Jumia Nigeria has rolled out their offi cial Apple store online, becoming the fi rst online retailer to be authorized by Apple to sell their products.

According to the online store, now that it sells offi cial Apple products, they are anticipating even more enthusiasm and excitement from their collective 4 million followers on social media than ever before. Macbooks, iPhones, iPads, and more are now just clicks away with the convenience and ease that only online shopping can offer.

The collaboration between Jumia and Apple also signifi es the quality and authenticity of products available on the site.

The retail giant expects that the offi cial authorization will alleviate shoppers’ fears of purchasing fake Apple products online.

Nigerians no longer have to be burdened by fears of using their hard earned cash to purchase a fake, stolen or reworked Apple device, let alone delivered to the convenience of their home or offi ce, according to Jumia.

Speaking on the launch of the iStore on Jumia, Jeremy Doutte, managing director, Jumia Nigeria said, ‘The collaboration between Jumia and Apple is a thing of beauty and can best be described as a big win for innovation and authenticity. Nigerians no longer have to be burdened by fears of using their hard earned cash to purchase a fake, stolen or reworked Apple device. Above all our continued commitment to seeing the Nigerian customer get top quality and premium retail keeps driving us to push new boundaries and break new frontiers’.

Jumia acknowledges that their customers have high expectations, and are upholding their reputation with the offi cial Apple store.

They are looking forward to meeting their shoppers’ demands for authentic Apple products at a fair price, while continuing with their fast deliveries and reliable customer service.

Jumia further said it is confi dent that this new development will put smiles on the faces of Apple loyalists and tech lovers alike nationwide.

Jumia is Africa’s leading online shopping destination.

Customers across the continent shop amongst the widest assortment of high quality products at affordable prices – offering everything from fashion, consumer electronics, home appliances to beauty products.

Close-Up, a premium brand from the stable of Unilever, has launched a new campaign, Cupid Games, to win over the youth.

The Cupid Game, which signed on A-list musical stars Yemi Alade and Davido as campaign ambassador for the game, is expected to challenge young people to express themselves to loved ones without feeling timid.

Top 10 creative participants will be rewarded with exciting prizes like Beats by Dre headphones and get invites to cupid games grand event where they get to hang out with Davido and Yemi Alade.

The grand prize winner will go home with a brand new MV Agusta Brutale 800cc power bike, second and third will get a pair of personalised Apple Mac Books and Ipads respectively.

The Brand Building Director, Unilever Nigeria Plc, Mr David Okeme, during the launch said the Cupid game is an engagement platform by Closeup for young adults to connect and show their loved ones how much they care, especially at valentine.

Also, the Category Manager Oral Care, Oiza Gyang, added that Closeup Cupids Dare Game is a conversation starter meant to get people closer while demonstrating the extent they would go for love.

Close-up, over the years, has been able to reinforce its understanding of Nigeria’s oral care needs and re-state its commitment towards sustaining its position as the best oral care product in the market.

Patrice Motsepe started his life in Soweto, a place where he was born. It was a place where vices of all sorts were common. It was also a place where mining was a common occupation among the youths. While most youths were contented with the wages from mining, Patrice Motsepe wanted more; he wanted to be top notch in the society. His discerning mind chose mining, leaving the vices that were a common sight in Soweto where he was growing up at the time even jettisoning his father’s grand plan to make him inherit the liquor retail business. Today, he is the chairman of Africa Rainbow Minerals, South Africa’s largest mining company and the 6th largest in the world. Reports, Tayo Elebijo

Growing up in the Soweto ghetto of South Africa may have set many black South Africans youths back, but not Patrice Motsepe, a man who today seems to have rewritten the negativity attached to Soweto as a place where one could actually be toughened, and rise from society decay to become one of the most celebrated personalities in the world. Patrice Motsepe, must have been nursing a strong ambition to get to the position he fi nds himself today. His focused mind certainly led him to take his chances and utilised them well when such chances came his way.

Patrice Tlhopane Motsepe was born on the 28th of January, 1962 in Soweto to Augustine Motsepe, a school teacher who later ventured into the Spaza liquo selling business which was popular with the black mine workers at the time. He was said to have learnt the basic rudiments of business as well as mining while helping out in his father’s Spaza shop. He is married to Dr. Precious Moloi Motsepe. Motsepe’s father named him Patrice after Patrice Lumumba, an African independence leader and the fi rst Prime Minister of the Democractic Republic of Congo.

He earned a Bachelor of Arts at the University of Swaziland and a law degree from the University of the Witwatersrand and became the fi rst black partner in the law fi rm Bowman Gilfi llan in 1994, the same year Nelson Mandela was elected the country’s fi rst black president. He specialised in mining and business law at a time when the new government had begun the process of promoting black empowerment and entrepreneurship. Motsepe soon founded a mining services venture to clean gold dust from inside mine shafts, implementing a system of worker remuneration that combined a low base salary with a profi t-sharing bonus management formula.

However, in 1997, with gold prices at a low, just as the oil prices are now in the international market and the shares prices at their low now in the country, he purchased marginal gold mines from AngloGold under favourable fi nance terms. This was repeated in a string of deals which led him to set up a fi rm to begin buying the operating mines that would later become the source of his wealth as well as make him the fi rst South Africa’s richest black man. In 1999 he teamed up with two of his associates to form Greene and Partners Investments.

Motsepe won South Africa’s Best Entrepreneur Award in 2002. In 2004 he was voted 39th in the SABC3’s Great South Africans (SABC being South African Broadcasting Corporation, the government funded state broadcaster).And in 2008, he was 503rd richest person in the world, according to the Forbes World Billionaires List.

He is the founder and executive chairman of African Rainbow Minerals, which has interests in gold, ferrous metals, base metals, and platinum. He also sits on several company boards including being the non-executive chairman of Harmony Gold, the 12th largest gold mining company in the world, and is the deputy chairman of Sanlam. In 2012, Motsepe was named South Africa’s richest man, topping the Sunday Times’ annual Rich List with an estimated fortune of R20.07bn ($2.4bn).

He has pledged $1 million to help combat Ebola in West Africa. The mining magnate is also the fi rst African in 2013 to sign the Bill Gates’ and Warren Buffett’s Giving Pledge, in which he promised to give at least half his fortune to charity.

Married to Dr. Precious Moloi- Motsep, Patrice Motsepe has become the top notch he has always wanted to be from the dregs of Soweto to a billionaire mining giant.

Today he’s the biggest single shareholder of the world’s fi fth-largest gold mining company. His fi rm, African Rainbow Minerals, controls 19.8 per cent of Harmony. His family trust owns 43.1 per cent of ARM. Motsepe also has a stake in Sanlam, a listed fi – nancial services fi rm.

Patrice Motsepe and his wife, Dr. Precious Moloi- Motsepe recently purchased a sprawling luxury retreat in the super prestigious residential suburb of Bishopscourt in Cape Town for a record price of 68m Rands about $6m.

Nestled against the backdrop of Table Mountain, the luxury estate reportedly includes a main bedroom suite with ‘his and hers’ dressing rooms and bathrooms coupled with a separate lounge with a fi replace; there are fi ve additional en-suite bedrooms with dressing rooms and all the rooms in the main house lead to a terrace / balcony with spectacular views of the surrounding terrain. The upscale Bishopscourt home which has a lift between fl oors, also features an opulent lounge, a formal 24-seat dining room with a spacious open fl oor plan gourmet kitchen with separate scullery; a cigar lounge, a climate-controlled wine cellar; state-of-the-art theater, a music room, a billiard room, a gym and a 10-bay garage with a separate bay to have cars washed. Sitting atop 12 000 square meters of land, the baronial-style mansion also has a fl ood-lit tennis court, pavilion, swimming pool with a multi-million rand landscaped garden that consists of “predominantly” indigenous fl ora. Additionally, there is a house for an estate manager; the property requires approximately R30,000-a-month for upkeep and maintenance.

“I think Mr. Motsepe wished to purchase this property as it is extraordinary and designed and built to the highest quality fi nishes,” said McFarlane. According to the brochure provided by Seeff Property Services, in addition to the spectacular views from the Table Mountain skyline, the world-famous Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens and Constantia Wine Valley are just down the road from the Bishopscourt mansion.

Motsepe’s upscale Bishopscourt mansion is just one on a growing list of super-luxury homes in Cape Town owned by a number of foreign buyers from the United Kingdom, Germany and the U.S, celebrities, industry captains and according to McFarlane, “late President Mandela also owns a property in this prestigious area.” South Africa’s as well as the continent’s growing infl uential and super-rich have also been buying up luxury homes record numbers within the region in recent years.

Ranked as the 4th richest South African and 14th richest African by FORBES, the 52-year-old billionaire founded and chairs African Rainbow Minerals, a leading publicly traded diversifi ed mining and minerals fi rm in South Africa. Motsepe who maintains primary residence in Bryanston, an upper class, wealthy residential suburb of Johannesburg, South Africa, is also the owner of the Premier Soccer League club Mamelodi Sundowns.

One of Motsepe’s sisters, Bridgette Radebe, who’s married to transport minister Jeffrey Radebe, heads a mining company and is said to be among the wealthiest black women in the in South Africa.

In 2002 when it was listed on the JSE Security Exchange, African Rainbow Minerals joined with Harmony Gold Mining Limited. and the company’s name changed to ARMgold. Motsepe is also the founder of African Rainbow Minerals Platinum (Proprietary) Limited and ARM Consortium Limited, which later equally split ownership with Anglo American Platinum Corp Ltd. From Since 2004, he has been a non-executive director of Absa Group. In 2005, Motsepe was Chairman of Teal Exploration and Mining Incorporated. Motsepe is also chairman of Ubuntu- Botho Investments, Non-Executive chairman of Harmony Gold Mining Co Ltd. and deputy Chairman of Sanlam Ltd. Motsepe has been president of South Africa’s Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

Motsepe founded Business Unity South Africa, BUSA, the fi rst non-racial, united and recognized business organization in South Africa and serves as its President.

He was employed for approximately 4 years by Mc- Guire Woods LLP, a law fi rm in Richmond, Virginia, USA. In 1994, he founded Future Mining (Proprietary) Ltd., which grew rapidly to become a competitive contract mining company. Since 1990, he has been a Member of the Council of NAFCOC, and in 2002 President of NAFCOC. He served as a Non-Executive He has also been a Member of NEDLAC, which is South Africa’s primary institution for social dialogue between organized business, government, labour and community on issues of social and economic policy, since 1994. He was voted Sunday Times South Africa’s Business Leader for 2002, and also voted South Africa’s best entrepreneur for 2002. In the same year, he was voted by the Chief Executive Offi cer’s of the top 100 companies in South Africa as South Africa’s Business Leader of the year. From 1991 to 1992, he was a visiting attorney with McGuire Woods Battle and Boothe under an American Bar Association programme. He serves as President of Chamber of Commerce and Industry South Africa. He served as Senior Vice President of the Chamber of Mines and is a Global Leader of Tomorrow of the World Economic Forum, WEF.

Motsepe began his business career as a child when he would wake early to help his entrepreneurial father by selling liquor to mine workers at his father’s shop. “I must have been about eight when my dad said one day,We make so much money when you’re behind the counter you should take over the business when you grow up. But it was hard work, from 6am to 8pm. I soon realised I needed to choose a career that would keep me away from that shop! That’s how I came to decide when I was only eight years that I’d become a lawyer.”He went on to earn a BA from Swaziland University and a LLB from Wits University.

He is married to Dr. Precious Moloi Motsepe with 3 children. Motsepe’s father named him Patrice after Patrice Lumumba, an African independence leader and the fi rst Prime Minister of the Democractic Republic of Congo.

Harmony Gold Mining Company specializes in turning old digs into new digs. Harmony is South Africa’s largest gold miner, after acquiring ARMgold in 2003, and the sixth largest in the world. The company buys mature gold mines with lagging production and turns them into low-cost, high-productivity mines. It had 2003 revenues of $1.2 billion and has 50,718 employees. Between 2004- 2005, he was former Non- Executive Director, Barclays Africa Group Limited; Deputy Chairman, Member of Committee of Non-Executive Directors, Member of Nominations Committee and Member of Human Resources & Remuneration Committee

The city of Ibadan and its residents witnessed the beautiful atmosphere of fun and excitement as the nation’s leading TV Reality music show, Nigerian Idol began a two-day auditions hosted inside the prestigious Kakanfo Inn Conference Centre situated at old Ring road.

Hundreds of contestants, all aspiring to become next Nigerian Idol superstar, thronged the venue intending to impress the Show’s celebrity judges with their performances for tickets to participate in the second stage of the competition featuring top 100 acts pooled from the various auditions centres across the nation. The Ibadan auditions proved all the worth for the efforts by the organisers as it produced seven Golden Tickets, the highest recorded from any centre in the on-going season 5. Beside this, the Centre had on parade more number of contestants with better chances of making the top 100 cut.

It would be recalled Ibadan is the only new Centre among the fi ve to host the season fi ve auditions. Others include Benin, Port Harcourt, Abuja and Lagos.

