CFIN commends President Jonathan over new Evidence Act

By Bankole Orimisan

COMPUTER Forensics Institute, Nigeria (CFIN), the government approved body for the training and certification of digital forensics experts in Nigeria, has commended President Goodluck Jonathan for the swift way his administration signed into law the new Evidence Act that has now paved the way for the admissibility of computer and electronic generated evidences in Nigerian courts.

     The President/Chairman of the body, Dr..Peter Olu. Olayiwola declared recently in a press statement issued to the newsmen, congratulated Nigerians on this noble feat achieved in the early stage of the President Goodluck Jonathan’s administration heaving a sigh of relief that at last digital and computer forensic evidence is now admissible in the courts of our land. 

     He said with this development there’s hope for this country even as he expressed the gratitude of CFIN to all those in the forefront of fighting for the realisation of the new Evidence Act. The body was exceptionally grateful to Senator Sola Akinyede and his committee and the National Assembly for working tirelessly to push through the amendment of the 68-year-old Act.

     Olayiwola explained the role of CFIN to nation building and said his institute works in the area of national security by assisting the federal and states law enforcement agencies and other agencies of government that have to do with security in the area of capacity building by developing the capabilities in the identified staff that man certain critical areas in their various organisations.

     While introducing computer forensics as the science of detection and investigation of crime committed either using the computer or on the computer network, Internet and other digital devices with the intent of giving digital evidence in litigation, Dr. Olayiwola said computer forensics can be used to detect and gather evidence that will lead to the prosecution of the culprit.  According to him, over 75 per cent of all criminal cases have one form of digital or electronic evidence or the other.

     Further, he said there is no country in the world that is absolutely crime free but that what advanced and forward looking nations have done was to use technology to ameliorate and investigate forensically any time a crime was committed to be able to bring the perpetrators to book.

      Olayiwola therefore said with the amendment of the Evidence Act that the coast was now clear for the full practice of computer forensics in Nigeria assuring that Nigeria will witness a new era in her legal and judicial system.  

     According to him, Nigerians can now make full use of the expertise of certified digital and computer forensics examiners as expert witnesses in their court cases as is the case in countries with the same type of Nigeria’s new Evidence Act.

Propertygate to leverage on real estate development Real Estate

By Bankole Orimisan

UPBEAT about impressive real estate investment results posted in the 2010 year, management of Propertygate Development and Investment Plc has expressed desire to step up its stake in the property development and real estate advisory services market.

  Managing Director of the company, Mr. Adetokunbo Ajayi, at the company’s 2nd yearly General Meeting, stated that the company, sequel to its impressive results posted recently, would key into the need for high-class luxury apartment by certain aspects of the society.

  He added that the company’s prospect from 2011 was bright and that beyond that it expects the financial and capital markets to commence encouraging recovery, and proceed to enhanced capacities to help economic recovery, expansion and integration.

  Ajayi said: “We also expect economic growth and diversification, as key infrastructure and policy issues are tackled. The need for decent housing will continue to rise, as tempo of urbanisation increases on the heels of economic growth. Against these settings, opportunities for real estate remain particularly bright”.

  He informed shareholders that though the year 2010 showed relative improvement compared to the preceding year, it was nonetheless a tough year. “In spite of the challenges, the company remained focused and through diligence, is pleased to report a much improved performance compared to the year end 2009”.

  Assuring shareholders of the continued focus of the company in its business areas of development, investment and property advisory, he said, “we shall seek to have competitive advantage through market inspired products and services, domain expertise anchored on deep knowledge and skills, exceptional capacity aided by technology and processes, differentiation powered by brand equity, quality manpower with strong culture of performance underpinned by solid corporate values, innovation and sound management. It is our strong expectation that Propertygate will continue in its determined quest to fulfil its overall corporate aspirations.”

Nextzon, Chams partner on new National Identity Management System Infrastructure

By Bankole Orimisan

For Nigerians to witness secured and sustainable identity management system infrastructure  in the country, Nextzon Business Service limited and Chams plc, has come together to implement a new (NIMSI) into the Nigeria environment.

    In expatiation on the significant of the identification, the Managing Director of Nextzon Business Services Limited, Macauley Atasie, said national identification number has been used by governments of many countries as a way of planning for employment, taxation, government benefits, health care and other related functions.

