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MainOne, a leading provider of submarine cable systems, has revealed that the repair process for its damaged submarine cable may take up to five weeks.

The company disclosed this in a statement on Friday following a fault experienced on its network on Thursday.

Preliminary investigations conducted by the company have attributed the fault to an external incident, resulting in a cut along the West African coast, offshore Cote D’Ivoire, in the Atlantic Ocean.

The outage had significant negative impacts, particularly on Nigerian banks, as MainOne serves as a prominent internet provider for some of them.

The disruption left numerous major Nigerian banks offline, causing inconvenience to customers who were unable to access banking apps or utilise USSD services.

The company does not only support commercial and microfinance institutions with connectivity and hybrid cloud solutions. It also provides services to major telecom operators, ISPs, government agencies, small to large enterprises, and educational institutions.

MainOne has reassured its customers of its dedicated efforts to expedite the repair process and promptly restore network connectivity.

The technology firm revealed that it had a maintenance agreement with the Atlantic Cable Maintenance and Repair Agreement to provide repair services for its submarine cable.

The repair procedure involves inspecting and testing the cable joints for defects, followed by lowering the cable back to the seabed and guiding it to an optimal position.

It further explained that the process, which includes mobilising a vessel to retrieve necessary parts from Europe and transit to West Africa, is estimated to take approximately five weeks to complete.

The statement read in part, “We have a maintenance agreement with Atlantic Cable Maintenance and Repair Agreement to provide repair services for the submarine cable. First, identify and assign a vessel, the vessel has to retrieve the necessary spares required for repair, and then sail to the fault location to conduct the repair work.

“Next, in order to complete the repair, the affected section of the submarine cable will have to be pulled from the seabed onto the ship where it will be spliced by skilled technicians. Post repair, joints will be inspected and tested for any defects, and then the submarine cable is lowered back to the seabed and guided to a good position.

“This process might take 1-2 weeks for repairs while about 2-3 weeks of transit time may be required for the vessel to pick up the spares and travel from Europe to West Africa once the vessel is mobilised,.”.

Most submarine cable faults occur as a result of human activities such as fishing and anchoring in shallow waters near shore, natural hazards such as earthquakes, landslides, and then equipment failure

MainOne stated that given the distance from land, and the cable depth of about 3 km at the point of fault, any kind of human activity – ship anchors, fishing, and drilling among others had been immediately ruled out.

“Our preliminary analysis would suggest some form of seismic activity on the seabed resulted in a break to the cable, but we will obtain more data when the cable is retrieved during the repair exercise,” the operator said.

President Bola Tinubu has appointed Mrs. Zubaida Umar as the Director-General of the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA).

Umar’s appointment was contained in a statement on Friday evening by Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, Ajuri Ngelale.

“President Bola Tinubu has approved the appointment of Mrs. Zubaida Umar as the Director-General of the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA),” the statement read.

“Mrs. Umar is the first woman to be appointed as Director-General of this pivotal agency, and her appointment further underlines the President’s avowed commitment to gender inclusion.

“The new Director-General of NEMA has over 20 years of work experience in diverse fields, including Human Resources, and Finance and Administration. She is a member of the Chartered Institute of Bankers and the Institute of Credit Administration.

“She holds ACCA certifications in Public Financial Management and Digital & Sustainability Financing.

“As Executive Director, Finance and Corporate Services at the Federal Mortgage Bank, Mrs. Umar drove the strategy and repositioning of the bank and successfully facilitated the transformation of the institution into a modern, digitized mortgage and financial service provider.

“The President expects that the new Director-General will bring the much-needed financial and operational discipline and refashion the agency into a performance-driven and proactive emergency response provider with a focus on prevention and climate change readiness in the execution of its core mandate,” it added.

In what could be described as a drama and a show of physical strength.

A senator of the All Progressives Congress has challenged troops of the Nigerian Army to push-up exercise.

Watch the video below….

Ghana High Commissioner to Nigeria, Ambassador Rawhide Bawa, has been confirmed dead.

He was 65 years old.

Leading reporters understands that Bawa died in Abuja, Nigeria’s capital city, on Thursday.

His remains have since been flown back to Ghana for burial in accordance with Islamic rites.

More to follow…

Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, FCT, Nyesom Wike has appointed Hon Chidi Amadi as his Chief of Staff.

A statement signed by the FCTA Director of Press,Tony Ogunleye, said that Amadi has vast experience in public service and has held several strategic political positions, including PDP Chairman of Obio /Akpor Local Government Area and Chief of Staff to the Governor of Rivers State.

As Chief of Staff, the statement said that Amadi will play a pivotal role in supporting the FCT Minister in the formulation and execution of policies and programs aimed at advancing the development agenda of the FCT and will provide strategic guidance as well as ensuring the smooth functioning of the Minister’s office.

“He will be sworn into office on Monday, March 18, 2024,” the statement added.

Inflationary pressure in Nigeria has continued on a rise with the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) data showing that headline inflation rate increased to 31.70% relative to the January 2024 headline inflation rate which was 29.90%.

That implies that in February 2024, the rate of increase in the average price level was more than the rate of increase in the average price level in January 2024.

The February 2024 inflation rate showed an increase of 1.80% points when compared to the January 2024 headline inflation rate.