Meanwhile, the auditions train moves to the Dream Studios, Lagos between February 7 and 9 for the fi nal leg of the auditions, which have been successfully concluded in the other four centres.

Nigerian Idol is in its fi fth season after a successful debut in 2010 won by Yeka- Onka. In the following years, it has grown in popularity and followership on the basis of the unique platforms it offers to young Nigerians with exceptional music talent.

It is the only music TV reality show in Nigeria with a global appeal that currently cuts across 46 countries.

Nigerian Idol focuses on discovering Nigerian youths with talent in music and giving them a unique platform to take shots at stardom.

The eventual winner goes home with N7.5 million cash reward, a brand new car, a recording deal with Universal Music Company worth N7.5 million and some high-end devices.

The fi rst runner up gets N1.5 million, a Galaxy Tab, a phone and an iPod while the second runner up gets N1 million, a Galaxy Tab, a phone and an iPod. All other fi nalists will also receive N100, 000.00, a Galaxy Tab, a phone and an iPod.

Nigerian Idol season fi ve is sponsored by leading telecommunications operator, Etisalat, Dabur toothpaste and ECommerce platform, Payporte and will feature such enthralling performances which were the hallmarks of past winners among whom are YekaOnka, Mercy Chinwo, Moses Adigwe and Zibili Evelyn who goes by the stage name Evelle.

Huawei has announced the extension of its strategic partnership with Nigeria Bharti Airtel (Airtel) by expanding the managed services coverage to the capital city Abuja and surrounding Federal Territory.

The extension IS expected to improve network quality and enhance the Airtel customer experience in the region.

Previously operated by a different Managed Services Provider (MSP), this extension of Airtel’s managed services coverage demonstrates the strong partnership between Huawei and Airtel.

Huawei said it would support Airtel in achieving its business objectives supported by its capabilities including employee management, operation support service (OSS) tools, as well as standardized delivery platforms and processes (MSUP).

Huawei has partnered with Airtel in Nigeria since 2011 and provides managed services on 2G and 3G wireless networks, microwave transmission networks and core networks, across 60 percent area of the country.

Managed services is widely used by Communications Service Providers (CSP) in Africa, and has seen an average growth of 52 percent from 2012-2014.

Just few days to valentine, the general mood in the country appears completely devoid of the usual enthusiasm as traders in the country who had banked on the lovers’ day celebration in making brisk sales after the very low Christmas sales, are also lamenting low patronage ostensibly as a result of the forth coming presidential election which has cast a shadow of anxiety on the country

Valentine’s Day is right around the corner. It is one day several couples and lovers eagerly look forward to. Aspiring lovers are not left out. It is being celebrated big time in many countries around the world by both the young and young at heart.

Precisely, this Saturday, February 14, Nigerians would be joining the rest of the world in celebrating the Feast of Saint Valentine.

Understandably, this world renowned day of love accounts for an enormous portion of the money spent on gifting every year.

Reports show organisations such as the courier companies, airlines, retail shops and hospitality centres utilise the peak season well, as they make good sales.

For instance, in the United States of America, it is expected that shoppers would spend as much as $19 billion on Vals day gifts this year, at an average of $142 per person (that is about N27, 000). In Nigeria, it is estimated that well N350 billion is expected to be spent on gifts for Val day.

However, as this season of love approaches, this year’s Val day clashing with Nigeria’s presidential election coming up this Saturday February 14 is said to be having its hard toll on businesses especially gift shops.

With just a few days to Valentine, traders in major markets in the country who had banked on the lovers day celebration in making brisk sales after Christmas period are lamenting low patronage ostensibly as a result of the forth coming presidential election.

Reacting recently to the development, in an interview, the CEO of Slim Steve Entertainment, Stephen Chikoma, said that INEC should have put Valentine’s Day into consideration while planning the elections, adding that the elections have made this year’s celebration a bad one for most youths and couples in Nigeria.

ChiKoma, who runs the indigenous entertainment outfi t that is targeted at youths in terms of innovation, stressed: “I am a youth and I know what I’m talking about. It is not well planned because if the government knows that Valentine’s Day is a day set aside for the youths, even married couples, they will have a rethink before fi xing the polls on that day. Being a day for the general elections have already marred the day since there will be restriction of movement.

“As it is now, youths are complaining that since the government has spoilt their show, they too are not going to vote on that day. That means the elections will be affected since the youths who form the large chunk of the nation’s population are already having some reservations about the elections. They are the leaders of tomorrow and you know what that means when the leaders of tomorrow are refusing to exercise their franchise. But as for me, I will go out that day to vote and return to my family since there will be no movement.”

It would be recalled that INEC had in January 2014, released the timetable for the 2015 general elections scheduling the Presidential and National Assembly elections for Feb 14, 2015 while governorship and state assembly elections are to hold on Feb 28, 2015.

Speaking in an interview on the development, the Chief Press Secretary to the commission’s Chairman, Kayode Idowu said that the date was a coincidence, saying “When the commission was taking that decision, it never even occurred to the leaders of the commission that it was Valentine’s Day.

According to him, “But then, it is a day for showing love and if we can show love that will discourage people from fomenting violence.

“That will discourage you from being hateful towards another person on that day. It will make the election peaceful. So, it is a good coincidence. ’’

Urging Nigerians to be guided by the meaning of Valentine’s Day to make the election peaceful, he noted, “The message of the day is to show love for one another and therefore, there is no basis for violence, acrimony and being unruly because that day is a day for showing amenable conduct towards others. So, that should guide the behaviours of voters as they go out to vote.’’

When our correspondent visited several shopping malls in Lagos, most of the traders spoken to complained bitterly about poor sales.

At the Ikeja Shopping Mall, Monalisa Samson, a shop owner said this year’s lovers’ day has lost its glamour as a result of the election coming up.

“During this time of the year in the past, retail and clothing shops would be a hive of activity as many people come out to buy goods for their loved ones. But this year, business has been very dull.” She noted.

At Apongbon area of Lagos Island, a manager with an indigenous clothing shop, Bukola Arogundade said while she had hoped that many people would troop out to do shopping for their loved ones especially after the dull Christmas sales, not many people have been coming to buy anything.

“We are just hanging in there. People are no longer buying clothes for Valentine like they used to do.”

“I am not looking forward to this Valentine at all. Don’t you know that there is no movement on that day? When you buy gift for your loved one, it is supposed to be given him or her on that day as a surprise. But as you can see, with the election falling on the same day, it means no movement,” said Oscar Amaechi, a banker.

“I sell Valentine fl owers, gift items, and any other things one needs for the lovers day festivities, but I can tell you that the sales are poor,” Musibau Akande, a trader at the Arena,Oshodi market said.

“Few people are coming around to patronise me and I can say to God be the glory but it is low sales we are experiencing at the market.”

Investigations revealed that many businesses, which might be affected on that day, are majorly eateries, hotels, parks, as well as cinemas. It is very certain that the restriction of movement would make most of these places where young people go to catch fun would be under lock and key.

However, despite the low sales, some traders are optimistic that many people might still patronise their stalls.

“You know the way our people are, it may not seems like they are buying valentine gifts or shopping for the festivities yet, but give them time. When it is like two days to the day, then you will see a mad rush for items,” Alice Omonidada, a trader at the Arena Market, Oshodi, said.

However, with the Valentine’s day coming up in the next few days, online stores are trying hard in order to make brisk business. Noticeably, as this season of love approaches, Nigeria’s largest online mall, Konga.com has been pushing hard on this front, offering various deals related to Valentine’s Day products (such as jewelry and clothing) as well as the chance to win various prizes, like a stay at a quality hotel, dinner for two or full body massages.

In its bid to attract customers, last week, Konga had a 1 day special event aptly named “Love Boom,” in which drastic sales of up to 50 per cent off took place, with name brands like Dainty Sole, Spotted and Le Rouge appear in.

Konga’s buyer protection promise and phenomenal delivery times will attract customers to their store rather than others in order to receive their gifts in a timely and professional manner.

According to Konga.com’s Head of PR, Olatomiwa Akande, “Valentine’s Day is all about love, and at Konga.com we know how much Nigerian shoppers love to get the trendiest fashion items and styles – at great prices,” This is what the Konga ‘Love Boom’ Sales is about. We want our customers to let go of their Valentine budget worries and be free to express how much they love the special people in their lives.

With its Vote 4 Love sales, Jumia, another online retail shop also offered its customers exciting Valentine day sale where customers can expect to get special gifts for that special someone at special prices! Customers will also have the chance to vote for the products they most desire with the chance of winning it for free.

Speaking ahead of the February 4th Vote 4 Love Valentine day store, Jonathan Doerr MD Marketing Jumia said, ‘We can confi dently say that all is truly set to make this Valentine’s Day the most memorable one for Nigerian shoppers. In the spirit of love, we at Jumia have also decided to shower our customers with a show of our gratitude for their continuous patronage and pride in us’

“As we count down to Valentine ’s Day on the 14th of February, Jumia will be playing Cupid’s role in making sure love is defi nitely in the air. Be rest assured that whatever gift item you wish to celebrate that special one, Jumia will have it at the best price you can imagine.”

“That is not all; Jumia will also be offering amazing freebies to those who shop in the Valentines store come February 4th with customers standing a chance to win a Michael Kors bag, an iPad, a Smartphone and a luxury Armani watch”

Once a blog or website is published online using the word press software; creating and publishing new content, managing visitor comments, tracking traffi c, promoting website/blog content, and other tasks can easily be handled from anywhere using the free word press app for the iphone/ipad.

With your iphone/ipad being able to be used to take and edit photos; shoot and edit video; record and edit audio; and manage facebook, twitter, google+, linkedIn, you-tube, and other online social networking accounts, also offers a powerful and very viable mobile blogging/ website management platform.

To fi nd the wordpress app, launch the app store from your tablet and within the search fi eld, enter the keyword wordpress, or visit this direct link. If your goal is to create content and handle basic blog or website management tasks from your iPad, the offi cial wordpress app should meet your needs.

When you launch the offi cial wordpress app for the fi rst time, you have two options – create account or sign in. By signing in, you can use your ipad to add or edit content and manage the online presence on an ongoing basis.

Setting up a new blog or website using wordpress. com can be done within a few minutes. Hosting your own wordpress blog or website using the tools available from wordpress.org is a slightly more in-depth process but once the setup is done, managing the blog or website using any computer’s web browser, or your tablet (with a specialised app) is a straightforward process.

On the left side of the main wordpress app screen is the main menu. From there, you can explore the wordpress blogosphere using the app’s reader, read notifi cations and manage various aspects of your own blog/ website. For example, to create a new post from scratch, tap the add Post (plus sign shaped) icon displayed near the bottom of this listing and to edit an existing post, tap on the posts menu option. A list of previously published posts immediately displays within the main area of the ipad’s screen.

It is also possible to create a text-based entry using any other word processor on your tablet, such as pages, and then copy and paste the text into the wordpress app.

Inserting digital photos, video clips, audio clips, graphics, or other content can be done using one of the command icons displayed near the bottom-right corner of the new post screen. To preview your post before publishing it, tap the preview icon which allows you to access and edit details related to the post, such as its status, visibility, and post format. It is also possible to select a time/ date when a newly created post will be published.

Once an entry is created and formatted on your tablet, press the publish button to publish the content online within your blog or website. This process happens in a matter of seconds, depending on the speed of your Internet connection.

Another useful set of tools built into the wordpress app allows you to monitor real-time blog/website traffi c by tapping on the status menu option. With this you will be able to determine how many people have viewed your blog in a particular day, week, or month, discover what countries your visitors are from, what content they viewed, and what search engine and keyword(s) were used to fi nd your content.

If you have been thinking of becoming a blogger or want to manage a new website, the wordpress platform offers you several advantages by helping you to become a mobile blogger whereby you would be able to manage all aspects of your blog/website on the go using this specialised iphone/ipad app.

As many professionals in the security industry predict, the new HD standard ‘4K Ultra HD’ is a natural next step in the industry’s ongoing strive towards more image details and larger coverage from a security camera

With the Internet of Things (IoT) continuing to be a hot topic throughout 2014 and across all industries — whether it’s about smart cars or intelligent appliances such as connected refrigerators — more consumers and businesses are now aware of the advantages of being connected to the internet, and so should the security professionals and business owners who are trying to ensure the safety of their organisations.

As many professionals in the security industry predict, the new HD standard ‘4K Ultra HD’ is a natural next step in the industry’s ongoing strive towards more image details and larger coverage from a security camera.

K Ultra HD TV is said to be the next step in the logical progression that has seen television pictures go from black and white to color; color standard defi nition to high defi nition and now high defi nition to 4K Ultra HD. It offers dazzling, pristine images and an immersive viewing experience. Because 4K Ultra HD offers four times the resolution of HDTV you can see so much more detail, such as the mosaics on the wall in a castle or the tiny dots on a fi sh in the aquarium. In pixel terms, that’s 8.3 million pixels vs. HDTV’s maximum 2.2 million.