    Atasie, noted that initiatives will in turn enhance national security and delivery of essential public as well as private sector services.

    He added that the financial sector will also benefit as it will significantly help in fraud reduction and Know-Your-Customer (KYC) processes. Ultimately it will help minimize incidences of identity theft in Nigeria as the biometrics of the ten fingers of each enroller will be captured in the NIMS database.

    In his words the project is being implemented under a public-private partnership arrangement and supervised by the National Identity Management Commission and entails the enrolment of all Nigerians who are 16 years old and above.

    According to him the enrolment exercise will precede the issuance of unique National Identity Numbers and chip based identity cards.

    He pointed out that under the partnership arrangement;   Nextzon is responsible for bid assistance services to enable the consortium win the concession as well as the business modelling and process design required to set and operationalize the Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) owned by the parties for this purpose.

  However, Nextzon has also incubated the SPV into an operational entity as well as help source the finance required for takeoff in collaboration with Liquid Africa, a South African based firm of financial advisors.

  “We are fully aware of the enormous financial resources required for the project against the backdrop of the 12-year concession granted to us to build, operate and transfer the front end components of the new national identity management system across states of the federation and the FCT. “We have secured take off funding and have reached advanced stages in sourcing the main funds required”, he stated.

    The Managing Director, Chams Plc, Mr. Demola Aladekomo, commended the Federal Government for embracing the project. He described it as unfortunate the absence of a robust and viable national identity management system in Nigeria after 50 years of independence.

     According to him “for a country with over 150 million people and immense resources like Nigeria, the absence of a sound, secure and sustainable identity management system which will stand the test of time is regrettable. “We are therefore committed to the creation of a world class identity management system that would lead the way in the identity management for the people of this country”.

   He said they had completed the proof of concept phase of the project, the Consortium has now commenced the first phase of roll-out covering selected states of the 6 geographical zones.  This should culminate in full roll-out sometime in July/August this year.

SIM registration: Operators develop strategies to deepen exercise

The low response by subscribers towards the on-going Subscribers Identification Modules (SIM) registration exercise seems to have prompted some operators to come up with incentives to ginger subscribers to register their SIMs. BANKOLE ORIMISAN write on this new initiative.

WITH approximately two months left to complete the SIM registration exercise across the six geo-political zones of the country, the turnout so far appears not to be very encouraging and this has prompted service providers to come up with new strategy to woo subscribers.

     The Nigerian Communications  (NCC) had given September 28 deadline for all subscribers in the country to get their SIMs registered to avoid being blocked from the mobile networks.

     To this end, the commission had embarked on several enlightenment campaigns, including radio jingles, television, billboards and newspaper adverts.     

     Few months back, it published all the registration centres in the country in a number of national newspapers to ensure subscribers know where to go.

     According to the Executive Vice Chairman of NCC, Dr. Eugene Juwah, while addressing journalists in Abuja early last month stressed that subscribers must avoid a situation whereby their SIM cards would be blocked after the September 28 deadline.

     Juwah said, it was expedient for all subscribers to register their SIMs because it was symbolic, as it will give the country an enhanced database and boost security measures being canvassed by the Federal Government.

     The EVC stressed that the exercise is targeted at the over 70 million unregistered SIM cards in the country, which came on the heels of a similar exercise carried out by GSM operators in Nigeria.

     Besides, Juwah in February, had disclosed that the exercise, which the operators, including MTN, Glo, Airtel and Etisalat had done, registered only 11 million cards out of the existing over 90 million active SIMs in the country within the eight months period of July 2010 to February 2011.

     This, according to him was abysmally low, compared to the expectations, and subsequently prompted the regulator to initiate another process of the exercise. 

     With the approval of the N6.1 billion budgets by the National Assembly, the NCC had on March 28, 2011, commenced the six-month nationwide registration exercise.

     The commission equally contracted seven service providers to implement the registration exercise across the country’s six geo-political zones.

   While Chams was contracted to register subscribers in Lagos, other six companies approved by the Commission are SW Global for South-East, PNN for North Central, JKK for South West, DataGroupIT for North East, Eagle/CBC for North West and E-Kenneth/ SageMetrics for the South-South.

