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NDSF2021: Nigeria Should Provide Digital Leadership, End Hustler Mentality -Nnenna Nwakanma

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The Chief Web Advocate at the World Wide Web Foundation, Nnenna Nwakanma, has counselled Nigerians to stop ethnic fighting and target the eight billion market space in the digital economy.

She made these call at the 2021 Nigeria DigitalSENSE Africa Forum on Internet Governance for Development (IG4D), held at the Golden Tulip Hotels Essential, International Airport Road, Lagos hosted by an award-winning ITREALMS Media under its DigitalSENSE Africa Forum series, an At-Large Structure (ALS) at the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) as part of efforts for shaping the future of the Internet.

Nwakanma who dwelt on developments on digital cooperation and effects on growing demography on African and Nigeria perspective said “Digital Cooperation is a global initiative to get all stakeholders to collaborate on key issues.”

She called on Nigeria to assume the rightful role as leader in Africa and also in the digital space in the continent, describing the nation as the number one country in Africa.

“If we are saying that Africa is the future of digital cooperation, it means that Nigeria is No. 1 in Africa, it means that Nigeria is number 1 of the future of digital cooperation,” she declared.

Nwakanma told participants at NDSF2021 via a live-broadcast, that as Nigerians, the citizens in the digital ecosystem “we need to go beyond a wailing republic. You go beyond a complaining republic. You go beyond a ‘poor hustler’ mentality. “

According to her, “What the world expected of us is leadership. What the world expected from Nigeria is digital leadership. Digital leadership is innovation, creation. You need to step away from the N100,000 or N20,000 mentality and begin to think of 8 billion, because that is the global population. That is your market. That is your field.”

The Chief Web Advocate equally charged Nigerians to stop ethnic battle and focus on a larger market of 8 billion.

“Please stop fighting the Igbo, Yoruba, Hausa, Tiv, Edo battle. We are fighting against a market of 8 billion. So please, stop fighting the little fight and take up the bigger one. Quit the hustler mentality and take up the leadership mentality,” she charged.

Nwakanma specifically made a call to the government of Nigeria that there is a lot to be done on the policy level. “There are lots to be done on digital rights respect. There are lots to be done on protecting the dignity of Nigerians in the country and online. A lot is being done already to clean up the image of Nigeria in the digital space, but we still need more to be done.

She expected that “More good stories and more billion-dollar stories; we need more innovation stories coming from Nigeria in the respect of human rights and human dignity.”

To the industry players especially technology companies, Nwakanma tasked them to ensure they work in Nigeria with the intention to innovate, create, design, build and grow; So as to grow Nigerians, the young people, to grow the market of tomorrow and leaders of tomorrow.

She stressed that they must show accountability “the same way EU citizens are being treated, I think should be the way, Nigerians have a right to be treated. We are not less human than anybody. American citizens are not more human than Nigerian citizens. The same way their data and rights are protected, the same way Nigerians should be respected and protected.”

Maintaining that Nigerian women, men, and youths “need to be safe and secure online and offline.”

Nnenna Nwakanma, is a Nigerian Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) activist, community organizer, development adviser. She worked for the United Nations for 15 years and was the Interim Policy Director for the World Wide Web Foundation before her current post as the Chief Web Advocate.

Also, she is the co-founder of the Free Software and Open Source Foundation for Africa FOSSFA, which she co-chairs. She is a former member of the board of the Open Source Initiative and served as co-founder at The Africa Network of Information Society Actors, and the African Civil Society for the Information Society. Equally, Nnenna served as a Vice President of the Digital solidarity fund and had previously worked as the Information Officer for Africa of the Helen Keller Foundation.

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Anakle Films Releases $1m Nigeria Movie,The Black Book on Netflix 

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Anakle Films has released Nigeria’s biggest-budget film to date, The Black Book, debuting on Netflix. The film, with a budget exceeding $1 million, features an ensemble cast of Africa’s most well-known actors, including Richard Mofe-Damijo, Alex Usifo, Sam Dede, Taiwo Ajayi-Lycett, Denola Grey, Shaffy Bello and Ireti Doyle.

 The Black Book delves into a fictional narrative that explores the West African country’s conflicted history, including military dictatorship, drug trafficking, and politics, through a retired hitman’s journey to seek justice.

Directed by Editi Effiong, The Black Book details the fictional story of Paul Edima, a former military and drug cartel hitman in Nigeria who cemented his legend with an unparalleled record of assassinations, coups, abductions and drug operations.

Faced with the hard choice of going back to kill a female journalist’s child whom he had spared or losing his own life, the protagonist wagers with his boss, giving up a legendary ledger called ‘The Black Book’, which details incriminating evidence against Nigeria’s corrupt elite in exchange for his life and the child.

After walking away to live a quiet life for 30 years, Edima is forced back to seek justice when his only son is killed by a gang of corrupt policemen, SARS, in an attempt to cover up the crimes of a politician’s son.

The Black Book Director Editi Effiong says, “Nigeria has a complicated but fascinating past. What we aimed to do with The Black Book was to provide historical and cultural context through a fictional, entertaining lens. Great storytelling is universal; this African story will resonate worldwide. Developing The Black Book and reimagining the Nigerian cinematic experience has been incredible; we’ve had world-class actors and the chance to incorporate amazing sets and large-scale location shoots to bring this Nigerian narrative to life.”