Another advantage is you can sit closer to an 4K Ultra HDTV than your current HDTV enabling viewing to become more of a theater-like experience. Plus, 4K Ultra HDTVs are able to reproduce colors in a more dramatic fashion than has been possible before.

HS Kim, executive vice president of Samsung’s visual display business, is predicting that ultra-HD sets will soon dominate the consumer market, eclipsing HD TVs — despite high prices and a lack of ultra- HD content.

“I think it’s pretty obvious that consumers are going to choose UHD TVs,” Kim said during an interview with The Times at International CES in Las Vegas this week. “The only question is how affordable the UHD TVs are going to be; and as technology advances, the prices will drop. So I think it’s very highly likely that consumers will choose UHD TVs, and I think this will happen faster than anticipated.”

But Kim is betting that the promise of super-sharp displays and the latest entertainment content will persuade people to upgrade their TV sets, and he said the South Korean tech giant is working to shorten the life cycle of TVs.

“People usually change their phones every two years because new value is being added,” Kim said. “In the U.S. on average it takes about six years for people to upgrade their TVs, but if we create more value, maybe they’ll upgrade their TVs not every six years, but fi ve or four years.”

Joe Stinziano, Samsung Electronics America’s senior vice president, said the company doesn’t know when ultra HD will gain widespread adoption, but “what we’ve learned from other transitions with technology is that once the pendulum starts to go, it goes very quickly.”

“When we start to hit key price points, then the old technology clearly has no point and no purpose in the marketplace,” he said.

“4K for surveillance purposes is expected to take its full effect in 2015 and beyond,” says Roy Alves, regional business development manager for Axis Communications.

“Image quality is a core consideration and while everyone is talking about 4K, the real challenge is to optimise image quality for the surveillance task at hand, no matter how bad the light or what the ambient conditions are.

“Innovation in this area — technology that enhances image quality for advanced video applications — will be a key industry driver. However, the advancements in image quality have created bigger pressure on managing the resources to support them. For example, they can have a signifi cant impact on network bandwidth and storage requirements, increasing the need for more effective compression methods.”

At the 2014 International CES, many visitors saw major content as product developers embraced 4K Ultra HD and showcase video quality that you had to see to believe. According to market research from CEA, 3/4 of online U.S. adults who saw Ultra High-Defi nition TV (Ultra HDTV) technology in a retail store became interested in owning the technology.

The International CES, more commonly known as the Consumer Electronics Show (CES), is an internationally renowned electronics and technology trade show, attracting major companies and industry professionals worldwide. The annual show is held each January at the Las Vegas Convention Center in Las Vegas, Nevada, United States. Not open to the public, the Consumer Electronics Association-sponsored show typically hosts previews of products and new product announcements.

Throughout the year, the appreciation for and understanding of the 4K experience continued to grow, prompting CEA and its Video Division Board to reevaluate and make improvements to the Ultra HD standards and even create new logos to distinguish the emerging technology.

Needless to say, 2014 was a busy year for 4K Ultra HD. In June, CEA updates the minimum attributes of Ultra High-Definition displays that were fi rst developed in 2012. Later that year, in September, CEA’s Ultra HD Communications Working Group devised and approved new logos to designate 4K Ultra High-Defi nition TVs, monitors and projectors for the home that meet the updated characteristics. In November, leading industry associations, technical organisations and retail groups agreed to use “4K Ultra HD” and “4K UHD” as common terminology to describe the new generation of television products, technology and content.

4K Ultra HD TVs infi ltrated the market this year, raising consumers’ standards for the quality of video that they were consuming. The increased presence of 4K UHD in living rooms, bedrooms and home theaters prompted the question: with upgraded viewing capabilities, what is there to watch.

Video surveillance-as-a-service (VSaaS) and cloud computing

This is when video surveillance- as-a-service (VSaaS) becomes useful for managing and archiving video footage captured by surveillance cameras onto cloud storage, says Alves.

Video surveillance systems can be a powerful tool in preventing or investigating crime when installed in locations such as shopping malls, parks, banks, airports, and other public transport. Some of the rapidly increasing demands for video surveillance systems has been driven by the growing safety and security concerns worldwide.

Cloud computing might have been a favorite buzzword in IT circles for several years, but the new era is very much upon us now. Whether in a public environment, where tenancy on servers is shared with other customers, or in a private environment, where your data and applications are the only ones on a system, cloud computing brings three advantages to your network — redundancy, scalability and shifting costs from capital expenditure (CAPEX) to operating expenditure (OPEX). Depending on whether the cloud is hosted or run internally, there may be the added convenience of leaving upgrades, updates and patches — routine maintenance — in the hands of a third party.

Analytics, business intelligence (BI) and big data

Analytics technology is also considered to fi nally take off within the surveillance industry from 2015 and beyond for getting valuable insights from the enormous amount of both structured and unstructured information collected (also known as big data). With network cameras’ capability to provide higher resolution video and to be connected from everywhere and around the clock, security departments are getting more information from more sources. More analytics are needed to help organisations make sense of the tremendous amount of information including unstructured data such as images and videos. More intelligent applications are needed to help categorise and interpret the information, so it can be turned into actionable insight.

“The three Vs of big data — volume, velocity, and variety — can provide vital information during a crisis by providing the right data at the right time,” says Alves.“By starting with more factual data, such as surveillance data, physical access control data, and cyber activity information and then building useful associations, costs can be reduced by searching for the most relevant information.”

This is where the IP revolution changes the surveillance camera from a forensic tool aimed at solving problems after an incident has occurred to becoming a vital part of a proactive chain. Video images can be used in conjunction with analytic horsepower to discover customer traffi c patterns in a retail outlet, dwell time at certain displays or isolate bottlenecks. Mash that up with other structured and unstructured data sources including transit schedules, lists of promotions, pricing data from your competitors, social media, and a skilled data scientist can tease out patterns and relationships that you never knew existed. And that is a signifi cant competitive advantage.

Video compression and bandwidth usage

Video compression technologies are about reducing and removing redundant video data so that a digital video fi le can be effectively sent over a network and stored on computer disks. With effi cient compression techniques, a signifi cant reduction in fi le size can be achieved with little or no adverse effect on the visual quality. The video quality, however, can be affected if the fi le size is further lowered by raising the compression level for a given compression technique.

There are several video compression standards including Motion JPEG, MPEG-4 Part 2 (or simply referred to as MPEG- 4) and H.264 — being the latest and most effi cient video compression standard and already the standard in video surveillance as well as many other industries, such as entertainment.

At the same time, the ongoing improvement in cameras regarding image resolution and light sensitivity for example, also increase the data output from the cameras – putting higher demands on the effi ciency of the video compression. Video surveillance manufacturers need to balance the upsurge in resolution with improvements also to H.264 compression algorithms – to make sure costs for network bandwidth and storage do not spiral out of control. A combined effort of working on noise reduction methods and bit rate reduction should be in parallel with investigation new video coding to get the best results.

Beyond improvements in current H.264 compression, an interesting future technology is H.265, which is rapidly gaining interest in the broadcast industry. H.265 can reduce bandwidth and storage demands signifi cantly (up to 50%) under the right circumstances and the technology can be expected to be introduced also in the security industry during the next few years. It is likely to be fi rst deployed in high-end, highresolution cameras, and it is expected that H.264 and H.265 will co-exist for quite a long time in the industry.

“At the end of the day, higher quality of images and videos such as 4K needs to be supported by the right technologies in the background for organisations to get the most out of the data, which can then be turned into useful insight not only for security purposes, but also for effi ciency and gaining business advantages. This should be the key consideration for everyone who is looking for the next big thing in surveillance,” Alves concludes.

Orange and pan-African banking group, Ecobank have rolled out a service that will enable Orange Money subscribers who also have bank accounts with Ecobank to transfer money between their respective accounts.

The service has already been launched in Mali and will be rolled-out in several other African countries, including Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire, Guinea Conakry, Niger, Senegal and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, during the fi rst half of 2015.

The partnership aims to facilitate money transfers for both Ecobank and Orange customers by offering them the possibility of topping up their Orange Money e-wallet from their bank account, and vice versa. Customers can use their mobile phones to securely transfer money at any time without the need to go to a distribution point or to have physical cash.

The two companies have launched the service following the signature of a memorandum of understanding.

The partnership comes as part of a joint strategy to enhance mobile fi nancial services and to increase access to banking services across Africa.

In sub-Saharan Africa, where less than 24 per cent of the population has a bank account and over 60 percent have a mobile phone, Orange Money offers easy-to-use mobile fi nancial services that allow transactions to be made remotely and securely, avoiding the need to carry money around.

With Orange Money, customers can transfer money from their mobile phones to any other customer in the country and, in some countries, internationally. They can also pay their water, electricity and television bills and top up their telephone airtime remotely. Depending on the country, they may also benefi t from savings and insurance solutions.

This type of partnership with banks allows a customer to link a bank account with his or her Orange Money account.

Notably, it is a service that facilitates exchanges between persons with bank accounts and those without. Ecobank customers can also view bank account balance and obtain mini-statements by SMS via the service.

With more than 12 million customers and 4.5 billion euros exchanged in 13 countries in 2014, Orange Money has delivered considerable success.

Laurent Paillassot, Deputy Chief Executive Offi cer of Orange in charge of Customer Experience and Mobile Banking, said: “This partnership between Orange and Ecobank will further enrich customer experience. By facilitating exchanges between Ecobank and Orange Money accounts, our customers will be able to conduct fi nancial transactions quickly and in complete security, bringing them the best of both worlds. We want to offer this service wherever it makes sense.”

Patrick Akinwuntan, Ecobank’s Group Executive in charge of Domestic Banking, said “This roll-out further demonstrates Ecobank’s commitment to make branchless banking a reality by activating multiple service channels in every country in which we operate. Our unique pan-African footprint also enables us to be at the forefront of efforts to develop the market for crossborder mobile fi nancial services in Africa.”

Mobile telephony has offered a new option in communication channels to several corporate entities in Nigeria over the past few years, with good results to show for their investments. One of the latest discoveries of that development is the mobile app industry, the opportunities of which are being explored by countries like the USA, Finland, India and a few other emerging economies to attract investments and boost their GDP growth trajectories. Experts say the huge business promises in developing innovation and locally-relevant mobile apps remain huge and should excite the adventurous spirit in Nigerian and other investors that dare to explore

Since Nigeria’s telecoms industry became deregulated in the last 14 years, the mobile telephony has no doubt opened doors to several commercial activities. From voice telephony, internet service, telecoms infrastructure leasing, software development, mobile devices sales, as well as those operating in other value added services segments, most of the investors have tapped into one area or the other of the telecoms service to leverage their operational competitiveness.

One area, which many seems yet to recognize as potentially promising in terms of the value-adding benefi ts to their operations, is the app industry.

To many economies such as Finland, India and the USA, the mobile app industry has since become a cash-cow.

The potential of the app market in an emerging economy like Nigeria is believed to be massive given the fact that the country is among the top10 biggest mobile markets globally.

With a closer look at the mobile industry today, and refl ecting on what it used to be several years back, it is obvious that it has taken an astronomical growth as the country now boasts of over 184 million connected telephone lines, 134.5 million of which are actively used daily by subscribers to access both voice and data services.

Though, Nigeria currently has 94 per cent teledensity. This, however, does not mean that the industry is near saturation as it is estimated that in 10 Nigerians, nine owns multiple lines and, in effect, carry multiple phones around, indicating that only about 60 million Nigerians may be owning the 134.5 million phone lines.

The growth of the apps market is believed to be a refl ection of the mobile market, as they exist side by side.

According to industry experts, Nigeria has the potential to become the biggest apps market in the African continent especially with the huge demand for mobile application in the market. Little wonder that the investment profi le in the telecoms sector has grown tremendously from $500m in 2011 to over $32bn in 2014.

With over 134.5 million active lines in Nigeria and over 26 million smartphones being used by Nigerians, who, on an hourly basis, download lots of mobile apps – some at premium – on their phones, industry analysts say there is good business in mobile apps development. For instance, there were over 1.3 million apps each on Android and iOS platforms; over 300,000 on Windows and 150,000 on Blackberry OS platforms in 2014.

The number of apps on Android, iOS, Windows, and Blackberry platforms stood at 775,000; 800, 000; 125,000 and 70,000 in 2013. Research fi rm, Portio, estimates that in 2013, about 1.2 billion people worldwide were using mobile apps at the end of 2012. This is forecast to grow at a 29.8 per cent each year, to reach 4.4 billion users by the end of 2017. Studies have also shown that smartphone users engage in download of different apps that meet their lifestyles.

According to Distimo research, the most downloaded apps are games (33 per cent); widgets (eight per cent); entertainment (seven per cent); social (fi ve per cent); lifestyle; music; photography; productivity (all four per cent); tools; communication; utilities (all three per cent).

