How 6 Finalists Will Emerge from FirstBank’s Sponsored The Voice Nigeria Season 3 Second Live Show
By Israel Bolaji
Six finalists are expected to emerge through the viewers votes following the second live show of the FirstBank Sponsored The Voice Nigeria Season 3.
UN1TY Limited and Livespot360, producers of the global talents reality series, explained how to vote on the voice Nigeria season 3, sponsored by FirstBank, Baba Ijebu and Airtel.
To keep their favourite vocalists on the show, viewers have to dial *894*7*talent’s code#.
To know the voting code of your preferred contestant to save, visit the Bank’s official Instagram handle and get voting:
The International talents reality series designed to discover and harness music talents in Nigeria is in its third season in Nigeria. Scores of vocalists have performed on the highly competitive show but dropped out going through the Auditions, Blinds, Knockouts, Battles and Live Shows stages.
With an electrifying mix of pulsating musical performances, music training, glamorous fashion and life enriching entertainment, the The Voice Nigeria 3 continues to glitter to the very grand finale
Voting opens on Saturday at 9:00pm and closes at 11:59pm on Thursdays.
Lead show sponsor, FirstBank in a statement by its Group Head, Marketing and Corporate Communications, Folake Ani-Mumuney, reiterated that The Voice Nigeria 3 is a Reality TV show designed to discover and promote talented singers to actualise their dreams of becoming international stars which aligns with FirstBank’s commitment to providing a platform for nurturing and showcasing talents and driving social cohesion.
So what are you waiting for, get voting so your favourite is among the six victorious vocalists with the highest votes that would be expected to perform selected songs and keep hope alive for the grand finale as they face the third live show by the weekend.
HOW CUSTOMERS’ INCREASED TRUST IN FIRSTBANK’S *894# USSD BANKING CAN BOOST THE FINANCIAL INCLUSION DRIVE
The path to financial inclusion holds different marketplace barriers and opportunities in different countries, but the push continues because of proof that an increase in economic activities among the financially vulnerable can reawaken a comatose economy. For Nigeria, the last three years have seen significant growth of the financial inclusion rate from 56.8% in 2016 to 63.2% in 2018. FirstBank’s *894# USSD banking service is playing a key role in it.
FirstBank’s *894# USSD banking initiative is already averaging about 99 million transactions monthly, with a naira worth of (N’m) 370,543 on these transactions. This figure includes the undergraduate doing a mobile airtime recharge; the trader receiving a mobile payment from a customer; the IT person hurriedly buying a data bundle to keep business afloat; the anxious father paying his daughter’s hospital bills for treatment to commence, and the busy worker in Lagos transferring money to his parents in the village since he cannot get to a banking hall.
This is just a rough sampling of the financial transactions that amounted to over N3.6 trillion in transaction value on the *894# USSD banking service in 2020. There is practically no financial emergency that the USSD service does not come in.
The problems that the *894# USSD service from FirstBank of Nigeria Limited is solving is the only justification for the rapid traction it has gained since it was introduced in 2015. It is easy to see Nigerians trust and confidence in the USSD system, with the Bank rapidly growing from 9.5 million customers on the USSD feature to 12.26 million customers within the last year. Over 1.02 million of the figure, are customers who registered in the first 6 months of 2021.
The first and perhaps the most attractive feature of USSD banking has got to be that it can be done from any kind of phone and without any form of internet connectivity. Although smartphones are getting more common, there is still a high poverty rate and many financially vulnerable people who cannot access internet banking. The internet penetration in Nigeria is still below the ideal, so users have to deal with poor internet connections in some areas.
That is why this kind of banking service that can be accessed without internet connectivity is ideal for the financial inclusion drive. The *894# USSD feature can be used across the four major GSM network operators in the country, meaning there is no added demand on the users.
Getting started on the service is as easy as dialling *894*0#, and creating a pin. With that done, you can do airtime and data purchase for yourself and other parties, transfer funds to other accounts, make a BVN enquiry, check your account balance and get a mini statement.