     For maximum coverage and supervision, the commission appointed KPMG, a leading consulting firm, to coordinate the exercise of the seven contractors. The NCC registration had engaged a total of 1,750 agents at 250 each for the nationwide exercise, with a promise to increase the number to about 4000, should the need arises.

     According to the Head, Media and Public Relations, NCC, Mr. Reuben Muoka, the registration centres would continue to grow across the country and that, some of the registration agents would move around with mobile units to cover areas that might not have fixed registration centres such as markets and other similar locations.

      However, despite all these efforts, there seems to be a sort of subscribers’ apathy, as most registration centres visited in Lagos and other parts of the country including, Port Harcourt, Osun, Ondo, Kebbi, Kano among others are relatively empty, with some of the agents finding nobody to register.

      Besides, there are complaints by some subscribers that the registration centres are sparsely distributed, making it difficult for willingly subscribers to register.

   A subscriber, Patricia Uloma, based in Onitsha, Anambra state, complained bitterly that, registration centres of both NCC and operators are tough to locate in the area. She called for more centres in the area.

     But to Chams Plc, covering Lagos, there has been poor turnout of subscribers in the last five months.

The number of subscribers that have registered is not encouraging. We will need more advertisements and vigorous enlightenment campaigns for the success of the exercise. We have deployed many people for the exercise, but they are just doing one-to-one marketing and this is not encouraging

According to the Managing Director, Demola Aladekomo, “the number of subscribers that have registered is not encouraging. We will need more advertisement and vigorous enlightenment campaigns for the success of the exercise. We have deployed many people for the exercise, but they are just doing one-to-one marketing and this is not encouraging.”

    The NCC had also directed GSM companies to put new SIM cards on their networks on ‘receive only’ mode to ensure that subscribers register their SIM cards. It also threatened to impose a fine of N5 million on any operator that flouted the order.

     Meanwhile, as part of efforts to encourage and speed up the exercise, service providers, notably Globacom and Etisalat have put up incentives in form of promos to encourage subscribers.

      According to Globacom, the new campaign was aimed at encouraging Glo subscribers to register their old and new SIM cards before the September 28 deadline, so as not to jeopardise the rationale behind the exercise.  

     Globacom’s Group COO, Mohamed Jameel stressed that the new campaign was targeted at expediting the pace of the ongoing Glo SIM registration exercise, which the company started last year, through special incentives, which will encourage all existing and new subscribers to register their SIMs.

    He stated that those customers who complied and immediately register their SIMs would be rewarded with fantastic prizes during the three-month duration of the campaign.

   In the first instance, Jameel said all subscribers, who register their SIMs get a guaranteed 30 minutes of free airtime during the three months of the promotion. 10 minutes of free airtime is given every month for three months.

     The 30 minutes bonus airtime will be given immediately the person recharges N500 and above in each of the three months of the campaign and will be valid for seven days.

    He added that an additional N20, 000 worth of free airtime will also be given out to 300 lucky subscribers who will be picked during special draws, which are to be held monthly, 100 lucky customers will be selected monthly and rewarded.

     Jameel informed that, the highlight of the campaign is the offer of free all-expense paid pleasure trips to Manchester or Dubai for 60 lucky subscribers who register their SIMs. The winners of the free trips will be picked during special draws, which will be conducted monthly for three months.

   “The campaign will, therefore, see 10 lucky subscribers traveling to each destination each month for three months. At the end of the day, 30 Glo subscribers would have made an unforgettable trip to Manchester to watch English Premier League champions, Manchester United, play at their home turf, while another 30 would have taken a memorable trip to Dubai as a reward for simply registering their SIMs.

     In order to make the new SIM registration campaign a huge success, all Gloworlds, Glozones, Dealer outlets and Glo agents across the country have been sufficiently equipped with high-tech systems to ensure quick, efficient registration of customer SIMs.

     The whole registration process with Glo takes less than two minutes at these points. Glo Subscribers can also text “reg” to the short code “3456” in order to confirm whether their SIMs had been registered or not on the Glo network.

     To Emirate Telecommunications Corporation, also called Etisalat, subscribers, who register their SIMs in July and recharged for the next 30 days will get free credit back.