Games also dominate app revenues. So an investment in mobile apps that can be used by the increasing number of people with smartphones in Nigeria in the various areas of widgets, entertainment, social, lifestyle, music, photography, productivity, tools, communications, utilities and games is expected to be worthwhile, and is expected to bring better Return on Investments (RoI) for businesses. Other investment areas are in the mobile devices retail space as well as in provision of value-added services, according to industry analysts.

Mobile analysts have predicted that Nigeria and Africa will become the next big thing in the mobile world in the nearest future. This is because, currently, millions of Nigerians use their mobile devices to access the internet compared to those using traditional desktop computers.

While the trend is expected to keep growing, the user base for mobile devices is constantly increasing; hence, the manufacturers of mobile phones and communication devices are working tirelessly to advance the technical and functional features and fl exibility of their products and services. This is coupled with the need by consumers who are constantly looking for better mobile devices that would meet their day to day needs. The market potential for third party mobile applications here in Nigeria is unlimited.

Mobile phone users take advantage of their portable devices to do so many things these days ranging from, monitoring of programmes, organising events, sending and receiving mails and SMS to capture and share precious moment, store photos, games, streaming video and audio, reading books and publications, access and make use of enterprise applications, and store and collaborate on data.

For companies like Microsoft, Google, Apple, Nokia and BlackBerry, they have continued to update their device hardware, platforms and thousands of mobile business apps to provide the best features to their users. It is believed that while the potential of the mobile app market in Nigeria is massive, the industry would go a long way in helping to create employment for thousands of Nigerian youths.

Mobile applications are said to be relevant to all the major sector of our economy, whether it is agricultural, health, fi nance or entertainment, the impact is very huge. For example, the health sector, with a Smartphone solution, a nurse could, for instance both capture all the information they need and access comprehensive historical medical records, while still talking naturally to patients, rather than having to stop to make notes on paper that will need to be re-entered into a computer later.

For agricultural sector, mobile technology can play a vital role in its development and growth. It is gradually emerging as a major tool for helping nations support farmers to produce effi ciently. In some instances, access to mobile phones has been associated with increased agricultural income. Mobile phones seem to infl uence the commercialisation of farm products.

A study from Uganda found that market part participation rose with mobile phone access. Mobile applications can serve as the backbone for early warning to mitigate agricultural risks and safeguard agricultural incomes.

An industry expert, Osamede Umweni, Chief Executive of 70th Precinct noted that the country has the required human capital to lead in the mobile app industry in Africa.

“We have the required human capital to lead in the mobile app industry in Africa. Nigerians are wonderful and enterprising people, what we need are the right atmosphere and support. When all these are provided by the relevant authorities, you would fi nd out that an average Nigerian will excel. Go overseas, you would fi nd Nigerians doing wonderfully well in every area of human endeavours. Nigerians are already creating mobile apps in the various app stores in the world, so there is no big deal about developing apps. So, I would say we have the capacity to developing worldclass apps.

According to him, while there are over 5 million Indians developing mobile applications for the whole world and more are joining the fray, many Nigerian companies go there to develop apps.

Umweni noted that the availability of broadband goes a long way in driving the App market in Nigeria. According to him, the access to internet would surely facilitate socioeconomic growth in Nigeria. “If our broadband is functional with high speed internet, the Nigeria’s app market would defi nitely thrive and would be very vibrant too. Millions of Nigerians would be able to download thousands of apps that are developed by Nigerians.

“All the 36 states should set-up incubation centres in their various state capitals and even their state owned tertiary institutions. This move would defi nitely drive the mobile app industry and would make thousands of young Nigerians to develop interest and create jobs too.”

Speaking on the roles of the private sector, Umweni said they have a great role to play in developing the Nigerian app market as some of them have started developing mobile apps for their businesses.

“For instance, banks, they are making life easier for their customers, making banking seamless. You don’t need to visit any branch to perform any transaction whatsoever. The private sector, have now realised that the best way to reach their consumers is via the mobile devices.

“The profusion of personal mobile devices has changed consumers’ expectations about access to information. We expect to be able to fi nd details on products anytime, anywhere. And we are likely to get that information from some sort of social network as we are to go directly to a company’s website. Once they start seeing the benefi ts of building apps to promote their businesses, it would surely drive the demands for developments by them.”

Largely, the governments, not just at the federal level, but at the state levels, industry experts noted, also have different roles to play to develop the mobile application industry.

For example in Finland, with a population of just fi ve million, they have over 150 game companies; the wild success of Rovio’s ‘Angry Birds’ has triggered a mobile app gold rush. Finland has a long successful history of effective and benefi cial government role in fostering a vibrant game industry. Over the past 15 years, the Finnish government have spent a staggering 60 million Euros (N12 billion) in supporting small game start-ups.

Vodacom Business Nigeria has signed the Convention on Business Integrity (CBi) pact, underscoring its commitment to the observance of the Code of Business Integrity both within the company and in its dealings with customers and partners.

Managing Director for Vodacom Business Africa, Douglas Craigie–Stevenson and Managing Director for Vodacom Business Nigeria, Guy Clarke signed on behalf of Vodacom while Soji Apampa, Executive Director at CBi, signed for the organisation in a ceremony to formalise the tech fi rm’s membership of CBi at WheatBaker Hotel, Ikoyi, Lagos.

Craigie-Stevenson said Vodacom has always maintained the highest level of integrity in its business dealings in every country it operated, adding that formally joining the group is a further manifestation of the fi rm’s unalloyed commitment of standing on the side of integrity all the time.

“Joining the Convention on Business Integrity shows our commitment to conducting all our business affairs with honesty and professionalism,” he said.

According to Clarke, Vodacom has pledged to abide by every letter of the CBi. “By signing into CBi, we have pledged to abide by its code and collectively we will gradually change the perception of doing business in Nigeria, especially on the international stage,” he noted.

Oh his part, Mr. Apampa commended Vodacom Business Nigeria for the bold initiative, stressing that with fi rms such as Vodacom joining the CBi, corporate governance will become a reality while corruption will be reduced.

He said, “We recognise the necessity to build a strong alliance of companies and organisations such as Vodacom, their collective action will improve corporate governance and reduce corruption in the Nigerian business environment.”

The CBi was established in 1997 with the mission of promoting ethical business practices, transparency and fair competition in both private and public sectors. Signatories of the convention undertake to observe the values of the Code of Business Integrity, both within their own organisations and in their dealings with customers and partners.

In most sites and social media platforms, comments are easily made and become public immediately, which might either be a good or a bad comment. comment session seem to showcase the worst of humanity. Unfortunately negative comments tend to be particularly bad in the technology fi eld. People who post illegitimate and negative comments can be a big problem to you.

Here are few tips that will guide you in dealing with negative comments:

Having a policy in place:

Depending on the type of site you operate, it’s probably a good idea to make your site’s commenting policy public. Once you have a policy in place, you have an option that will allow you to stay out of at least part of the uncomfortable process of dealing with negative comments. You can turn the work over to someone else to do for you; at least a fast pass through your comments can allow you to screen out those that may impact you personally before you even see them, because it’s not always good for comments that are unmoderated to appear on your site.

Akismet for word press is a tool that can be used to weed out certain comments that are notoriously unreliable, and each platform has its own system.

Don’t remove anonymity:

Removing anonymity doesn’t seem to end hateful comments. Sometime ago, google asked you-tube commenters to associate their comments with their Google+ accounts, which in turn means associating their comments with their real names. While many people were upset about losing anonymity or being forced to use a new commenting system, there are still plenty of nasty remarks showing up on the site. It turns out that many of those commenters are comfortable associating their names with that messages they post.

Taking responsibility for your site:

The only sites that you can defi nitely impact are those that you own and operate yourself. For any other site, you are going to have to apply some sort of comment moderator to resolve any issue you encounter. How much control you have over comments depends on where you are posting your content. You can delete comments, ban certain commenters and generally refuse to allow trolls to post to your site. You can draw the line anywhere you care to.

Dealing with the deep dark corners of the internet:

If you are the subject of a combat offensive remarks, there is a question of how far you should be willing to go to combat offensive or threatening remarks because there are plenty of blogs, forums, and other websites out there that you likely don’t frequent on regular basis, it might be response to a blog post you wrote, a project you post, or some other detail you share online.

You can use tools like google alerts to access such information. A better option is to either contact the website owner or host about getting the material removed or report threats to proper authorities.

Don’t be afraid of internet comments

Reading negative comments on many sites may expose you to some unpleasant messages and ignoring threatening or offensive comments sends the message that posting such remark is okay and allows a fl awed system to continue. The more you can minimise such comments, the more fully you can take advantage of the internet opportunities for starting important discussions and sharing resources.

In summary, know that the more you engage with negative commenters, the angrier and unhappier you will be and at the same time, they get happier because they are getting what they want and they are small, inconsequential people clutching at any kind of recognition they can fi nd.

Sterling Bank Plc rode on the back of increasing balance sheet effi ciency and growing market share in its core commercial banking business to deliver impressive growth in its top-line profi tability in the fi rst half of 2014.

The interim report and accounts of the bank for the sixmonth period ended June 30, 2014 released at the weekend indicated a double-digit growth of 16.3 per cent in the gross earnings, driven by a larger growth of 20.5 per cent in interest income. Net interest income rose by about 40.2 per cent, underlying signifi – cant improvement in its core banking operations. This also impacted on the operating income, which rose by 25.4 per cent.

Gross earnings rose to N48.7bn in the fi rst half of 2014, from N41.86bn in the comparable period of 2013. The top-line was driven by interest income, which rose from N31.08bn in the fi rst half of 2013 to N37.44bn in half year 2014. Net interest income leapt to N21.28bn in 2014, from N15.17bn in 2013. Non-interest income also increased to N11.3bn in fi rst half 2014 compared with N10.8bn recorded in the comparable period of 2013. Operating income thus rose from N25.9bn to N32.54bn.

However, the bank’s operating expenses increased by 28.5 per cent to N23.8bn in fi rst half 2014, from N18.5bn in fi rst half 2013, driven by on-going investments in branch refi ts and expansion, and rollout of alternative channels. This moderated the bottom-line. Profi t before tax rose slightly from N6.27bn in 2013 to N6.34bn in 2014. With a 131 per cent increase in income tax from N350.1m to N809.7m, net profi t after tax stood at N5.5bn.

Commenting on the results, the Managing Director of the bank, Mr. Yemi Adeola, said that the performance in the fi rst half of the year further demonstrated the underlying strength of the bank’s core business.

He noted that in spite of the challenging operating environment, the bank achieved a 130 basis points improvement in net interest margin to 7.7 per cent resulting from a 60 basis points reduction in cost of funds and a 70 basis points increase in asset yield.

He explained that the increase in cost-to-income ratio by 180 basis points to 73 per cent due to ongoing investments in the upgrade of the bank’s physical infrastructure and the rollout of alternative channels.

“During the period, we completed eight new branches, while 13 others are at various stages of completion. We also remodeled several of our existing branches, deployed 168 additional Automated Teller Machines (ATMs) and signed-on over 200 merchants to drive our agent banking model for fi nancial inclusion,” Adeola said.

First quarter

The bank’s net earnings rose 24 per cent to N24.6bn in the fi rst quarter ended March 31, 2014, from N19.8bn recorded in the same period of 2013. This was driven by interest income, which rose 31 per cent and accounted for 76 per cent on the back of an increase in yields on earning assets.

The bank’s operating income was up 34 per cent in the fi rst quarter to N16.2bn, from N12.0bn recorded in the corresponding period of 3013 fi rst quarter, due to a 58 per cent increase in net interest income. Growth in the net interest income was boosted by a 31 per cent growth in interest relative to a modest increase of eight per cent in interest expense. Increasing in operating expenses was attributed to the ongoing investment in branch expansion in addition to an increase in AMCON surcharge.

The bank cost-to-income excluding impairment charge declined by 40 basis points to 71.7 per cent from 72.1 per cent in the same period of 2013, refl ecting improvements in operating effi ciency.

Business strategy

The bank is driven by its goals and aspirations, as it is currently operating within its fi ve-year medium-term plan with clear objectives measured against key performances indications. The bank has also set forth long-term aspirations consistent with the medium-term goals.

For instance, the bank has completed its capital raising exercise, which was premeditated as far back as 2012 when it set out to raise $400m divided into three classes. Class ‘a,’ was the Rights Issue, which was concluded in December 2013. Class ‘b,’ was the Private Placement of about N18bn, while class ‘c’ involved Tier II capital. The bank use about $120m to upgrade IT infrastructure and enhance delivery channels, including the roll out of agency banking models to drive fi nancial inclusion.

Also, the bank has commenced private banking business targeted at the high net worth individuals, launch of the One-Education initiative targeted at education sector value chain and the deployment of new core banking application to fully enhance service delivery to customers. Also, it strengthened performance management system for sales and back-offi ce workforce to improve staff productivity.

Outlook

According to Adeola, the bank would remain focused on further improvements in its effi ciency to ensure that it delivers on its full-year targets and provides increased returns to shareholders.