For non-customers, this feature allows you to open a bank account in a couple of minutes without having to visit the banking hall. You can open a bank account, receive your account number immediately and start transactions on it right away. The claims of “instant banking, anytime, anywhere” can’t get more real than this.
There is even an added security step, requesting a second-factor authentication (2FA) for transfers above N20,000 as a way to secure customers from being ripped off their funds. There is a cumulative maximum daily transfer limit of N100,000 to both FirstBank and other banks accounts.
Onyeali-Ikpe’s Seven Point Agenda: Building A Future-Ready Fidelity Bank
John C. Maxwell, an American author and speaker, is a widely acknowledged thought leader. Maxwell asserts in one of his most famous quotes, which encapsulates the true essence of leadership, “The pessimist complains about the wind. The optimist expects it to change. The leader adjusts the sails”.
Fidelity Bank CEO, Mrs. Nneka Onyeali-Ikpe is leading the financial institution through a significant evolution of business culture with the primary objective of improving operational efficiency and expanding market share. Mrs. Onyeali-Ikpe is adjusting “the sails” to ensure that her colleagues at Fidelity Bank have the wind at their backs as they work toward common goals and individual successes.
Currently, Nneka Onyeali-Ikpe has her sights fixed on positioning the bank as one of Nigeria’s leading financial institutions, which leverages automation and robotics to replace manual and repetitive processes. The global lockdown caused by the Covid-19 pandemic was a messenger unlike any other, signaling that Nigeria’s traditional and over-the-counter banking systems are no longer viable.
Since assuming office in January 1 2021, the bank’s first female CEO and MD, has outlined a seven-point agenda to move the bank further in its quest to become a tier-1 bank that is well-positioned to outlive the competition and serve well into the future.
Overview and timeline
Fidelity Bank’s seven-point agenda focuses on brand architecture, brand building and refresh, talent development and transformation, product and service delivery, agility and performance discipline, digital transformation, and regulatory compliance.
In accordance with this, here are the bank’s strategies for ensuring that it attains its objectives:
1. The bank intends to embark on an Innovation Drive through the implementation of new processes, techniques. The bank is also executing fresh ideas to ensure continuous process improvement, reduce cost to serve, increase competitiveness, improve brand recognition and value, build new partnerships and relationships, drive turnover, and increase profitability.
2. Brand refresh with the aim to increase top-of-mind awareness of the Fidelity brand by external and internal stakeholders.
3. Workforce Transformation to create a future readily supported by a high performing and empowered workforce. This will be achieved by deepening the skills and competencies of staff across the bank, entrenching a culture of high performance, and embedding new ways of working in the bank. So far, the commencement of capacity building training for staff and senior management training are some of the initiatives implemented.
4. Service Excellence which is intended to build brand loyalty through personalized and seamless customer experience delivery. This is already underway with the award-winning virtual assistant IVY. This revolutionary chatbot handles simple tasks like account opening to complex tasks such as complaint resolution, bill payment, transferring users to a live agent, loans, fixed deposit applications, and answering random questions.
5. Digital Transformation involves an end-to-end digitization across all facets of the business. In line with this, the bank has launched a novel digital service —Pay Yourself —which revolutionized payday for salary earners and SMEs.
6. Performance Discipline to ensure focus on strong fundamentals, asset quality, and strategic cost management. Initiatives already carried out in this regard include;
– The Policy Familiarization Program —a capacity-building project geared towards building a knowledgeable and versatile staff network/raising subject matter experts in all business areas that kicked off in March.
– The One Culture Project- which was initiated to reinforce enabling behaviours and value systems towards fulfilling the bank’s goals
– Project Alpha- aimed at helping the bank develop a robust and holistic learning and development framework for all staff.
7. Accelerated Growth which will drive aggressive market penetration and business diversification. This will be achieved through deeper penetration in key retail markets.
Other initiatives geared towards deepening growth include by the Onyeali-Ikpe led management includes; accelerated play in the SME segment, renewal of institutional banking, and drive for transaction-based propositions in corporate banking.
