon
‘‘You need to change your perception because you are not part of core civil servants, you are a company and should by far be above civil servants. One of the reasons our civil service has been failing is that feeling that we are government employees, we have nothing to lose and whatever happens, we will be paid our salaries.
‘‘There are other companies that are ready to come up and start providing similar services with you. The efforts made to stop privatization of NIGCOMSAT is for the good of the company and for the good of the country.’’
‘‘You need to turn things around through the Unique and effective service you are able to provide and revenue you generate for government. It is a difficult task to revive an institution and make it very successful, that you must make. The challenge of reviving NIGCOMSAT is not just a necessity but an obligation for all the staff,’’ he added.
Speaking on the revolution in NITDA, Pantami said through innovative policies and implementation, he succeeded in raising NITDA revenue from N7 billion to N19 billion annually, an agency that was supposed to be scrapped according to Orosanaya Report.
‘‘We revived NITDA and the agency has become a reference point for any IT project.’’
On NIMC, he said they had also secured the approval of N25 billion for the agency infrastructure upgrade.
‘‘Look at NIMC and what we have achieved, the NIN environment since the inception of National Identity Card to 2020 when I assumed supervision of the commission even after billions have been spent was below 30 million, and this is direct enrollment without leveraging on any database.
‘‘Before I assumed supervision, the annual enrollment used to be around 1.5 to 2million but between October 2020 to December 2021, we increased the NIN environment by 30 million in using the obsolete infrastructure. Mr President has approved N25 billion for the infrastructure but till today, no money has been released from October 2020 to date but we are still doing the work, that is why thinking outside the box is necessary.
‘‘The achievement of this one year has been better than the previous 10 years and within that 10 years there was a time N100 billion was released but this one no single Kobo was released to us. As the DG of NITDA, I increased the revenue generation of NITDA from N7 billion annually to N19 billion. Leverage the opportunity and turn things around.
‘‘Before I became the Minister, there was an Orunsanye report that recommended that NITDA should be scrapped and that the IT clearance should be given to Galaxy Backbone but today nobody is talking about the scrapping of NITDA because the institution has turned things around.
‘‘If you turn things around, you will go back and sleep but if you fail, you will be struggling So the challenge is on your table, the earlier you use 2022 and make NIGCOMSAT better the better for all of you but if you fail to do that, many people are there waiting for me to go so that they can execute their agenda.
‘‘2022 is the best year for you to turn things around but if you fail to do that, it will be the worst year for you I don’t pray for that, I pray for the best for you but you must get your priority right,’’ he said.
Earlier in her welcome address, Dr Abimbola Alale, managing director of NIGCOMSAT, said the coming of the Minister has raised the hope and confidence of the staff and management of the agency through his unprecedented support and increase in yearly budgetary allocation.
She expressed delight for the support being given to the agency by the Minister and assured him that her staff would take up the new challenge and ensure that they deliver on the mandate given by the Minister.
Dinesh Balsingh, managing director and chief executive officer, Airtel Nigeria, has identified data demands and network connectivity access as two of the critical areas in which the organisation is actively innovating to further improve customer satisfaction.
Mr Balsingh made this revelation at an exclusive roundtable with senior media executives in Lagos. The event, which was held at Radisson Hotel Ikeja, brought together business editors, brands and consumer editors, ICT editors, and capital market editors from legacy print and the digital press for an elaborate discussion on the company’s quality of service innovations.
The special roundtable provided a valuable opportunity for journalists to engage directly with Airtel Nigeria’s leadership to gain deeper insights into the strategies deployed by the organisation to address Nigeria’s growing telecom and technology ecosystem.
During the conversations, Mr Balsingh noted the exponential explosion of data usage across Nigerian cities, particularly Lagos, as rapid urbanisation, digitisation, and mobile-first lifestyles continue to drive bandwidth consumption at unprecedented rates.
“Cities like Lagos are growing at lightning speed—more people, more businesses, more devices. At Airtel, we recognise that data is the new oxygen.
That’s why we’re investing heavily in 5G and fibre to build a smart, scalable network that can carry the weight of Nigeria’s digital future. This isn’t just about faster internet; it’s about enabling education, healthcare, commerce, and opportunity through reliable, high-capacity connectivity,” he said.
The event spotlighted several other advancements such as the Airtel Business Network as a Service (NaaS) solution to boost Nigerian enterprise; collaborations with Starlink and OneWeb to deepen data coverage in remote areas; self-service customer experience products; AI-enabled user data and privacy protections; and the ongoing cashback programmes offered on the Smartcash mobile app.
Other programmes highlighted by Mr Balsingh and his team include Airtel’s ground-breaking AI-powered Spam Alert Service, which currently flags about 30 million spam SMS messages monthly; the NXtra Data Centre, which is set to go live in 2026 as the largest data centre in Nigeria; and the scale of education support projects like the N1 billion investment in the federal government’s Three Million Technical Talents (3MTT) initiative, Adopt-a-School, and the Reimagine Education programme which currently benefits over 1.5 million Nigerian learners of which over 880,000 are public elementary school pupils across the 1450 Airtel/UNICEF schools nationwide.