“We are confi dent that the second half of the year would reinforce the trend we have seen in the last six months. We remain focused on effi – ciency – keeping the cost-toincome ratio within an acceptable range. By and large, we are optimistic that Sterling Bank’s full year returns will be in line with our forecasts and expectations.

“Things will continue to get better. Sterling Bank will continue to record robust growth and reward shareholders accordingly. Eight years ago, we had just about N25bn in capital, we couldn’t declare dividend and our balance sheet size was less than N150bn. Today, the bal ance sheet size of the bank is over N700bn, capital is about N63bn and the bank’s return on equity is currently about 20 per cent. Things can only get better. For instance, we achieved N3.5bn in the fi rst quarter of 2014. If we extrapolate this, that will be N14bn on a capital of N63bn. This is impressive by all measures,” Adeola said.

On the mergers and acquisitions, he said, “It will be opportunistic. If we get the right opportu nity to acquire another bank, we will consider it, but it must be at the right price.”

Background

Sterling Bank Plc originally incorporated in 1960 as Nigeria Acceptances Limited (NAL). The bank was licensed as Nigeria’s fi rst merchant bank in 1969. Consequent to the indigenisation decree of 1972, the bank became fully government owned and was managed in partnership with Grindlays Bank Limited, Continental International Finance Company Illinois and American Express Bank Limited between 1974 and 1992. In 1992, the bank was partly privatized and listed as a public company on the Nigeria Stock Exchange.

In January 2006, as part of the consolidation of the Nigerian banking industry, NAL Bank completed a merger with four other Nigerian Banks namely Magnum Trust Bank, NBM Bank, Trust Bank of Africa and Indo-Nigeria Merchant Bank (INMB) and adopted the Sterling Bank name. The merged entities were successfully integrated and have operated as a consolidated group ever since.

In line with the Central Bank of Nigeria’s repeal of universal banking, Sterling Bank now operates as a national commercial bank, disposing of holdings in subsidiaries and affi liate companies. In mid-2011, Sterling Bank Plc acquired the franchise of the erstwhile Equitorial Trust Bank.

IBM thought of it first, but Adobe got there before them. Salesforce caught up quickly, HP’s right behind, and Oracle’s buying its way to the party. This report takes an in-depth look at five tech giants and their race towards the first truly integrated digital marketing hub

Welcome to the digital marketing cloud wars, where fi ve legacy software companies take each other on in the battle to win the hearts and minds of CMOs across the land. While each company has its own strengths and is at a different stage in the journey, the destination is the same – to be the fi rst to offer a completely integrated suite of marketing tools that provide an end-to-end solution for the increasingly digitally oriented CMO. The question is: who will get there fi rst?

The growing demand for the digital marketing cloud

Recent years have seen explosive growth in the marketing technology sector, causing research fi rm Gartner to famously predict that CMOs would outspend CIOs on IT by the year 2017.

You have already heard about the cloud. Now attempts are being made to turn this cloud into a marketing system, but so far, no one has been able to achieve this completely. Instead, cloud marketing services offer disparate software programs, some of which have yet to be integrated.

In the simplest of terms, the digital marketing cloud is a service in which all data relevant to marketing is stored on external servers, which are located offsite.

Organisations want to use this data to advertise their products and services through an integrated digital solution, which is specialized for the end users. Using these methods, the aim is to target customers with online applications via social platforms and online portals like Twitter and Facebook.

With the rise of the connected consumer, and the importance of search and social media in their decision making, the traditional path to purchase has been obliterated. It is now much more diffi cult to engage consumers in their journey from “see product” to “buy product,” since it takes place on so many different channels. This includes search engines, web pages, blogs, social media, digital ads, and email.

As the complexity of reaching customers across a swath of digital options increases, brands are more willing to spend money on technology that will take some of the guesswork off their hands, automating their marketing across different channels, engaging customers on social, and using analytics to be more effi cient in their targeting. They could buy a platform to do each of those things. Or they could get one vendor to give them all the solutions they need for their digital marketing strategy.

That’s the gold standard that Salesforce, IBM, Adobe, Oracle, and HP are striving for. There’s plenty of money to be made in being the single provider for all digital marketing solutions. The margins are high and customers are less likely to shift to other platforms once they’ve put all their eggs in one basket.

The quickest way to scale up to offering that complete solution is through acquisitions. All fi ve companies have snapped up smaller software fi rms to make them part of their digital marketing arsenal. However, the real challenge has been getting all those parts to work with each other, which is where the true value of a digital marketing hub can be realized.

“Vendors with more than one piece are trying to demonstrate multiplied value, instead of additive,” says Forrester analyst Cory Munchbach. “They’re saying that, by buying fi ve solutions that work together in a unique way, it can provide far more value than if you had these fi ve components working separately.”

However, the promise of these digital marketing cloud solutions is yet to be realized, as a lot of the acquisitions were made fairly recently and the integrations aren’t quite mature enough. So what does each marketing cloud offer, and how far are they along the journey to complete integration?

What makes a digital marketing cloud?

There are at least four components that every digital marketing cloud should be offering. First is the multi-channel marketing automation – For publishing and promoting content that helps marketers engage customers across several different channels, particularly mobile and social. It also needs automation for the intelligent algorithms that sequence how that engagement happens.

Secondly, content management tools – To create and manage the content and engagement tools that can be deployed across different channels.

Thirdly, social media tools – For listening to and engaging with social media networks to tap into consumer conversations, responding with custom content, or social media advertising.

Lastly, analytics platform – To create profi les of consumers based on their online behavior, and evaluate which marketing campaigns are working and which aren’t.

Each of the fi ve companies offers these components to varying degrees, which makes it diffi cult to compare their individual applications to each other. However, using this benchmark, we can evaluate the company’s offerings as a whole, identifying their strengths, as well as the gaps they’re trying to fi ll.

Using them as a benchmark, we can identify the strengths and weaknesses of each and gauge their overall performance. Digital marketing cloud is worth considering for all CMOs in 2015

Cloud marketing is a cost effective option, which is the biggest reason CMOs should go for it. With a set of integrated solutions, marketers can access and approach target customers faster and more effectively. Plus, everything is customizable as per the needs of the end user.

Adobe may not be a cloud marketing leader, but it is still the fi rst company which offered an integrated digital marketing hub, which it accomplished after the acquisition of Omniture. Now known as Adobe Analytics, this serves as the core of Adobe’s marketing solutions.

Adobe Analytics is powerful software which segments web traffi c into specifi c group on the basis of online behavior and demographics. Other programs such as Adobe Social and Experience Manger can be integrated with Analytics for more effective management.

Analysts are wary of calling it the leader in this space, but Adobe does have the distinction of being the fi rst company to announce its intention to build an integrated digital marketing hub.

“Adobe was defi nitely the fi rst,” says Yvonne Genovese, who heads Gartner’s Marketing Leaders research team. “They came out and said ‘We are the digital marketing company’ four years ago, which caused the market to pause.” The move took IBM by surprise, says Genovese, since up until then it had been the one making announcements about creating digital marketing solutions.

Adobe made its foray into digital marketing with its acquisition in 2009 of the popular analytics platform Omniture. Omniture, which now functions as Adobe Analytics, is at the core of Adobe’s digital marketing solutions. Analytics is a powerful big data tool that enables marketers to not just see who’s visiting their website and consuming their content, but also to segment those visitors into very specifi c groups, based on their demographics as well as online behavior.

Adobe’s other programs are built to take advantage of integration with Analytics:

Adobe Social: This is Adobe’s social media tool, built on the back of its acquisition of Context Optional/ Effi cient Frontier in 2012. Social allows for conversation listening across networks including Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Google+ and blogs, creating targeted ads, identifying infl uencers, and moderating discussions from a single hub.

Strengths:

Adobe is positioning its core strengths around data and design. Through its Creative Cloud, it is already the premier solution for content creation for many marketers, which gives it a pretty big advantage when it comes to the other marketing hubs. Ad agencies and creatives who are already using Adobe solutions to edit video, images, and design digital assets will fi nd it easier to get on board with the marketing solutions as well. Adobe’s strength has always been its association with creativity, which, it says, makes it part of the “marketer’s DNA.” It was named a leader in Gartner’s 2013 Magic Quadrant report for Web Content Management.

Adobe’s strategy is to integrate all its digital marketing offerings on top of Analytics, so each application has access to that valuable cache of information. And, given how early it got into the game, Adobe’s got its nose slightly ahead in getting its applications to talk to each other. The tight integration allows for different departments of a brand’s marketing function to seamlessly share reports with each other, and coordinate efforts by acting on the same data.

While you can buy each program separately, there’s a pretty big incentive for marketers to buy Analytics as well, to identify customer groups, evaluate the effectiveness of campaigns, and directly tie the numbers to revenue.

Weaknesses:

Unlike Salesforce and Oracle, Adobe’s offerings are focused purely on marketers, and not so much on the sales side of businesses. That means plenty of content creation and analytics, but less of a CRM focus, since that hasn’t been its historical strength. “Adobe lacks a link to CRM, which brings all the marketing efforts back to measurable results,” says Rebecca Wetteman, analyst at Nucleus Research. “Having that CRM piece is becoming more and more critical in closing that loop to fi nd out what type of campaigns are working.”

So what makes Adobe a better choice than others out there? Creativity in terms of design and data. And since Adobe understood all of it fi rst, it is a step ahead than other enterprises. But where does fail? Their solutions focus on the marketing side only, and do not give much attention to sales. So while Adobe will let CMOs focus ion content and analytics, it will not be of much help when it comes to CRM.

Salesforce

CRM may be Adobe’s weaknesses, and for Salesforce, it is their strength. Pair it up with Buddy Media and Radian6, and Salesforce will be close to perfect, but it still is not there yet. Radian6 is a tool which allows marketers to listen and monitor conversations on several social platforms. In 2012, it was termed the leader among listening platforms and received special praise for its dashboard which offers a comprehensive set of features.

Buddy Media is used for publishing and managing content on social media platforms. It is also regarded as the leader by many in the social marketing world.

Salesforce may have found integration of the components easy, but the road is till long. Individually, all the products are perfect, but when combined together, they fail to impress because they are not reaching their full potential.

And do not forget, Salesforce offers no platform which allows content to be created. Instead, a third party platform has to be integrated with Salesforce solutions.

Oracle

Oracle was the last one to step into the battle, and since then has demonstrated commendable performance. Their strengths are databases and CRM solutions. People expect that Salesforce will create a digital marketing cloud that offers a unique experience by including sales and service as a primary component.

With Eloqua and Responsys, Oracle sure has an edge when it comes to multi-channel marketing automations. Both these tools are among the best out there and fours on solutions for both B2B and B2C marketing campaigns. Thus, with Oracle, you can expect future integration to be much better, which will cater to the needs of both the marketing and sales side of the business. And future companies will never need to step beyond Oracle for their business workfl ows.

Does that make Oracle the number one choice? Not really. For starters, Oracle joined the game late, which puts it behind in a lot of aspects. They may be hosting powerful products, but the acquisitions still have to be fi nalized and more important than that is the integration. Oracle also does not have any web analytics platform as yet.

IBM

The fact that they came up with the idea before anyone else does give them credit. With traditional marketing at the focus, IBM is trying to integrate it with digital technology. What this means is that their solutions take into the entire commerce chain, starting from supply and going all the way up to customer fulfi llment. So other than marketing, there is lot more in between. IBM is considered to be a leader in the technological, ecommerce and data world, but it has yet to integrate all of its solution together. Problem is IBM is focused more on the commerce side than the marketing side, which is making things slightly complex for them. In the few years, they may be number one, but right now, the title cannot be given to them.

HP

With their data centric approach, HP has a host of solutions to offer such as TeamSite, Medianbin and Optimost. They are specialists when it comes to Big Data and are using it for recognizing and developing real time responses to the targeted audience. Thus, HP can offer an experience which will be in accordance to a customer’s behavior during that instance. But HP is still new in the fi eld and other companies are years ahead of it.

So who is the winner?

It is a bit too early to decide, but since Adobe put all of it together fi rst, it may be ahead right now. In the time to come, other companies may bag away the title. For instance, Salesforce offers tools which are number one in their respective industries, whereas HP is strong when it comes to Big Data.

IBM also puts conventional marketing into the picture and Oracle is a versatile star. We will just have to wait and see how things turn out to be in a couple of years from now.

Babatunde Abayomi Savage progressively made his way to the very top at Guinness Nigeria Plc with dint of hard work and innovation. He has scored many firsts, serving at various levels in the company. Perhaps, the most outstanding achievement in the company was his role in the entry of Diageo Plc in the brewery giant, a move that has significantly impacted on the company’s fortune. Savage, chairman of Guinness Plc, is also a foremost investor in many other companies. Here is the story of a ‘Corporate Physiologist’ who bailed out Guinness out of its demoralising debt.