With this seven pronged agenda, Onyeali-Ikpe led Fidelity Bank is well on its way to leading the sector while revolutionizing Nigeria’s financial landscape.
Buhari govt crippling Nigeria, debt now N33trn from N12trn in 2015 – Moghalu
Former Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Deputy Governor, Kingsley Moghalu has expressed concern at the rate Nigeria’s public debt increased in the last six years under the President Muhammadu Buhari administration.
Moghalu raised the alarm that Nigeria is now a dangerous, debt-induced fiscal cliff and accused the federal government of mortgaging the future of the youth.
“We have to stop further borrowing and start to manage the current obligations in order to avoid a sovereign debt default or, at best, a costly restructuring. Further borrowing will lead to a disastrous debt bubble bust”, he warned in a statement.
The presidential candidate of the Young Progressives Party (YPP) in the 2019 election said from $10.31billion at the end of June 2015, the total external debt increased to $32.85billion as at March 2021.
The Professor complained the total outstanding public debt stock increased by 173 percent in the same period, from N12.11trillion to N33.10trillion.
Noting that on the average, over N3.6trillion is being added to the public debt annually, the expert observed infrastructure investment used to justify it have grossly under-performed.
The ex-CBN chief said under a coordinated economic policy by a competent government, the debt capital outlay would have catalyzed private sector investments and sizeable foreign direct investment (FDI) flows into the economy.
He insisted public-private partnerships should be the dominant approach to infrastructure development in Nigeria, not contract awards that, from information available on projects in Ghana and Ethiopia, are “overvalued”.
The economist regretted that in the real situation of the incompetence of the government since 2015, businesses have been groaning and FDI inflows have decreased.
Moghalu said instead of delivering economic growth, the economy has been twice in recession, and when out of it, growth has been underwhelming at 2 percent.
His statement lamented how the national unemployment rate increased to 33.1 percent while youth unemployment has reached 42.5 percent in a few years.
Moghalu urged the government to focus on increasing domestic revenue, by expanding the tax base – not by increasing rates as has been done with the value added tax (VAT) – and by introducing reforms for ease of paying taxes while abolishing multiple taxation.
Media entrepreneur and popular blogger Linda Ikeji , said she was motivated to partner with Ecobank on her “Selfmade Woman” initiative because of the bank’s various women friendly programmes, stressing that many individuals, especially women who own small businesses are supported by the bank to succeed. “When I conceive the idea of self-made women empowerment conference, Ecobank was the first bank I thought about because I love how much they are into women empowerment.
They have a lot of programmes, a lot of platforms internally to help women in business. They are really into helping women reach their full potentials. Fortunately, when I met with them and told them what I wanted to do, they immediately said yes to me, and they have been fully involved and here we are today. Ecobank today is my bank of choice”.
Linda Ikeji who spoke at the “2021 Selfmade Woman Conference”, her women empowerment initiative testified that Ecobank Nigeria as a female friendly is helping women achieve their dreams and full potentials. On why she initiate the Selfmade Women Conference Linda Ikeji said “I am very passionate about women succeeding and it was very important for me to put something together as a platform where successful women would meet and mentor those aspiring to be successful.
My purpose for doing this is to hopefully encourage more women to believe in themselves, encourage more women to fight for their dreams, encourage more women to know that there is absolutely nothing that they can’t achieve. I want them to hear stories of women who have achieved great feats, women who have broken tables and know that it’s possible for them to break through all these barriers, believe in themselves, see people like myself, Tara Durotoye and other women who have done amazingly well. Getting a women friendly bank like Ecobank to partner me is heartwarming”.