In a significant move, Anakle Films has acquired RMD Productions Limited, founded by Nollywood icon Richard Mofe-Damijo, who now joins the board of directors at Anakle Films. This partnership reinforces Anakle Films’ commitment to fostering talent and innovation in Africa’s film industry. This acquisition has resulted in a 14-project slate for Anakle Films, including films and television series cutting across romcom, action thriller, drama and other genres. The first of these will go into production in the first quarter of 2024.  

Richard Mofe-Damijo, who joins Anakle Films as Chairman, says: “The journey to ‘The Black Book’ was a transformative one for me, both professionally and personally. Meeting with Editi Effiong and embracing the physical and emotional demands of my role was an invigorating challenge that took me to new heights. As I step into my new position at Anakle Films, I’m excited to contribute to the growth and innovation of African storytelling. We have a rich history and vibrant culture that deserve to be shared with audiences far and wide. ‘The Black Book’ is an example of what we can achieve, and I believe it’s only the beginning of what’s to come.”

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IXPN Details  Gains Of Collaboration, Peering and Local Hosting of Content

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The Internet Exchange Point of Nigeria (IXPN), a non-for-profit and membership-based organisation, which provides a platform where networks interconnect directly within Nigeria has highlighted the benefits that come with collaboration among operators, peering in carrier and cloud-neutral data centres and the hosting of content locally in Nigeria, where it is believed does more downloads of content than uploads.

The Chief Executive Officer of IXPN, Mr. Muhammed Rudman highlighted these benefits to stakeholders at an exclusive peering workshop, which was organized by IXPN and Africa Data Centres (ADC) in collaboration with Workonline Communications.

According to Muhammed, there is a lack of collaboration between the various operators in the ecosystem, which has led to duplication of infrastructure and ultimately, high cost of services for the end-users.

“There is a lot of fragmentation in the industry. Despite the Nigerian Communications Commission’s framework for infrastructure sharing, industry players do not collaborate that is why we have duplication of infrastructure which are supposed to be shared,” he told Journalists on the sideline of the forum.

He noted that if industry players collaborate, it will bring down operational costs and capital expenditure.

Speaking on what peering in a carrier and cloud-neutral data centres will bring to the industry and the Nigerian economy in general, Mr. Muhammed who is the immediate past President of the Nigeria Internet Registration Association (NIRA), said peering between Internet Exchange Point and a carrier/cloud-neutral data centres will enhance connections for citizens and organisations alike, and help the economy to thrive.

“Peering through internet exchanges addresses the challenges of traffic by ensuring the shortest possible route is used to reach a given destination. It keeps traffic as local as possible, which improves performance and enables faster connections between networks, facilitating high-speed data transfer, lower latency, increased bandwidth and improved fault tolerance,” he said.

According to him, local hosting of content is a driver for economic growth, stressing that money paid to foreign hosting companies constitutes capital flight, puts more strain on Nigeria’s foreign earnings and slows the growth of local data centers and delays the development of new ones.

He also explained that hosting locally provides additional revenue opportunities to local ISPs and data centers which in turn creates more job and technical competencies.  “Local content hosted abroad has higher latency than if hosted locally – over 1000%. But hosting it locally in any of the data centres has a direct and indirect impact on the economy – Job Creation, Tax, a platform for other IT professionals,” he argued.

The implications for businesses who hosted their content abroad are numerous; it affects business continuity, it comes with lower support level and poor update cycles because of conflicting working hours/ this is even as a study shows that a second-long delay causes a 7% drop in conversions, an 11% drop in page views and a 16% drop in customer satisfaction.

Meanwhile, as a way of addressing some of the challenges in the ecosystem, IXPN had organized a free Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) training for network engineers across Nigeria as part of her planned capacity-building programme for its increasing members and commitment towards improving the internet ecosystem in the country.

The training was held at the organisation’s corporate headquarter in Lagos, where Muhammed Rudamn explained that Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) is a gateway protocol that enables the internet to exchange routing information between autonomous systems (AS).

 “We want to empower members of the Internet eXchange Point of Nigeria (IXPN) with the rudiments and workings of Border Gateway Protocol (BGP), which is important to us as a one-stop peering point for service and content providers,” he emphasized.

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NCC Disowns Fake LinkedIn Account of Prof. Danbatta  

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The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has been made aware of a fake LinkedIn account that is being attributed to our Executive Vice Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Prof Umar Garba Danbatta.

We wish to categorically state that the said LinkedIn account is fake and has no affiliation with the NCC or Prof Danbatta.

We, therefore, urge the public to be wary of any communication or connection request from this fake LinkedIn account, as it is being operated by fraudulent individuals, who may be seeking to defraud unsuspecting members of the public.

We wish to use this opportunity to remind the public that it is important to verify the authenticity of any online account, especially when such accounts claim to belong to public figures or organizations. We advise the public to only connect with verified and official accounts of the NCC and its officials.

We take this opportunity to warn those behind this fake LinkedIn account that they are engaging in criminal activities, and we will not hesitate to take legal action against them if they are caught. We remain committed to protecting the public from online fraud and ensuring a safe and secure online environment.

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