On a year-on-year basis, the headline inflation rate was 9.79% points higher compared to the rate recorded in February 2023, which was 21.91%.

According to the latest NBS figure released on Friday, the headline inflation rate increased in the month of February 2024 when compared to the same month in the preceding year (February 2023).

On a month-on-month basis, the headline inflation rate in February 2024 was 3.12%, which was 0.48% higher than the rate recorded in January 2024 (2.64%).

President Bola Tinubu has appointed Temitope Ilori as the new Director General of the National Agency For The Control of AIDS.

Dr. Ilori, who is the first female to be appointed the Director-General of the agency began her initial term of four years on February 22, 2024.

The Head of Public Relations and Protocol of NACA, Toyin Aderibigbe made this known in a press statement made available on Thursday.

Dr. Ilori took over from her predecessor, Dr Gambo Aliyu, who was the DG of the agency from June 2019 till February 2024.

Up until her appointment, Dr. Ilori was a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Community Medicine, University of Ibadan, and a Consultant Family Physician in the Department of Family Medicine, University College Hospital, Ibadan.

“Dr Ilori obtained her MBBS degree from the University of Ibadan and had her residency training at the University College Hospital, Ibadan, Nigeria. She graduated as the best graduating Fellow of the Faculty of Family Medicine, West African College of Physicians in April 2012 winning the A.O. Senbanjo Prize. She is also an Associate Fellow of the National Postgraduate Medical College of Nigeria.

“Dr Ilori has a Bachelor of Science and a Master of Science Degree in Human Nutrition and Dietetics from the University of Ibadan, Nigeria. She is a PhD Fellow at the Department of Family Medicine and Primary Care, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Witwatersrand, South Africa sponsored by the Consortium for Advanced Research Training in Africa. Her areas of research interest include Primary Care, Immunization, Public Health Nutrition, Non-Communicable Diseases, and Women’s and Child’s Health. She is a prolific researcher who has co-authored over 30 publications in peer-reviewed scientific journals.

“She has been involved in policy formulation and strategic development. She was a Commissioner for Health, Osun State, Nigeria from 2011 to 2014 and Chairperson, Osun State Agency on Control of HIV/AIDS, and Osun State Technical Working Group on Immunization,” the statement noted.

In a bid to enhance Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) education, especially among girls, the TechWomen Nigeria Alumni Association and Fellows has trained 50 secondary school girls in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) on various aspect of STEM education to boost their technological capacity.

The President, TechWomen Nigeria Alumni Association, Carolyn Seaman while speaking over the weekend in Abuja at the climax of the 2024 Tech Community Impact Week stated that the students have been introduced to physical computing with excellent and instructive materials and tools with which they are able to test first-hand the whole process of physical computing.

According to Seaman, the training process was an engaging and enriching experience for them, adding that the girls were able to learn on the board and actually practice a hands-on impact of what they were taught.

She noted that the TechWomen alumni and fellows were also able to learn and see first-hand how this is implemented and they can take it further to ensure sustainability of the impact.

U.S. Department of State Tech Women Program, volunteer and mentor, Kathy Giori noted that they aim to empower girls on how to understand how they can use little tiny sensors, instrument the world, take actions upon it, and then make the world a better place.

Giori explained that her dream as an electrical engineer is to get more students into STEM technology, and particularly for girls, who are majorly stigmatized, adding that apart from her passion, the training is about bringing physical computing to the world, especially Nigeria being super welcoming place for her to leverage her passion.

“So we want kids to engage in physical computing, and that’s why I’m here is I volunteer for Microblocks, the URL microblocks.fun.

“So when I did the workshop today at the Fab Lab in Abuja, the children coded their examples, brought them up to show the rest of the students, and you just plug in from board, I can see their code.

“And then I gave them a few tips on
updating their code. They go back, and they have the code with my updates. Now, the reason I’m so
passionate about physical computing is these are tiny little microcontrollers that cost,
you know, less than a dollar sometimes.

“And if children only need the opportunity to learn about inputs and outputs in the physical world, to take actions such as a motion
sensor detecting no motion would turn off the lights automatically, would turn off the air conditioning automatically.” She added.

United State Exchange Alumni Stella Uzochukwu on her part noted that they aim to ensure that students not just learn micro beads but are exposed to the fab lab space.

“We want to ensure that almost everybody is a thinker, because this is about problem solving.

“So what they did today was about problem solving. We want them to also learn how to problem solve and also be able to say things, solve problems within their community, basically, that’s what we want them to do.”

A recipient of the training, Olubayife Simisola expressed delight on the knowledge acquired and a dream fulfilled adding that the use of Microblogs for computing is really amazing.

“Microblocks is really
amazing. Before, I only thought you could use JavaScript, Python to do coding and invent stuff. But
now, Microblocks, you can also use Microblogs to make things, like send stuff for security purposes.”

Simisola explained that the training has been an eye opener and an opportunity to learn new computer inventions, adding that the knowledge acquired would be replicated among colleagues.

“It is encouraging me more to go deeper into what I believe is to be true. And I also say, with what I’ve learned from here, I’m going back to my school and I’m going to tell all the students, not just the girls in my school. I’m going to tell both girls and boys about what I’ve learned here.”