     Specifically, Etisalat said any of their subscribers who registered within the stated period would get rewarded with 30 per cent of their total recharges up to N10000 free credit to call any network. For example, customers that load N1000, gets N300 back, while those who loads N5, 000 will get N1, 500 back. 

     According to an official of the telecommunications company, who does not want his name in print, this measure was taken to encourage subscribers, both existing and new members to register their SIMs.

    On possible surge on the network, the official said, “if your fear is about network congestion, we have put up serious measures to curb that. In fact, we just invested some amount on infrastructure and network upgrade. Though, of late, the services have been bad truly, but I can tell operators are really striving to get things back to normal and one is just what I have told you about Etisalat.”  

      Also, the former Chief Executive Officer of Starcomms Plc, Maher Qubain at a news briefing recently, informed that the telecommunications provider, has engaged more hands to boost its subscribers registration, stressing that, it has become necessary to ensure that everybody on the Starcomms network are registered duly before the expiration date.      

     The President of the Association of Telecommunications Companies of Nigeria, Mr. Titi Omo-Ettu, believes that the registration exercise is very important.

     According to him, the exercise will reveal the real number of telephone subscribers in the country.

    Asserting that current statistics of subscribers are out of proportion, Omo-Ettu added that knowing the true situation would enable the industry and the country to establish the addressable market.

NCS jostles for IT impact in Nigeria

By Bankole Orimisan

NIGERIA Computer Society (NCS) at its national head office in Lagos, has declared its resolve to lead the revamping of the nation’s economy by reflecting on the growth of Information Technology (IT) in the last 50 years.

 The association led by its president, Professor Charles Uwadia, said the body is poised to hold discussions to x-ray the impact of information technology in the country with a view to remodeling the policy thrust to improve the economy.

  He revealed that NCS has set aside November 10 to assemble distinguished Nigerians in the field of IT at Lagos Event Centre to reflect on the impact of IT since independence.

 “If we must effectively harness abundant national resources in order to achieve the goals of economic and socio-political development, the underlining activities must be completely anchored on it.”

 According to him, “Nigeria has done well on a number front as individual and collectively as a nation. Therefore, while we might have not fully met the expectations of the generally of Nigerians, it may not be fair to brand the country a failed state as some people would want to suggest. We must identify missed opportunities and what we need to do to make Nigeria truly the giant of Africa.”

 Chairman of NCS conference committee, Shuaibu Afolabi Salisu, stressed on the need for the National Assembly to come up with necessary regulation to encourage investment in the IT sector.

 He confirmed that, “the potentials are here and we believe with refocused attitude Nigerians can make a good impact on the economy within shortest time in making our impact in the country.”

 

Poor electricity constitutes 70% of operators’ challenges- ATCON

By Bankole Orimisan 

The Association of Telecommunication Companies of Nigeria has attributed 70 per cent of the challenges facing operators in the country’s telecommunications sector to unreliable public electricity.

Delivering a keynote address at the association’s broadband investment summit in Lagos yesterday, the President of ATCON, Mr. Titi Omo-Ettu, said power problem has been responsible for high cost of running businesses, which, according to him, has kicked some operators in the sector out of businesses and with little only big operators being able to survive the tides.

The investment forum was the major outing of the implementation of ATCON’s roadmap to sustaining the gains of the last decade and preparing for the next during which the industry is expected to provide access to large population using broadband as toll.

Omo-Ettu, who stated that, getting the current government policies targeted at boosting power generation is critical to the attainment of ubiquitous broadband deployment to galvanise the nation’s economic development, maintained that, although operators face other challenges such as technical issues, poor access to financing, among others, power presents the greatest challenge to the broadband growth.

Industry experts have said that out of over 40 million Nigerians already connected to the internet; only about 12 million representing around 3 per cent are connected to broadband internet access.

According to Omo-Ettu, “When we weighed the problems which confront our industry as a component of the Nigerian economy, all the issues of low technical skills, poor access to financing, barrier to investment, and all of that, all constitute 30 per cent. It is in finding solution to this 30 per cent that we are gathered to brainstorm and cart a path.