Babatunde Savage, chairman, Board of Directors of Guinness Nigeria Plc, is undoubtedly one of Nigeria’s most outstanding chartered accountants, having distinguished himself as a tested corporate surgeon of sort. His voyage into the world of fi nance and accounting began when he joined Cooper and Lybrand now PriceWaterHouseCoopers in 1978, a year after he graduated from the University of Ibadan. Ironically, his mission to the University of Ibadan was not to pursue a degree in accounting or any fi nance-related discipline. Savage, who clocked 68 years last May, actually graduated with a B.sc in Physiology (the branch of medical science that studies the functions of living organisms or their parts) in 1977.

Five years after he joined the foremost Cooper and Lybrand, Savage upped the ante of his intellectual capacity by successfully executing the last stage of the examinations of the Institute of Chartered of Accountants of Nigeria (ICAN) to attain the status of a chartered accountant. Armed with this qualifi cation in 1982, Savage left the audit profession to concentrate on pure accounting. Almost immediately, Savage resigned his appointment at PriceWaterHouseCoopers to pursue a career in the manufacturing sector of the economy. But little did he realised that the decision to join the employment of Guinness Nigeria Plc in 1983 would fetch him wealth and fame. Not long after he became a staff of the multi-billion dollar brewing giant, fortune began to smile on him, as he was elevated to the position of the accountant for the Benin plant (which was then the biggest in Nigeria).

In 1989, he was moved higher up as the company appointed him its treasurer. In this capacity, just like those before it, Babatunde Savage proved his mettle. He was very instrumental to the bailout, which the brewery giant enjoyed through his partnership with banks, which pulled it out of its huge fi nancial debts. After this, Savage was again rewarded, as he got promoted to the level of fi nancial controller in 1992 and later director of fi nance in 1995. That was 12 years after he joined the company from the low level of the ladder.

As the fi nance director at Guinness Nigeria Plc, Babatunde Savage was saddled with the responsibility of providing fi scal, strategic and operational leadership to improve effi ciency and operating results of the company. An Alumnus of the popular Igbobi College, Lagos (where he studied for his Higher School Certifi cate), Savage, due to hard work, was picked to be among a special team to redefi ne the history of Guinness Nigeria Plc between 1992 and 1997. As part of the team that spearheaded the re-structuring and re-engineering mission in the Guinness Nigeria Plc, Savage was singled out to have led the turnaround history of the company into a subsidiary of Diageo Plc. Diageo plc is a British multinational alcoholic beverages company headquartered in London, United Kingdom. It is the world’s largest producer of spirits and a major producer of beer and wine. The company acquired a controlling share of the equities of Guinness Nigeria Plc in a deal facilitated by Babatunde Savage. Consequent upon bringing Diageo Plc on board Guinness Nigeria Plc, Savage became the company’s Corporate Relations Director in 1999, in which capacity he served as the company’s External Ambassador. In 2005, however, Babatunde Savage was further promoted to the position of the Company’s Deputy Chief Executive Offi cer (DCEO), of a brewery which then had attained a height of N70billion turnover or annual revenue with annual profi t of N17 billion.

In May 2009, four years after his appointment as Deputy CEO, the Board of the Company led by Diageo Plc, resolved to further strengthen the capacity of Babatunde Savage in making decision for the company as he was selected to replace late Dr. Ralph Alabi, the former Chairman of the Board of Guinness, who directed the affairs of the of the Company for about 13 years.

Savage, who has been in the saddle of decision making as Deputy CEO and Chairman of Guinness Nigeria Plc in the last seven years, was described by Ralph Alabi in his lifetime as a capable leader who can take the company to the heights which it has achieved in recent times. Dr. Alabi had described Savage as a worthy successor, a true Guinness man who understands the culture of the company. “Tunde will bring his wealth of experience to bear on the company, with his exposure; he is an excellent choice who will take Guinness Nigeria to greater heights”, he had predicted. Good for Savage and Guinness Nigeria Plc and stakeholders of the stout brewer, Savage has not disappointed in any way as the company has grown in leaps and bounds since 2005 when the physiologist-turned chartered accountant took over the mantle of leadership.

Some of the signifi cant progress which Savage has brought to the company in the last seven years includes the commissioning of a new brew house at the Ogba brewery complex in Lagos. The commissioning in February 2011 was ably handled by Her Britannic Majesty’s Minister for Africa, Henry Bellingham.

In his opening remarks before the commissioning ceremony then, the visibly delighted Savage, went down the memory lane to espouse the contribution of Guinness Nigeria as not only a strong brand, but also a strong company, providing direct employment for over 1,200 full time employees and over 700 temporary staff, while also providing a source of livelihood for over 28,000 Nigerians, through the company’s supply chain activities.

As a signifi cant contributor to the national income, Savage recalled that in 2010, for example, the company’s total revenue to government from excise duty, import duties, VAT, company income tax and PAYE taxes amounted to over N16 billion.

Reminiscencing on the decision to go into business alliance with Diageo, Savage spoke glowingly about the single majority shareholder, Diageo, the parent company of Guinness Nigeria Plc, as a company that believes in adding value to where they work. Diageo as you know, he said, is in 120 countries of the world and here we are having a brew house, which is the most modern in Africa’ ‘We have a company that believes in long time commitment in the way we operate in Nigeria. This company believes in adding values to our communities, that is why today, we have been able to key in to the Diageo Water of Life projects, in which we have been able to put 10 Water Of Life projects all over the country’ We also have Guinness eye hospitals in Lagos, Onitsha and Kaduna’.

Tunde Savage believes the fact that Guinness originates from the United Kingdom notwithstanding, the fact that the company has been able to adapt very well in Nigeria, transforming to a Nigerian business makes the story of the brewery giant very signifi cant. “Although a UK investment in Nigeria, Guinness Nigeria today has become a truly Nigerian company so much so that Nigerians take pride in the fact that Nigeria is the second biggest Guinness market in the world, local stories demonstrating pride in the brand by the general populace and Nigerian Guinness is now being exported to the United Kingdom,” he said.

Devlin Hainsworth, Managing Director, Guinness Nigeria Plc, says Guinness, which is to be the most celebrated business in Nigeria, along with its range of products, stand for so much power, greatness, communionvalues that are so synonymous with Nigeria and Nigerians. He expressed delight that the investments guarantee the quality and the continuity of supplies, so it can meet the consumer demand so effectively and high quality here in Nigeria. Hainsworth said that Guinness is proud of its corporate reputation and “of course our people, we are very proud to have as our majority shareholders, Diageo, the world’s premium drink company and I am delighted’.

Diageo Plc, majority shareholders in Guinness Nigeria Plc, whose decision to come into Nigeria to invest was prompted by Savage, declared last year that they will increase their investment in Nigeria by N56 billion or 225 million pound sterling, with the intention of creating at least 200 additional permanent jobs in the country. The move, the company says, is part of Guinness Nigeria’s effort to expand the capacity of its brewing operations in Nigeria and extend its commitment to the development of the Nigerian economy.

It was also reported that on completion of the expansion project, the company would create additional 200 permanent jobs in Nigeria. The investment is also to enable Guinness Nigeria Plc to retain its market share.

According to the company, the expansion project became imperative in order for the Guinness Nigeria Plc to be able to meet the growing demand for Guinness Foreign Extra Stout, Harp Lager Beer and its other brands sold nationwide. It said that the investment would include the upgrade of existing facilities as well as increase the brewing capacity of two existing factories in the country.

Devlin Hainsworth, representatives of Diageo Plc in Guinness Nigeria Plc, said: “Nigeria is an exciting and vibrant place to do business, and the increased demand for our iconic brands such as Guinness and Harp requires us to invest in our breweries and infrastructure. Guinness Nigeria is a signifi cant contributor to economic growth through paying taxes to government, generating capital growth and distributing dividends to our many shareholders and creating broad-based wealth through our extensive value chain. We are delighted that we will create a signifi cant number of jobs for Nigerians upon completion of the project. This investment underscores Diageo’s confi dence in Nigeria and its people and is an affi rmation of our belief in its future as a growth economy and prosperous nation.”

Besides being in employment of the company for over two decades, serving in different capacities, Savage has demonstrated that his love for the company transcends earning salary and bonuses. He has personally committed his money into buying the shares of the company over the years and his investments in the shares of Guinness Nigeria Plc as at August 2011 showed that Savage is the second largest individual shareholder with 601,263 units of the company’s ordinary shares.

However, Savage’s investments are not limited to Guinness Nigeria Plc alone, as he equally has substantial equity in many other companies, both quoted and privately owned. He is the Board chairman of Nigerian German Chemicals Plc and he is equally an independent board member of Mouka Foam Plc. He served as Director of Jos International Breweries Limited and non-executive director, East African Breweries Limited from 2002 to 2008.

He served as a Member of Council of the Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI) and Treasurer of Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (MAN). Apart from being on the Board of quoted companies performing the dual roles of a Corporate Physiologist, analysing the anatomy of corporate organisations and enhancing their performance and as an investor, Savage is also a Fellow of a number of professional bodies. He is a Fellow of both the Chartered Institute of Accountants of Nigeria (ICAN) and the Chartered Institute of Taxation of Nigeria (CITN).

He is equally the Chairman of International Chamber of Commerce Nigeria (ICCN), where he is playing very prominent roles of enhancing economic growth in Nigeria. ICC is the representative body for enterprises from all sectors in every part of the world, with the fundamental mission of promoting trade and investments across frontiers and help business corporations meet challenges and opportunities of globalisation. In Nigeria, the ICC is made up of business leaders and blue-chip companies who come together to set global standards and move the nation’s economy forward.

ICCN is a distinct and independent body, different from other Chambers of Commerce in Nigeria in the sense that it provides platforms for members to tap international business practices and appointments within a broad network of over 120 countries with national committees linked to the International Chamber of Commerce Headquarters in Paris.

Guinness Nigeria Plc by the promptings of Savage recently sponsored the 13th Annual General Meeting of ICC Nigeria an occasion where a non-executive board member of Guinness Nigeria Plc, Bismarck Rewane, delivered a lecture titled the ‘Economic Outlook and Implications for Business.’ Rewane’s lecture highlighted the various economic risks and opportunities for global business operations in emerging markets such as Nigeria.

Also very recently, the Babatunde Savage led Board of ICC Nigeria launched in the new Arbitration and Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) rules which stakeholders say is a foundation for easy resolution of cross –border disputes in business. The rules, according to experts, addresses areas of concern to users, such as control of time and cost in arbitration, emergency arbitrator provisions and arbitration involving multiple parties. They also contain changes to facilitate handling of disputes arising under investment treaties and free trade agreements. Secretary-General, ICC International Court of Arbitration, Jason Fry, said the goal of the new rules is to have simple guidelines for complex situations.

The Chairman of ICC Nigeria said the revision of the rules was concluded after a study spanning four years by a special task force comprising members from various national committees among other stakeholders. “The new rules will meet the needs of those involved in international trade and allow participants to learn the basics about different amicable dispute resolution techniques, taking into account cross-cultural awareness and legal considerations”. Savage argued that building an arbitration- friendly commercial legal structure in the country will support business development opportunities and attract foreign investors.

Speaking at the launch of the 2012 ICCN Rules of Arbitration in Lagos, Savage said “a nation focused on sustained economic prosperity and peace must encourage an equitable, transparent and fair governance architecture based on sound value system. “It is the desire of ICC globally to foster trade and investment across nations in an amicable, equitable and peaceful manner. In essence, ICC arbitration is one way to bridge the gap between investors or foreign companies and domestic entities by providing a neutral and independent mechanism for resolving disputes when they arise.”

Before his appointment as Chairman of ICC Nigeria, Babatunde Savage had served as Executive Board member of the Chamber for many years and he has served the notice of his determination to ensure that Nigeria and Africa’s economy feel more impact of ICC as long as he continues to direct the affairs of the organisation.

However, looking back to his days in executive capacities in Guinness Nigeria Plc and considering the level of success he helped the company to attain, the unassuming Savage simply believes that there was really no secret behind the achievements. But the Harvard Business School and Cranfi eld University trained boardroom maestro said what has made the difference for him and the company was the decision to be very transparent in all their dealings. “Your governing principle must be very clear here. You must ensure you do things correctly and rightly”, he said.

Born in May 1954, Savage was admitted into Igbobi College in 1973 for the Higher School Certifi cate (HSC). After his HSC, he proceeded to University of Ibadan in 1974 and bagged Bachelor of Science (Bsc Physiology) in 1977. He has attended various local and overseas management-training courses in reputable institutions including Cranfi eld School of Management and Harvard Business School.

Cumulatively, Savage is credited for the restructuring of the company’s fi nances from indebtedness to huge surplus in billions and maintained a triple “A” rating. He was also believed to have initiated and perfected the enactment of various favourable public policies affecting the Alcoholic Beverage Industry in Nigeria such as tax and tariff reviews. He led the company’s contributions to growth and development of the capital market through major initiatives and worked assiduously to make Guinness Nigeria, the most celebrated Business in Diageo International, which culminated in the winning of the Company of the year Award in 2009.