Also speaking, Founder, House of Tara, Tara Fela-Durotoye, applauded Ecobank for supporting women initiatives. She observed that partnering with young women and young entrepreneurs would go a long way to empowering women to play greater role in families.” I appreciate Ecobank’s various empowerment initiatives to support women and we can see the results. My advice to the bank is to sustain the initiatives”. This was the view of several other speakers which included
In his keynote address, Managing Director, Ecobank Nigeria, Patrick Akinwuntan, said the decision to partner with Linda Ikeji Selfmade Woman Conferencealigns with the bank’s empowerment policy for women. He noted that Ecobank recognizes women as the bedrock of most families and entrepreneurship in the society, stating that to succeed as a nation, it is imperative to recognize women’s unique potentials and support them sufficiently.Akinwuntan who was represented by Head, Consumer Banking, Korede Demola-Adeniyi reiterated that Ecobank remains a women friendly bank and have been playing the role, stressing that, the bank has many initiatives and innovative products targeted at empowering female entrepreneurs in the country.
“We have many women centred empowerment programmes such as the Ecobank Female Entrepreneurs’ Initiative (EFEI) which is designed to empower, and support women owned small-scale businesses. Under this initiative, there is special loan package where prospective female entrepreneurs could easily access credit facility with interest rates as low as 1 per cent. Through EFEI, we have trained many female business owners on digital marketing skills in our state-of-the-art Academy and have also organized capacity building workshop for them. We also have another women empowerment programme “Ellevate” for women in Business; this will be publicly launched across the country in July. With Ellevate, we want to ensure we raise and recognize our women for the significant role they have always played to ensure a better society for us all.” He said.
Further, the Ecobank Nigeria Managing Director said examples of the bank’s support to women entrepreneur includes “our long-standing partnership with Tera Kulture, that is Bolanle Austen Peters who has come out with various movies such as ‘Bling Lagosians’, ‘Moremi The Musical’, ‘Fela and the Kalakuta Queens,’ ‘The Oluronbi Musical’ and others. Recently, we also supported ‘The Wait’, a movie inspired by the popular book from renowned lawyer and entrepreneur, Yewande Zaccheaus. We are currently working with the Ogun state government to promote the Adire industry which is also primarily women driven. In the agric industry, we have supported the Anchor borrowers programme of the CBN across the six regions of the country to reach out to farmers, especially the women folk to support them financially to increase their farm size and yield capacity through the introduction of new techniques.”
The 2021 Selfmade Women conference attracted over 3000 female participants both online and at a physical event. The Linda Ikeji Selfmade Woman Conference was borne out of passion to see women succeed. it is a platform for women who want to achieve success to meet those who have already achieved success. The all-female event attracted many speakers and wide audience including potential and established women entrepreneurs, businesswomen and students. The Linda Ikeji Self-Made Woman debuted in 2013, as an advocacy project with the sole aim to mentor and provide financial empowerment to young female entrepreneurs or aspiring ones. it is essentially to build stronger economies and improve the quality of life for women, men, families and communities.
Managing Director/CEO, Fidelity Bank PLC. Mrs. Nneka Onyeali-Ikpe was in Abuja on Thursday June 17, 2021 when Air Peace Airline took delivery of the first of 13 brand new E195-E2 directly from Embraer facility in São José dos Campos, Brazil. The new aircraft with registration number 5N-BYF, named Helen Ekwusi Onyema, touched down at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja at about 2.00 pm and was greeted with a water salute by men of the Fire service department of the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria, FAAN.
The Managing Director, Ecobank Nigeria, Patrick Akinwuntan has said the decision to partner with the media entrepreneur and blogger, Linda Ikeji to host the latest edition of her yearly popular empowerment programme, ‘Selfmade Woman Conference (SMWC) 2021’ is in line with the bank’s empowerment policy for women, stressing that the challenges facing the nation has made it more imperative to recognize the potentials in women and develop it.
According to Mr Akinwuntan, Ecobank recognizes women as the bedrock of most families and entrepreneurship in society, and if we must succeed as a nation, it is imperative that we recognize their unique potentials and support them sufficiently.
“Our decision to support Linda Ikeji conference aligns with our women empowerment policy. As a bank, we have been playing a leading role in this respect. Like you know, we have a long standing partnership with Tera Kulture, that is Bolanle Austen Peters who has come out with various movies such as ‘Bling Lagosians’, ‘Moremi The Musical’, ‘Fela and the Kalakuta Queens,’ ‘The Oluronbi Musical’ and others. Recently, we also supported ‘The Wait’, a movie inspired by the popular book from renowned lawyer and entrepreneur, Yewande Zaccheaus.