“Airtel Nigeria is responding with cutting-edge solutions to power the future of digital connectivity in urban areas as well as hard-to-reach areas across the country,” Balsingh said.
With the introduction of 5G-ready technologies and aggressive fibre rollout in major urban areas, he stated, Airtel is ensuring that Nigerians are not left behind in the global digital economy, stating that Airtel’s evolving network infrastructure is designed to serve the needs of modern consumers who demand high-speed, uninterrupted access to online services
This roundtable forms part of Airtel Nigeria’s broader commitment to innovation, customer focus, and thought leadership within the telecom industry. As Nigeria continues to embrace digital transformation, Airtel remains focused on delivering multilayered solutions that match the speed and ambition of Nigerians.
Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has tightened up the corporate governance guidelines for telecommunications (telcos) operators to enhance transparency, internal controls, and risk management across the industry.
Aminu Maida, executive vice chairman, NCC, who dropped hint at the inauguration of the 2025 Guidelines on Corporate Governance in Lagos, said that the new framework is designed to ensure long-term sustainability for telcos’ businesses, networks, as well as instill investor confidence.
Under the new rules, telecommunications licensees must implement balanced board structures, enhance transparency, and establish more stringent internal control systems.
Board members are expected to include executive, non-executive, and independent directors with demonstrated expertise in information and communication technology (ICT) and cybersecurity.
He stressed further that NCC now formally recognises regulatory officers within licensees’ operations as key contacts for compliance monitoring.
“Corporate governance is no longer a soft requirement. It is now strategically imperative, especially in a sector that is central to Nigeria’s digital future and exposed to cybersecurity threats, climate risks, energy shocks, and rising consumer expectations.
“A major highlight of the new framework is the emphasis on internal audits and risk control,” Maida said.
With the new guidelines, operators are expected to conduct structured risk assessments and empower internal audit functions to ensure oversight.
“The guidelines mandate submission of mid-year and annual compliance reports, which must be certified by the board of directors.
“Our goal is simple, to ensure that telcos’ boards and management are properly structured to provide reliable services, protect infrastructure, and respond to the dynamic challenges of the industry,” Maida maintained.
He noted that companies with robust governance frameworks consistently outperformed others in areas of service delivery, financial management, and regulatory compliance.
He pointed out that the stiffer measures may initially disrupt some operators, but that the long-term benefits would outweigh any temporary challenges.
“With over 200 million active subscriptions, the telecoms sector is now considered essential to Nigeria’s economy, supporting digital infrastructure across finance, education, healthcare, and government services,” the NCC boss said.
He further noted that the guidelines will be rolled out in phases, depending on the category of licence held, stressing that enforcement would be rigorous.
“Operators must view this not as a regulatory burden but as a blueprint for long-term value creation.
WhatsApp has unveiled new safety features to help users detect and avoid scams across group and individual chats, revealing that it banned more than 6.8 million accounts tied to criminal scam centres targeting people globally.
The Meta-owned messaging platform said the tools are designed to provide users with more context before they engage, particularly when they are added to unfamiliar groups or begin conversations with people who are not in their contacts.
It also disclosed that it worked with OpenAI in a coordinated enforcement action that disrupted a fraud network traced to Cambodia.
“In the first six months of this year, as part of our ongoing proactive work to protect people from scams, WhatsApp detected and banned over 6.8 million accounts linked to scam centres,” the company said.
For group chats, the app will now display a safety overview when someone outside a user’s contacts adds them to a group they do not recognise.
The overview shows whether the person who added them is in their contacts, whether other members are known to them, and offers tips to stay safe. If users want more context, they can open the chat; otherwise, notifications from the group will remain muted until they choose to stay.
This, WhatsApp said, is aimed at curbing surprise additions to large or malicious groups and preventing the spread of fraudulent links through mass invitations.
On individual chats, scammers often begin conversations elsewhere online before moving targets to private messaging.
To counter this, WhatsApp is testing ways to provide more context when a user starts a chat with someone who is not in their address book, giving people time to assess the legitimacy of the contact before responding.
The collaboration with OpenAI revealed that fraudsters had been using ChatGPT to craft initial outreach messages that lured victims into WhatsApp chats before directing them to other platforms such as Telegram to finalise the scam.
The schemes ranged from fake earnings tasks and pyramid-style rent-a-scooter offers to cryptocurrency investment ruses. In many cases, fraudsters built trust by showing fabricated earnings before pressuring victims to transfer funds into crypto accounts, following a familiar pattern of escalating from low-risk tasks to real financial transactions.
WhatsApp urged users to take time to review messages before responding, question any request that pressures them to act quickly, and verify the identity of anyone claiming to be a friend or family member through another channel.
The company said the new contextual prompts are meant to make spotting red flags easier and reinforce safe behaviour.
The tools are being rolled out gradually as tests continue, with adjustments expected based on user feedback and evolving scam tactics.
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