Segun Awe-Obe was the Corporate Affairs Manager of the Chemstar company. He left the company with his mind focused on getting another job. A chanced trip abroad however opened his mind to greater opportunities in his professional field. But the security situation in the country would have been a stumbling block. He answered questions sent to him on-line by Tayo Elebijo on how he came about the LED mobile Advertising Truck. Excerpt:

What informed your decision to venture into the LED Advertising Truck business line?

I realized that Outdoor Advertising has taken a new dimension in the outer world. We cannot see junks on the streets of developed countries and call them outdoor advertising. As a leading country in sub-Sahara Africa, I felt it’s the right time to up the standard in the sub-sector in the country. It’s a growing business that enjoys wide acceptance as evidenced by the wide deployment of mobile LED Advertising vehicles in the on-going political campaigns in the country.

What were the challenges you initially faced in making the decision to venture into this business?

One basic challenge is getting our foreign partners to make business commitments as regards the operations in Nigeria. Their main concern was the security challenges in the country. However, we were able to assure them of the actions being taken to contain insurgencies.

How would you rate the impact of your business line on the Nigerian society?

The impact it’s tremendous. Being a new, innovative medium and given the energy challenge in the country, the product will continue to enjoy wider acceptance. Remember, the mobile LED vehicle can be operated anywhere, anytime and at any location without requiring public power supply. This is made possible because of the motorized confi guration of the product power by electricity generating set. You can drive it to a remote location and broadcast your messages. It will help companies using it to increase their market shares, grow the fi nancial positions of the companies, grow the economy and invariably create jobs opportunities for Nigerians. The impact is very great – in that many potential customers are not exposed to the power of the medium yet. And as you know, technology evolves from time to time but the mobile LED Advertising Vehicle is the latest for now.

Could you state the uses of the LED Advertising Truck to business outfi ts in the country, government and schools?

Basically, the mobile LED Advertising Trucks are used to disseminate information about your products and services [in the case of business owners] and government programs and sensitization of the public [in the case of Government at all levels], to target audience. The beauty of the Trucks is that you can drive it to any location to broadcast your campaigns – without disrupting the landscape of your chosen location. You simply drive to your location, park the truck, start your campaign and move the truck when you are done. What is more, you can run you campaign on the Truck while you are on the go. This is an information technology that would help the government at all levels reach the Nigerian public face to face with their programmes and projects and keep the public constantly informed of how their taxes are being spent for their benefi ts.

It will also help companies in this direction too.

How could one use the Advertising Truck to create employment for the millions of the unemployed Nigerian youths?

The mobile LED Advertising Truck business has a huge potential for employment generation. Each truck is manned by three personnel. Apart from this, the engineering aspect that will take care of maintenance and repairs provide opportunities for our youths to be gainfully employed. There is the window of opportunities for our youths to be trained by our partners abroad.

How could one take a good business decision like this?

You can take a good business decision by ensuring that you are not limited to your world. You must reach out to developed economies and bring in thing that are making them thick, that are making their economies moving forward and buoyant.

Could you let readers know what some clients said to encourage you?

Many of our clients felt it is the right time our outdoor advertising sub-sector have a face lift. They want us to bring innovation to the industries. Clients are even ready to pay slightly higher than the conventional rate. This in itself is a great deal of encouragement.

What would you say are the reaction of some customers that possibly made you feel discouraged at a point in the business?

So far we are yet to experience any apathy. Customers are all willing to patronize us. I mean, this is one of the cheapest yet far reaching and infl uencing road and streets, beach, advertising technology in vogue today… waiting for the corporate organizations like the banks, the Nigeria Stock Exchange, manufacturers and other players in other sectors of the economy, to use.

How and where did you get the inspiration to continue ?

The inspiration came from my desire to improve the quality of service in the outdoor advertising sub-sector. It is time business owners take the bull by the horn to improve the business terrain in our country. After all, we do not have any other country we can call our own.

What advice do you have for the buyers and users of your brand?

It is time media buyers embrace the use of our mobile LED Advertising Trucks. The product does not constitute any environmental challenge. Sellers can make good money from the business if they reach us for supply for the purpose of selling to end-users.

Excuses are common among civil service and government agencies that what could be done in one day will be dragged into months and may be a year. The leaders in many agencies and ministries of Nigeria government rose through ranks of positional leadership with bags of excuses. The excuse of government agencies leadership consequence is one the factors for slow business development environment here. The leadership that gives so many excuses steals personhour, often.

Dear entrepreneur, my objective is to infl uence culture change and impress upon business leaders that though excuse is cheap but you and I can improve on doing the needful at the right time.

I read a story told by Rudy Crew, former chancellor of New York City’s school when he visited a school that was not doing well.

The principal of the school told Mr. Crew that the said school had done well in the past, and then took the Chancellor into the schoolyard and pointed to some nearby public housing towers. He then complained that many of the students who came from those projects had trouble speaking English, and that some parents came to parent teachers’ association meeting (PTA meetings) in bathroom slippers.

In other words, the school was failing because the students were too diffi cult to teach and parents were not helping with their education. After the principal submission then Mr. Rudy Crew, the chancellor, dismissed the principal immediately.

Dear business leader, excuse on core leadership function will always limit the potential of business function. Therefore, fi re excuse before the board fi res you from the seat. If you are the business owner then do not allow the consumers fi re your products and services.

While I worked with one of the top business leaders in Nigeria engineering company (ARON) the core leadership responsibility of the Managing Director impressed upon me that leadership matters to any organsiation. The MD, Adeola Adenuga, core leadership strength and function was infl uencing young and creative engineers, architects, and administrative talents to join the organisation. He provided strong infl uential leadership that most projects were delivered to client on time and these included two of the FIFA highly rated football stadia in Nigeria used for FIFA events. Mr. Adenuga detest excuses so much that it has become culture for workers to think creatively and solve problems before escalating their challenge. The MD contagious energy is rare and even more valued.

Where ever an entrepreneur gives an excuse on core business function then it is morally right to step down for goal getters to step in. some time humble business owner will step aside for a more capable leader to step into infl uential position in the business so that the goals are achieve on time.

Leadership is not necessarily positional but it is infl uence. There can be both positional and infl uential leadership but there cannot be effective leadership without infl uence. Business Leadership is about infl uencing resources such as human, material and fi nance for the best interest of the enterprise.

How do you fire excuses and improve on leadership?

The first answer:

Do not accept reasons for why your core responsibilities cannot be done. Your core responsibility is your purpose in that organisation. It your appraisal guide and it influence your promotion and better opportunity. If you understand your core responsibility as a business leader then you can channel your resources efficiently to be an effective business leader. That is a lesson I learnt from successful business leaders I have had opportunity to study their leadership processes.

The law of responsibility makes it clear that whatever happens, or did not happen, in any organisation the leader is responsible.

The law of responsibility says, “You are responsible for everything you will become”. Whether you fail or succeed is your fault.

The second answer:

Articulate vision that inspire to doing the seemingly impossible. When I newly married in the year 2010, I knew that one of the best decisions to make was to articulate a vision for the family as a system of people with different family orientation. Therefore, I set out time, drafted a family vision, and convinced my wife to buy into it. She did buy into it that today our decisions are infl uence by the family vision, which is to provide leadership through knowledge services wherever we work or live.

The law of vision says, “Whatever you see inside today is what you get tomorrow.” To operate this law, you must dream, talk and behave your dream.

This means your mind and imagination must focus on what is possible and what you want to happen in your business and compel you to attract and recognise resources that will make it a reality without given in to threatening circumstances.

The third answer:

Lead by example. The advantage of leading by example is that you earn respect of your team members and inspire them to be committed to business function.

The law of respect says, “People naturally follow leaders who are stronger than themselves.” The more you increase effectiveness as a leader the more followers respect your command.

Dear business leader, the truth is that everything rise and falls on leadership. It is only normal for you to fi re excuse confronting your business function in an economy that is so unpredictable. Obviously, there is no perfect economy anywhere but there are leaders whose thinking are always perfect at recognising the opportunity in every challenging economy. I believe you have the potential turning other people’s excuses into business advantage. It is time for new vision and take the lead for your team to maximise the opportunity. Take courage and step into action.

Join me on this same column for more on Improvement series because it is possible to improve on anything

For those familiar with him, he is a thorough-bred professional, but a quiet consummate business tycoon. Though he loves to go unnoticed, he’s nonetheless a gold fish that has no hiding place. By dint of hard work and ingenuity, four years after his youth service, he started as a legal practitioner establishing a firm called Legal Resources Alliance, which presently is a leading player in property and corporate law in Nigeria. The firm boasts of high net worth individuals and blue chip corporate clients, locally and globally. Today, beyond his law firm, he has his hands on many juicy pies in the oil and gas, banking, aviation, maritime, power, real estate as well as telecommunications sectors.

This is the story of John Olatunde Ayeni, CON, Chairman of Skye Bank, a highly successful lawyer-turned corporate tycoon

At times, many people believe that some degree of luck is essential to be successful in life. But there are others, who hold the views that, rather than luck, success can only be achieved, when ideas are backed up with hard work, rare courage, unrelenting spirit as well as adequate preparations. For John Olatunde Ayeni, CON, the Chairman of Skye Bank, his rise and rise story is clearly one of such.

Though he might not be your regular face on the pages of major newspapers, but the man simply known as Tunde is a highly successful lawyerturned businessman, who has his hands on many juicy pies in the oil and gas, banking, aviation, maritime as well as real estate sectors.

For those who are not too familiar with the Corporate Nigeria and many of its silent accomplished players, it would not be a surprise if the following questions were being asked. Who is Tunde Ayeni? Where is he coming from? What is his pedigree? What are his accomplishments?

Interestingly, as salient and apt as the questions are, Tunde’s personal philosophy and modus operandi have given him no space for trumpeting his accomplishments and throwing his weight all over the place.

To his family, friends and colleagues, Ayeni, who hails from Iyah-Gbede, Ijumu in Kogi State, Nigeria, is that quiet, modest, easy going professional and corporate titan, who loves to do his beat without any ‘noise’ around and about him.

Born on April 4, 1967, Ayeni had his secondary education at Baptist Secondary School, Iyah-Gbede, his native town, between 1981 and 1985. He obtained the General Certifi cate of Education (G.C.E.), Advanced Level papers in 1987.

In the same 1987, he was admitted to read Law at Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, Kaduna State, where he graduated with honours in 1990. Ayeni was called to Bar in 1991. Thereafter, he underwent and completed the compulsory National Youth Service Corps service with Professor S. A. Adesanya & Co., a fi rm of Legal Practitioners.

After the National Service in 1991, he worked with Rodco (Nig) Limited as the Legal Adviser from 1991 to 1994.

Having assured himself that he had garnered enough experience, determined to become an employer of labour rather than continue his lifetime as an employee, Ayeni voluntarily left Rodco (Nig) Limited to start his own fi rm of Legal practice in 1994 known as Olatunde Ayeni & Co now called Legal Resources Alliance.

By dint of hard work and ingenuity, Ayeni’s legal fi rm, Legal Resources Alliance currently has over 50 legal practitioners in its employ. A leading player in property and corporate law in Nigeria, the fi rm boasts of high net worth individuals and blue chip corporate clients, locally and globally.

Apparently taking a cue from its founder, this multi billion naira fi rm operates quietly but effi ciently to the delight of its clients. To those close to Ayeni, one word he tells them he does not see in his dictionary is Failure. He tells his listeners there are only two options; success or success. It is indeed with this mindset that he approaches his corporate life. Although a quiet operator with uncommon humility, Ayeni has a personal approach to corporate life that does not entertain impossibility.

Early in his career, he had emerged as either founder or one of the pioneering directors of Olutoye Estate Development & Services Limited, Prime Union Investment Limited, Prime Union Travels and Tours Limited, BetonBau (Nig) Ltd, Joint Aviation Services Limited, Duport Marine Ltd.

In 2007, Ayeni became majority stakeholder and vice chairman of ASO Savings & Loans. He is also chairman of JKK (Nigeria) Plc and Temple Resources Ltd, and sits on the boards of PPP Fluid Mechanics Limited and Hightech Procurement Limited.

He is also the Chairman of other blue chip corporate entities. They include Temple Resources Limited, the fi rst indigenous company to pioneer vehicle inspection for safety in Nigeria and Funds and Electronic Transfer Solutions Limited (fets).

A man with the Midas touch, it soon became obvious to his business partners and colleagues that whatever the budding business icon touched(s) turned to gold. And through unrelenting hard work and focus, he soon got involved in bigger pies: in 2005, Ayeni’s Bond Bank, which he founded in 2000 was among the fi ve commercial banks which merged to create a new entity called Skye Bank with a balance sheet in excess of N1 trillion.

Years later, in December 2011, he emerged as the Chairman of Skye Bank Plc as the bank describes him as “A man of great vision, courage and intellect. A true leader and commander of the troops. An astute entrepreneur with a huge ‘can do’ Spirit.”

Prior to his appointment, since he joined the board of the bank in January 2008, he had served in the Credit, Risk, Audit, and Nomination Committees of the Board.