We are also currently working with the Ogun state government to promote the Adire industry which is also primarily women driven. In the agric industry, we have supported the Anchor borrowers programme of the Central Bank of Nigeria across the six regions of the country to reach out to farmers, especially the women folk to support them financially to increase their farm size and yield capacity through the introduction of new techniques. Let me also add that Ecobank has a women empowerment programme “Ellevate” for women in Business; this will be publicly launched across the country in July. With Ellevate, we want to ensure we raise and recognize our women for the significant role they have always played to ensure a better society for us all”.
The Linda Ikeji Self-Made Woman, which debuted in 2013, is an advocacy project with the sole aim to mentor and provide financial empowerment to young female entrepreneurs or aspiring ones. it is essentially to build stronger economies and improve the quality of life for women, men, families and communities. Speakers for this year’s conference scheduled for Saturday, June 19th at the Federal Palace Hotel, Victoria Island, include Tara Durotoye, renowned beauty and make-up entrepreneur; Dr. Ola Brown, Founder of the Flying Doctors Healthcare Investment Company; and Dr. Nancy Nnadi, Serial Entrepreneur & CEO of Telecom Distribution Company. They will provide actionable strategies and hope to women who would like to start their own businesses, enhance their impact in various industries or broaden their creative roles in traditional industries.
Other guest speakers will include Tomie Balogun, Investment Expert & Fin-tech Entrepreneur; Sola Adesakin, Finance Coach & Chartered Accountant; Kemi Adetiba, Film Maker and content creator; and TV star Dorathy Bachor.
FirstBank of Nigeria Limited announces its lead sponsorship of the movie titled ‘Ayinla’, which is billed to premiere on Sunday, 13 June 2020.
The movie is suspense-driven, narrating the life of Ayinla Yusuf, popularly known as Ayinla Omowura (an Apala musician), his rise to fame, his identity, the depth of his craft and music, and the basis for his relevance after his tragic death forty years ago as a result of a stab from his manager, Bayewu, during a bar fight on the 6th of May, 1980 in Abeokuta.
Ayinla is directed by multiple award-winning and globally acclaimed Nigerian filmmaker and director, Tunde Kelani, and produced by Jadesola Osiberu.
According to Tunde Kelani, filmmaker and founder, Mainframe Opomulero Productions,” the making of Ayinla allows us to throw a glance over our shoulders to our often-neglected intangible heritage. Nigeria is blessed with huge cultural diversity and locked away are thousands of stories we can share with a global audience.
FirstBank’s partnership with us at this stage is not a mere coincidence, owing to its over hundred years of historical contribution in unlocking the huge potentials in Nigeria which can offer continental and global audiences”.
With the sponsorship of similar socio-cultural initiatives in the creative arts industry like Moremi, Makaliki, Oba Esugbayi stage drama, October 1st (a movie) and the Calabar Festival. The Bank’s sponsorship of ‘Ayinla’ affirms the Bank’s support for the development of arts in Nigeria under its First@arts initiative.
First@arts is FirstBank’s platform for consolidating all its efforts in the arts, supporting the entire value chain of the creative arts, providing much-needed financing and advisory support, showcasing and facilitating the successes of the industry, and enabling customers to explore and access the wealth of opportunities the creative industry has to offer.
Achieving these and a host of many others have been implemented through strategic partnerships with organizations like the British Council, Duke of Shomolu Productions, Live Theatre Lagos, Freedom Park, Terra Kulture, and the Cross Rivers State Government (Calabar Festival), amongst many others.
Ayinla appeals to a multifaceted audience that cuts across fans of highlife and afrobeat music, the youth, and the elite Yoruba demography. It features some of Nollywood’s favorite stars including Adedimeji Lateef who played the role of Ayinla Omowura, Kunle Afolayan, Bimbo Ademoye, Mr. Macaroni, Omowunmi Dada, Ade Laoye, Jumoke Otedola, and Bimbo Manuel.