“The over 70 per cent, that which is constituted by a poor access to reliable public electricity that refuses to go away can only be left for government to work at sorting out.”

Speaking on the theme of the two-day investment summit: “Broadband as enabler to connecting the Next 50 million Telecom users in Nigeria”, Omo-Ettu stated that, having achieved tremendous growth in subscriber base in the last 10 years, broadband should be used to connect the next 50 million subscribers in the next 10 years.

“We have already said we are now done with number of connected lines as index of our industry development. We want to shift emphasis to using number of our citizens who have access to telecommunications index of planning and developing our market.

In the same vein, the Chief executive Officer of Main One cable Company, Ms. Funke Opeke, who also recognised power problem as one of the greatest challenges to broadband penetration however noted that, cost of broadband has dropped by up to 75 per cent in the last one years of international submarine cables landing a year ago.

She aded that, “By granting the right of ways to telecom investors at reduced cost, operators would be able to deploy more broadband at reduced cost to Nigerian both at wholesale and at retail levels.”

 

New Horizons, NDE tackle unemployment with SEE, empower 10,000 graduates

By Bankole Orimisan

Determined to tackle the problems facing unemployed graduates in the country, over 10 thousands have been empowered at Skill For Employment and Enterprise (SEE) recently launched by the New Horizons and the National Directorate of Employment,

The programme, is the forth on the series of national job fair held so far in the country and was peopled by local and foreign speakers who spoke extensively on employment and other issues.

 According to the New Horizons, managing director, Mr. Tim Akano, the launching of SEE had become imperative in Nigeria owing to the wide skill gaps currently exist today between the industry in the country.

Feedback from various employers, according to investigations, showed that today’s university graduates do not posses readymade skills that will make them hit the ground running from their first day in the office. This is why the Graduate Trainee program. According to Akano, which used to take one year in most multinationals in the past, now takes three years or so. As a result, some Multinationals now prefer to hire Asians to do jobs which Nigerians could do even better with additional training.

SEE project, he stressed, will empower the Nigerian graduates not only in Information Technology skills like Microsoft, Cisco, Oracle, IT-Security etc, but also with skills in Personal Branding, Customer Service, Executive Etiquette, Selling Skills, Communication and Leadership including Entrepreneurship.

“This will take an average of three months and upon completion graduates will be assisted with job placement as Industrial attaché in banks, telecoms, manufacturing and other companies. It is our expectation,” Akano said, adding that those who excel as industrial attaché could be readily absorbed by the organisations.

He said, for those who would like to be wealth creators, the skills acquired during the three months of SEE program would have prepared them to start a small scale business in Information Technology as a Consultant to major organisations.

Addressing the audience at the seminar, President of EC-Council, Mr. Sanjay Bavisi laid emphasis on IT security training for Nigerians as a measure in understanding the technicalities in online fraud in order to control the menace.

According to him, IT-Security experts are some of the highest paid professionals globally today and that they were not affected by the last financial crisis that rocked the world.

High point of the seminar was a presentation made by the DG of NDE’s representative who spoke on the numerous programmes the directorate organizes for unemployed graduates and job seekers as part of Federal Governments drive to reduce the rate of unemployment in the country using ICT empowerment.

He urged the participants to take advantage of the opportunities placed at their doorsteps by the Federal Government through NDE to ensure that Nigerian Graduates and non-graduates with meaningful and beneficial economic ideas are optimally harnessed for growth and development.

The DG later expressed his delight to the co-organizers of the seminar – New Horizons for coming up with such a forum that offered the directorate an opportunity to interface with its target audience.

ALTON seeks better inter-network operations among operators

By Bankole Orimisan

TO further mitigate the increasing difficulties of getting a call through, the Association of Licensed Telecoms Operators of Nigeria (ALTON), has called on telecoms operators in the country to harmonise their inter-network operations so as to improve the falling standard in the quality of service been rendered to subscribers.

This charge came from ALTON’s President Mr. Gbenga Adebayo at the weekend, when the association paid a courtesy visit to the Chief Executive Officer, Airtel Nigeria, Rajaan Swaroop in his office.

Adebayo explained that more robust inter-network operations among the various operators in the country would go a long way to restore confidence in the telecoms sector and further expand the subscribers’ base.