As a man with exceptional ambition, he has not disappointed his associates in living up to his passion of making Skye Bank one of the biggest fi nancial institutions. Perhaps, Ayeni’s tall ambition seems to have been working for Skye Bank. Last year, AMCON announced Skye Bank Plc as the preferred bidder for Mainstreet Bank Limited. Before the bank, a leading tier two bank in Nigeria, was among the eight banks recently designated as ‘Systemically Important Banks’, which refl ects its industry leadership, strong market share, diverse location spread, and strong brand equity.

To show competitors that he meant business, within four days of the announcement of the bank as the preferred bidder of Mainstream Bank, Ayeni led his colleagues in the bank to pay the mandatory 20 per cent before the expiration of the one week given. This was on October 9, the same day it signed the Share Sale and Purchase Agreement. And in a bid to further prove that it meant business, the bank again paid the 80 per cent balance to complete the takeover with one week to the deadline given by AMCON.

During the takeover, Skye Bank stated that the acquisition of Mainstreet Bank was part of its strategic plan for growth. The bank itself had emerged from the very successful merger and integration of fi ve banks in 2006, following the fi rst phase of the banking industry consolidation. Skye Bank Plc has given details of how its acquisition of Mainstreet Bank Limited will positively impact its business operations and enhance the achievement of its strategic objectives and goals. The bank said the acquisition would help deepen its penetration of the South-east and South-south regions where it is currently less represented, explaining that out of Mainstreet Bank’s 201 branches and nine subsidiaries, 26 per cent or 54 branches are located in the two regions.

“These two regions also accounted for 28 per cent of Mainstreet Bank’s over 1.9 million customers, second only to Lagos with 37 per cent. This clearly shows that the integration of Mainstreet Bank will enable us make valuable in-roads into these two regions without the need to incur huge expenditure had we remained a single entity as Skye Bank”, the bank explained then.

Again, as a businessman with a keen understanding of the prevailing economic variables and opportunities, against the backdrop of rising insecurity in Nigeria’s maritime territory, with the Nigerian Content Bill signed into law and the opening of fl oodgate for Nigerians’ participation in the oil sector, Ayeni and his friends set up the Ocean Marine Security Limited, OMS, blazing the trail in private sector participation in maritime security in Africa.

He is currently the Vice Chairman of this company, which has, through the provision of unique logistic support to the Nigerian Navy, made immense contributions towards mitigating the insecurity of Nigeria’s waters. This has helped to restore oil majors’ confi dence in the country, as a place they can return to and run their operations.

Another major investment he is involved in as one of the key promoters and chairman is the Ibadan Electricity Distribution Company IBEDC, the Disco Company that emerged the winner for electricity distribution for south west following the unbundling of Power Holding Corporation of Nigeria PHCN and the public sale of its subsidiaries. Ayeni, as the Vice Chairman of Integrated Energy Distribution and Marketing Ltd (IEDM) led this group to win the Ibadan and Yola distribution companies, the biggest distribution companies and consortium in the Nigerian power distribution/privatisation exercise, raising over $350m for this venture.

With these investments and many more, this unassuming and quiet corporate icon has emerged as a leading employer of labour in the country today; a major contributor to the nation’s economic growth.

Known for always going for the bigger pies as far as business acquisitions are concerned, recently, Ayeni and the founder of Pan African International (PAI) Group, Ike Ejizu among others, acquired Ascot Offshore Nigeria Limited for N16bn ,$95.24m from the Asset Management Corporation of Nigeria, AMCON. The deal was said to have been closed when the PAI Group paid N16bn for 95 per cent of the equity interest in Ascot. Under the deal, the group would also take over the non-statutory liabilities of Ascot while AMCON would shoulder the company’s statutory liabilities amounting to some N6bn.

“Ascot has a tax liability of N6 billion, of which AMCON will pay N3 billion to the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) while the balance will be paid to other agencies of government that Ascot owes,” a source close to the deal had said. According to him, with the sale of the fi rm, its new owners would be able to revitalise its massive fabrication yard in Port Harcourt, the Rivers State capital, and provide jobs for thousands of Nigerians.

Ascot Offshore, formerly under the leadership of Henry Imasekha, came into prominence in 2007 after its $155.25m acquisition of Willbros Group Nigeria Holdings from its US parent, Willbros Group. Willbros was forced to withdraw from Nigeria, following its indictment alongside Halliburton and others by the US Justice Department and US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for bribing Nigerian offi cials to obtain and retain $387 million in Nigeria Liquefi ed Natural Gas (NLNG) contracts.

Also, making an in-road into the telecommunications sector of the economy, last year, a group, NATCOM Consortium, which also has Ayeni as the chairman, forked out a staggering $252.25m to acquire NITEL and MTEL.

To a large extent, Ayeni, is a man with a large heart, who has touched many lives in one way or the other through his philanthropy. For instance, in 1999, he founded The Oluwatoyin Ayeni Educational Foundation. Every year, the foundation awards tertiary institution scholarships to 25 bright students from his hometown of Iyah-Gbede in Ijumu, Kogi State.

He is also a trustee of Support our Troops Foundation, a not for profi t military charity that supports and promotes the interests of the men and women of the Nigerian Armed Forces who serve home and abroad.

Perhaps, Ayeni also seems to know how to play his political cards too. He did this when he recently stunned everyone at the recent fund raiser for the second term ambition of President Goodluck Jonathan with the donation of a whopping N1bn and another N1bn “on behalf of his friends.”

The essence of this donation apparently goes beyond the huge amount Ayeni donated on behalf of himself and his friends. It will be arguably the fi rst time a top banker will be sticking out his corporate neck in the political arena in terms of donating to a political cause. While many have been doing this, it is always done behind the scene.

Though many believe that with the public donation, some investors in his bank might be worried, a source close to the corporate top player said, “contrary to the belief that he might be putting the investments of other investors in the Bank at great risk, Tunde knows what he is doing. He is not even doling out their money. He has enough on his own to do that. But beyond that, he has played his card very well. If the president comes back, as he is likely to do despite all the noise, you can imagine the political leverage Skye Bank and Tunde himself can get from that moment of ‘risk taking’? That is what big corporate players do all over the world.”

Unconfi rmed reports have it that since Ayeni made the donation, many watchers of the fi nancial sector have been wondering what the exact worth of the man is. While he is seen at social circles and corporate events, his lack of ‘presence’ in the media has not allowed many to know how ‘loaded’ he is. But the donation at the President’s fund raiser has shown many that Ayeni might be worth than many have hitherto believed.

Ayeni is a member of various professional associations, including the Nigerian Bar Association, International Bar Association and African Bar Association. He once served as Vice Chairman, Nigerian Bar Association, Ikeja branch as he was also a former Member of Council of Legal Aid Council.

In recognition of his contributions to the growth and development of the Nigerian economy, Nigeria’s Achievers University awarded Ayeni the honorary title of Doctor of Science (D.Sc.) in business administration.

Ayeni was in May 2012 honoured by the Member representing California’s 37th District in the United States of America House of Representatives with a certifi cate of Special Congressional Recognition.

In September 2014, he was made Fellow by the Institute of Directors, Nigeria and the Commander of the Order of the Niger, CON by the Federal Government.

Nigerian’s foremost indigenous quick service restaurant business and a brand under UAC Restaurants, Mrs Biggs birthed a new restaurant at the e-wing of the international airport.

In a statement released by the management of the company,the all- new- look restaurant is positioned to serve the increasing needs of international travellers at the Murtala Mohammed International Airport Lagos.

The statement further disclosed that”the new restaurant will avail travellers the opportunity to grab a fast meal before boarding their fl ights without hassles”.

It further stated” The challenge of getting affordable hygienic meal to cater for the needs of travellers has been resolved by the entrant of Mr Biggs brand at the airport. It’s our always good initiative in response to consumer needs.”

“The air was fi lled with awe and joy which was easily noticeable on the faces of the customers when informed that there is now a Mr Biggs restaurant close-by where they could easily grab a meal before boarding their fl ights. It was a welcome gesture speaking with some customers on the day of the opening”.

Meanwhile, as part of the marketing initiatives to create awareness and build customer loyalty, customers who make purchases from the opening day till the next one month will be rewarded with beautifully branded gift items.

It added ”We are very much aware that the yuletide period is setting in with its beehive of activities and the restaurant is set to relieve travelers the stress of having to plan their meals before arriving at the airport”.

Also, Mr Biggs, the children friendly brand is connecting with schools through the Mr Biggs @ school fest package this yuletide season. For just N1, 000, schools can enjoy the presence of Mr Biggs brand at their end of year parties.

All mobile network operators in the country have been mandated to include parental control measures on their network. The new directive was the result of a study conducted by the Policy, Competition & Economic Analysis Department of the Nigerian Communications Commission, NCC, to develop a policy framework on mobile parental control in line with best practices.

The regulator, in the 21 -page study, recommended that since some mobile network operators in the country have commenced the introduction of certain tariff structures that make easy for the underage to use the mobile phone and have access to the internet.

According to the NCC, the new directive is meant to provide protection to children from exposure to inappropriate online or internet contents adding that operators must create adequate awareness on the available mobile parental control measures/apps on their networks.

The study further disclosed that the NCC’s Consumers Parliament and Outreaches should feature parental control measures in telecoms for the next three quarters saying that the MNOs should educate parents and guidance on the procedure to activate the apps.

Furthermore, the NCC said operators would be encouraged to offer the mobile parental control app service for free or at very minimal cost in order to foster the uptake.

The regulator explained that parental controls within the mobile telecommunications network is the application of software and service tools that are designed to help parents and guardians monitor their children’s access to inappropriate websites and contents while using mobile phones and other smart devices.

The four chapter study titled: Parental Control Measures for Mobile Telecommunications Networks revealed four categories of parental control measures: content fi lters, which limit access to age inappropriate content; usage controls, which constrain the usage of these devices such as placing time-limits on usage or forbidding certain types of usage; monitoring, which can track location and activity when using the devices.

According to the NCC, the study revealed that majority of parents have limited awareness of mobile network parental controls with the exception of technically savvy parents understand and apply mobile parental controls stating that there is no harmonised legislation or regulation for mobile parental controls.

The regulator in its study observed that only few mobile network operators have keyed into the child on-line protection initiative guideline as provided by the International Telecommunications Union, ITU, to protect children from harmful content.

The NCC however noted that major forms of parental controls deployed by mobile operators include usage controls, content fi ltering and location/monitoring control while others have content fi lters on their network by default.

The study revealed that protecting children online is a global challenge, which requires a global approach saying that while many efforts to improve child online protection are already under way, their reach has been more national than global. For instance, the ITU launched the Child Online Protection, COP,Initiative in November 2008 as a multi-stakeholder effort within the Global Cyber security Agenda framework adding that the COP has been able promote a model national framework to assist in the development of a positive online environment for children and young people.

The COP is also said to have encouraged the creation of COP Units at national level and is developing a series of indicators to assist with the measurement of progress in implementing online child protection initiatives at global, regional, and national levels.

The NCC however, in its study observed that in Nigeria, “we presently do not have any laid down guidelines or framework for adoption and implementation of parental control measures in the Telecoms industry. This therefore gives operators in the industry the leeway to adopt whatever measures they deem fi t and at whatever cost they prescribe.”

It disclosed that amongst the four Mobile Network Operators in Nigeria, only Emerging Markets Telecommunication Services Limited, EMTS, also known as Etisalat has forwarded a tariff structure of parental control for the Commission’s approval.

Quoting the former Secretary- General of the ITU, Hamadoun I. Touré, the study said that “The revolution of mobile phones and smart devices with its applications for online communications have created tremendous opportunities for young people, but at the same time exposing the young children to new risks in cyberspace.”

Also the study said that a United Nations specialised agency for ICT Guidelines for the Industry on Child Online Protection provide advice on how the ICT industry can help promote safety for children using the Internet or any technologies or devices that can connect to it, as well as guidance on how to enable responsible digital citizenship, learning and civic participation.

The NCC stated that there are parental control measures in other developed economies of the world stating that in the United States of America all the four major operators offer parental control plans that help parents manage their children’s texting, talking and mobile web browsing usage.

According the NCC, these parental controls have the ability to block picture messaging, block unknown phone numbers, limit what time the children test or call, fi lter web browsing and track the locations of their children adding that whereas AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile offer parental controls at a fee of $4.99/9.99 per month, Sprint offers parental controls free.

While in the United Kingdom, all the mobile operators provide parental controls/ Adult Content fi lters by default just these operators partner with mobile phone manufacturer to offer services with mobile phones that have in-built parental controls tools.

Reacting to the development, President of the National Association Telecoms Subscribers, NATCOM, Deolu Ogunbanjo said that the decision for the NCC to mandate the operators to infuse parental control on their network was the right thing to do.

He said that there must be some element of value system in whatever is done in the country, particularly as it concerns us as Africans saying that a situation where everyone dumps things on the internet without a control measure for the under age is not the best for the nation.

He noted that it is essential that government institutions do everything it can to protect the country’s value