Speaking on the movie, Jadesola Osiberu, Movie Producer & Founder, Greoh Studios said, “Working with the great Tunde Kelani is something I have wanted to do for a long time, and I am so glad that we were able to do it on a project like Ayinla. This collaboration was an interesting experience, and I am glad everyone finally gets to see the film we made in the cinemas nationwide from 18 June 2021. I’d like to thank the management of First Bank of Nigeria Limited for choosing to come on this journey with us.”
Expressing her delight on the movie, Folake Ani-Mumuney, Group Head, Marketing & Corporate Communications, FirstBank said; “For over 127 years, FirstBank has been at the forefront of nation-building; enabling Nigeria and Nigerians through resourceful partnerships to build the Nigerian creative industry value chain, especially the arts and entertainment sub-sectors. We remain proud of this sponsorship that creates an excellent platform to showcase Nigeria to the world as being part of a collective goal to continually keep dreams and hope alive; holding strong to our commitment to reignite cultural heritage.”
“Without a doubt, the movie industry remains part of the creative and entertainment industry value-chain across the globe and indeed a powerful channel to drive our heritage and culture, which resonates with our legacy of being woven into the fabric of society.”
According to research disclosed in PWC’s recent Entertainment & Media Outlook report, Nigeria’s entertainment is expected to rise from $4.46 billion in 2018 to a $10.5 billion market by the end of 2023. In addition, with this initiative and other sponsored event, FirstBank is committed to strengthening its contribution to the development of the entertainment industry in the country.
While the age-old saying and philosophy of virtue being its own reward (or seeing doing good has its own reward) remains a strong motivating factor in doing good persistently, it helps when virtue gets recognition from time to time. Even though anyone or organisation committed to doing good will keep doing so with or without recognition, recognitions for virtue tend to act like a catalyst for such people or organisations, spurring them to commit even more to doing good, such is the story of Dr Adeduntan.
The recent award of “Retail Banking CEO of the Year Nigeria” to Dr Adesola Adeduntan, CEO of First Bank of Nigeria Limited, is to both him and the bank he leads a shot in the arm of this foremost CEO of Nigeria’s most enduring financial institution that is also the pioneer in retail banking development in Nigeria, the premier bank in West Africa and the leading financial inclusion services provider in Nigeria for over 127 years, to keep steering the bank in the right direction, energising and expanding retail opportunities for all Nigerians in the process. It is a well-deserved recognition for a man and the institution he leads that would rather keep off the spotlight and focus exclusively on attending to Nigerians’ banking needs as best as they can – which is what has kept them going for 127 years and counting.
This critical role is one FirstBank is better suited to lead than any other lender given the robust retail banking framework that the bank has in place, that is riding on its innovative technology-driven operations, over 750 branches across the continents and 100,000 Firstmonie Agent banking network spread across 772 local government areas in Nigeria. It is little wonder that FirstBank, which is intricately woven into the fabric of the Nigerian society, has been an essential player in the retail space, empowering Nigerians of all walks of life by providing them bespoke and innovative financial products and services that address their multidimensional needs. The bank has been at the forefront of bridging the financial exclusion gap and enabling customers and the general public to carry out both individual and corporate financial activities which contribute to the growth and development of the national economy.
The award by Global Banking and Finance Magazine, according to Dr Adeduntan, “speak[s] to the investments we [as FirstBank] have made over the past years in…enhancing financial inclusion….” It is a loud testament to the incredible strides FirstBank has made and continues to make in the retail space under the able and dynamic leadership of the management team led by Dr Adeduntan.
The strides are in turn underpinned by the bank’s resolute commitment to putting the customer and other stakeholders at the heart of its business. Dr Adeduntan reiterates this view when he wasted no time in dedicating the award to all the bank’s “customers, as the trust they reposed in us being their bank of first choice in meeting their business and financial needs has been instrumental to the success we have achieved in our existence of over 127 years.” “We remain committed,” he continued, “to putting you, our customers, first as we contribute to the growth and development of our host communities.”