Besides, he said that ALTON’s position on the issue of QoS in the country was that poor power supply, insecurity of telecoms infrastructure and personnel, capacity issues and multiple taxation were responsible for poor network quality among others in the country.

He called on the Federal Government to stay committed to its promise of solving the power supply problem in the country.

The ALTON boss also reiterated the call various support from the government, so as to be able to restore live in some ailing telecoms organisations, which he said were dieing gradually.

According to him, an incentive-based bail-out plan for ailing telecoms operators from the Federal Government would boost sustainable growth in the sector, stressing that the association had made its position on the matter known to the Nigerian Communications Commission.

“We had made representation to the NCC to develop an incentive-based bail-out plan for the industry by granting exemptions, waivers or rebates on certain portions of the levy to ailing operators as a means of providing regulatory support, considering AOL payment suspension and reduction of dues payable to the commission, which will further assure the sustainable growth of the industry,” he said.

Adebayo emphasised that the association was committed to enhancing growth in the Nigerian Information Communications Technology sector, while ensuring a healthy balance between market growth, profitability for the operators and efficient as well as affordable service delivery to subscribers.

He noted that ALTON had, since its inception, achieved major milestones in fostering good relations in the telecoms sector adding that the association would continue to play a key role in market regulation and development of the industry.

Adebayo further said that ALTON had been involved in several interventions on behalf of its members on a number of issues such as multiple taxation, interconnection rate determination, market competition and unfavourable government policies.

ALTON commended Airtel Nigeria for starting the tariff war in the country, saying, “I commend you for the good role Airtel is playing in engendering competition in the industry. I must say we are thankful to you and your entire management team for making us proud as an industry and for providing affordable services to Nigeria.”

He urged the management of Airtel to work on the quality of service challenges faced by its numerous customers.

Adebayo said: “I urge you in the days ahead to remember always the challenges we face with quality of services and please continue in your effort to offer affordable services at the highest best quality.

“We must not place quality issues above price and be mindful of impact of price reduction on our service quality.”

Responding, Swaroop said that infrastructure deficit was a major huddle for all telecoms operators in the country, adding that energy cost was one of the biggest operational costs the company had to deal with.

The Airtel boss also urged ALTON to continue to advocate on behalf of operators, while urging the association to liaise with the Federal Ministry of Environment on the issue of approval for telecoms tower installations.

Swaroop said that it usually took more than 10 months for an operator to get an approval for tower erection, which always affected operators’ rollout plans.

Stovex ushers Spice Mobile into Nigerian market

Add caption
Spice Mobile Phones

By Bankole Orimisan

Stovex Technologies Limited, an indigenous Information Communications Technology (ICT) vendor in Nigeria, has recently ushered a new affordable mobile phone product called the Spice Mobile into the Nigerian market.

  Spice Mobile, an Indian phone product, according to the Managing Director of Stovex, Vincent Okonkwo, has come to open a new telecom business and demystify the mobile phone market in Nigeria.

  He said it is part of the company’s efforts to expand its business in Africa and develop the continent’s ICT industry.

  Okonkwo added that the company would market and sell nine series of Spice Mobile models.

  In his words, Stovex would sell the product at affordable prices to Nigerians and a 12-month warranty on all the phones.

  The products models include the Spice M-9000 Popkorn, with the first built-in projector (dual sim) and the Spice MI-270, the first dual sim Android 2.2 mobile phone.

  He said, “Spice M-9000 allows customers to project live TV broadcast, video clips, images along with Microsoft office document and PDF viewer for PowerPoint presentation, which can be projected on large screen.”

  While was commenting on the manufacturer of the Spice Mobile product, Okonwo, said is a leading Mobile Handset company, one of the fastest growing, with a substantial presence across India, Nepal and Bangladesh.

   Spice Mobiles currently is the 2nd largest mobile handset brand in many parts of Northern India, selling nearly 1.5 million mobile handsets per quarter attributable to a ramp up of its distribution network of nearly 50,000 outlets, introduction of state of the art range of mobile phones etc.
Spice Mobiles Ltd. is a part of Spice Televentures, the Telecom vertical of the diversified US$ 2 Billion Spice Global group. With “Unconventional Wisdom” at the core of the company’s brand essence, Spice has revolutionized the Communications sector, with its innovative technology and advanced, feature rich mobile phones.