Organised to identify the banks across the world that have excelled across a number of areas, including corporate governance, sustainability and innovation, and have played a key role in the industry’s growth, the Global Banking and Finance Awards reflect the innovation, achievement, strategy, progressive and inspirational changes taking place within the global financial community. The awards were created to accord recognition to companies of all sizes which are prominent in their areas of expertise and excellence within the financial world. For Dr Adeduntan and FirstBank, the award is further proof of FirstBank’s enduring commitment to providing excellent retail banking services to all its customers as reflected in the bank’s strategic vision, diverse and inclusive workforce and performance-oriented organisational structure.
The Managing Director, Ecobank Nigeria, Patrick Akinwuntan has said the bank will support the establishment of agriculture technology hubs across the country, stressing that it will further generate activities in the entire value chain and also provide a base for exporting agriculture technology services to other parts of the Africa.Mr. Akinwuntan who was speaking at the 2nd edition of the Ecobank Agribusiness virtual Summit organised in association with Vanguard Economic Forum Series with the theme: “Digitizing the agricultural value chain for unlocking productivity, economic growth and food security”, said he “finds the idea of agriculture tech hub quite exciting. I can directly say Ecobank will support this initiative because it brings the efficiency of a solution factory that is not only available in Nigeria but can also be a base for exporting agric-technology services to drive agriculture in the whole of Africa. I put Ecobank forward as a partner to bring this to reality. “
Earlier, the Co-Founder, Corporate Farmers International, Mr Akin Alabi had disclosed that his organization has initiated an agric technology hub to attract youths participation in the agric sector, noting that access to technology and innovations will further drive activities in that segment of the economy. “We have developed a big platform, called a hub to serve both government and private institutions. The hub is generating interests and solutions. And now, we are in partnership with Lagos and Kebbi state governments. We are also working with series of agricenterprenures in the country. We have also used the power of technology, mobile phones to bring agric products from the farm gate to the market. We need the support of the private sector to develop the agric tech hub. A lot of Fintech hubs are developing different solutions, we also need that in the agric space. In Nigeria today, we can use digitalization to change the narrative and get younger ones to be interested in agriculture. At corporate farmers, we also created an e-learning academy during the covid 19 lockdown to bridge the gap between agriculture and education”. He stated.
In his contribution, the Vice President, Nigeria Agricbusiness Group (NABG), Emmanuel Ijewere noted that digitization in agriculture must be brought to the actual people in the field who might not be well educated, noting that through technology one can buy food from vendors from wherever they are in any part of the country. Further, Mr Ijewere noted that we can build a warehouse and make them efficient with the support of technology. According to him “Commodity exchanges cannot thrive unless the goods are there. How we move these goods with the support of digitization and enabling us provide a sufficient market is very strategic”.
The 2nd edition of the Ecobank Agribusiness Summit organised in association with Vanguard Economic Forum Series had its primary content objective to discuss the role of technology and digitisation across the agricultural value chain. The virtual summit had strategic partners such as the Nigeria Incentive-Based Risk Sharing System for Agricultural Lending (NIRSAL) and Nigeria Agribusiness Group (NABG). The speakers and panelists included Kenton Dashiell, Deputy Director-General, Partnership for Delivery, at International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA); Aliyu Abdulhameed, MD/CEO, NIRSAL; Ndidi Nwuneli, Co-founder/Managing Partner, Sahel Partner; Akin Alabi, Co-founder, Corporate Farmers International and Ayodeji Balogun, Country CEO, AFEX Commodities Exchange.
This virtual conference is part of Ecobank’s Digital Series which is in line with the bank’s vision to consolidate a modern Pan-African market, contribute to the economic development and financial integration of the continent. The summit examined the potential impact of agriculture technology investment in fixing low productivity in Nigeria’s food production; evaluate existing traditional agriculture finance models in Nigeria and the role and impact of technology-enabled commodity exchange trading across the agriculture value chain amongst others.