   Spice Mobiles has been known for its innovative and feature rich products from the pioneering Dual SIM, Flexi-Dual and Multi-SIM Phones to Mutli SIM-Windows OS mobiles. Spice Mobiles won the coveted 2007 Golden Peacock Award for Innovation.

SON, HP confiscate 6500 counterfeit ICT wares in Nigeria

By Bankole Orimisan

THE Standard Organisation of Nigeria (SON) in collaboration with HP Nigeria, have confiscated over 6500 illegal and counterfeit Information and Communications Technology (ICT) items from some marketers in a highly coordinated strike in the last three months.

  This was disclosed at a news briefing in Lagos at the weekend, where they informed that there were raids on an illicit workshop and four connected retailers, seizing a total of 3,600 ready-for-sale laser print cartridge counterfeits, 1,800 fake flat boxes and almost 950 empty laser print cartridges intended for illegal use in Lagos and some major cities in the country.

  According to them, Police arrested four people associated with the counterfeiting operation, adding that additional intelligence obtained during the raid led to the capture of a key figure in the local counterfeiting scene.

  Speaking at the briefing, English Africa channel manager, Imaging and Printing Group, HP Africa, Sherifa Hady, said that HP appreciated the strong cooperation of Nigerian law enforcement to help protect customers from the inferior standards and potential risks of counterfeits in Nigeria, “People who buy counterfeit cartridges and other fake merchandise believe mistakenly that they’re receiving original products, and they deserve the high quality and performance for which they’re paying.”

  Hady informed that from several reports she had read and seen, statistics had shown that illegal importation and counterfeiting of Information Technology products including hardware and software in the Nigeria’s economy had caused the country a whopping $225m (about N33bn) economic loss in the past years.

  She said that while there had been tremendous growth in the ICT industry in African with Nigeria and other countries in the sub-Sahara leading in technology adoption to speed up their economic development, the issue of counterfeiting remained the ‘one of the most serious problems affecting the continent.

  “In Nigeria, available records have indicated that about 82 per cent of software and other accessories running on computers are pirated or not genuine and this represents about $225 million being lost in the Nigerian economy,” she said.

  She added that depending on the country, counterfeit printing supplies were produced and distributed within the same country, or exported, adding that in some countries, infringers often run legitimate businesses with original printing supplies but, in parallel, distribute and sell counterfeit products.

  She further said that the losses were incurred in the economy in form of tax revenues that were supposed to be accrued to the Nigerian government, urging Nigerian government to work with private IT organisations to stamp out the menace in the economy.

  In a confirmation of the huge losses to counterfeiting in the Nigeria, the Assistant Director, SON, Mrs. Omolara Okunlola, said that in recent past, “SON has seized counterfeit products running into several trillions of Naira in the country.”

  She, however, assured of SON’s readiness to ensure its presence in most of the major markets across Nigeria to be able to tackle the increasing product counterfeiting, which she also confirmed was ripping the country of fortunes in economic gains.

  On a global scale, Pady added that reports by the World Customers Organisation and the International Chambers of Commerce which indicated that globally, countries lost about $775 billionn yearly, a five to seven per cent loss of global economy translating into a loss of over 2.5 million jobs.

  “Alternatively, if counterfeiting and piracy could be eradicated or seriously reduced, up to 2.5 million jobs could be created in the legitimate economies all over the world.” 

  Hady informed that over the last four years, HP had assisted in the seizure of nearly nine million pieces of fake printing supplies products and components in Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

  “Through its anti-counterfeiting programme, HP actively educates its customers and partners to be vigilant against fake printing supplies. It also cooperates closely with local and global law enforcement to detect and dismantle illegal operations that produce counterfeit HP printing components,” she stated.

  According to her, globally, HP had conducted nearly 5,000 investigations in almost 90 countries over the last four years, resulting in the seizure of more than 30 million units of counterfeit cartridges and components over this same time period.  She noted that investigations and actions had occurred on every continent except Antarctica, and any enforcement action was lead by either police (criminal) or an administrative organisation.