‎Airtel Nigeria has announced plans to establish the second international internet breakout of Nigeria designed to end the total reliance of the nation on Lagos as its gateway to the global web. This centralized architecture has made the national network vulnerable to localized infrastructure failures, such as fiber cuts or power outages in the Lagos corridor.‎‎Airtel, in partnership with the 2Africa submarine cable consortium, planned to route data through a new landing station in Kwa Ibo, Akwa Ibom State.‎‎The southern breakout point reduces latency and ensures that when Lagos sneezes, the rest of the country no longer catches a cold.‎‎The new project will utilize the 45,000km 2Africa cable, which is the world’s longest subsea system, to provide a secondary entry point for a faster and more resilient path for internet traffic in both the Northern and Southern regions. “This will create a faster and alternative path for large parts of the North and South and improve resilience for the entire ecosystem. Airtel is proud to take the lead in making this happen” – Dinesh Balsingh, CEO of Airtel Nigeria ‎Meanwhile, Airtel is currently increasing its fiber-optic footprint by 25% across major cities in Nigeria and has already enabled 4G services on 99.99% of its 16,711 nationwide sites. The company has more than doubled its active 5G sites in the last quarter, to cover top 20 cities of the country and to support high-speed home broadband and enterprise services.‎‎Airtel also plans to integrate this subsea capacity with its Direct-to-Cell satellite partnership with Starlink to reach remote communities to provide a fail-safe network for over 179 million mobile subscribers.‎‎

‎The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) and the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) have introduced a draft regulatory framework requiring mobile network operators, banks, and payment merchants to suspend airtime and data sales during technical disruptions. ‎‎The framework which was released in early February 2026, is targeted at  eliminating the financial losses consumers face when they are debited for failed transactions.‎‎Data from 2025 revealed that approximately one in three of 170 million subscribers experience transaction failures, leading to frustration and unclear ownership of liability between banks and telecommunications firms. ‎‎In January 2026 alone, the NCC reported that operators and banks had to refund over ₦10 billion to customers for failed recharges. The new framework seeks to institutionalize accountability and restore trust in the digital financial system.‎‎If a technical glitch or network downtime exceeds 10 minutes, all service providers and merchants must immediately block airtime and data purchases until the service is restored. ‎‎The framework proposes a 30-second timeline for automatic refunds on failed transactions. This system-triggered reversal requires no manual intervention from the subscriber.‎‎Regulators will host a Central Monitoring Dashboard to track transaction failures and reversals across the entire value chain in real-time, enabling quick identification of Service Level Agreement (SLA) breaches.‎‎Dr. Aisha Isa-Olatinwo, Director of Consumer Protection and Financial Inclusion at the CBN, stated that the policy is a strategic tool to ensuring accountability; ‎”This development buttresses the need for the proposed framework to institutionalise clear accountability, standardise resolution timelines, and ensure a sustainable, coordinated approach to consumer redress across the financial and telecommunications ecosystems” ‎The draft framework is currently open for public consultation. Stakeholders, including banks, payment service providers, and the general public, have until February 20, 2026, to submit their feedback to the CBN. Subject to final regulatory approvals and technical integration, the framework is tentatively scheduled to take full effect on March 1, 2026.‎

The Ogun State Government has announced the construction of a ₦1 billion Artificial Intelligence (AI)-powered digital classroom complex at Remo Secondary School (RSS) in Sagamu. ‎Governor Dapo Abiodun made the announcement of the project in the early hours of Monday, February 9, during the 80th anniversary celebration of the institution, to modernize the educational infrastructure of the state.‎According to the Governor, Remo Secondary School, is a heritage institution, and one of the designated flagship schools of the state.  ‎‎The state aims to integrate advanced technology into the secondary school curriculum, by equipping students from the global knowledge-based economy.‎‎The government has allocated N1 billion for a 900-seater digital classroom complex, which includes an ultra-modern resource center and a fully equipped robotics laboratory.‎‎Governor Abiodun pledged an additional ₦100 million to the institution, with an initial ₦50 million installment scheduled for release next week. “We are not just celebrating a school; we are celebrating a living institution… This ultra-modern facility is a major investment aimed at equipping students for the demands of the 21st-century knowledge economy. I will ensure that before I leave the office, we begin and complete at least one of the projects mentioned” – Governor Abiodun ‎The state plans to integrate these AI-powered environments into the “OgunLearn” digital platform in future to standardize technology-driven instruction across other flagship schools.‎

The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) and the Nigeria Data Protection Commission (NDPC) have entered an agreement to enhance data privacy and protection within the telecommunications sector. ‎The two agencies on Thursday, signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) at the NCC headquarters in Abuja, to establish a collaborative framework for the digital economy of the country.‎The collaboration aims to synchronize the enforcement of the Nigeria Data Protection Act (NDPA) 2023, for transparency, with full consent of users and a 72-hour notification requirement for data breaches.‎The MoU creates an organized framework to align the mandates of the NCC and NDPC, to prevent jurisdictional overlaps in order to strengthen the enforcement of privacy rights across mobile networks.‎The framework is envisioned to impact nearly 180 million subscribers, addressing issues like unauthorized data monetization and the lack of transparency in personal data processing.‎‎Dr. Aminu Maida, Executive Vice Chairman/CEO of the NCC, stressed the importance of data governance in the digital economy of nature NIgeria. He stated that; “The future is data. If we do not get the principles of how we govern it right, even our national sovereignty could be undermined” This partnership is designed to foster innovation and digital trust without creating a bureaucratic bottleneck for mobile network operators.‎‎

‎Digital payment fraud losses in Nigeria have reduced drastically to 51% in recent years, due to AI adoption among fintech firms, according to the Central Bank of Nigeria’s (CBN) inaugural fintech ecosystem report. ‎‎The survey revealed that approximately 87.5% of fintech firms are deploying AI primarily for fraud detection, which has so far secured the processing of 11 billion transactions against sophisticated threats. These threats include account takeovers via dark web credentials, synthetic identities blending real IDs with fake data, money laundering through micro-transactions, and cross-border rings exploiting the reputation of Nigeria often orchestrated by foreign actors in Europe, Asia, or North America.‎‎Nigerian fintechs are not just innovating, they’re surviving through AI, through real-time transaction analysis, behavioral flagging, and cross-platform intelligence sharing. This measure has minimized successful fraud despite multiple attempts, by operating invisibly in server rooms to block thousands of attacks without customer awareness.‎‎Meanwhile, exactly 37.5% of firms acknowledged the lack of AI/ML specialists trained in financial fraud, forcing on-the-job learning amid live threats. The same percent raised concerns about the unclear rules on AI in credit decisions, data collection, liability for false positives, and bias risks.‎‎Fintechs seek collaboration, not deregulation. Half want high-quality data infrastructure. 25% desire peer knowledge-sharing, while 75% prioritize ethical AI for transparent credit/risk decisions and inclusive access, with 62.5% eager for CBN regulatory sandboxes to test AI pilots.‎‎CBN Governor Olayemi Cardoso has previously led such partnerships, during the Nigeria Fintech Week where officials assured innovators that verification compliance is not an obstacle.‎‎The fintech sector is still plagued by what is called “scam” stigma, while battling with invisible wars which include defending the sector against non-Nigerian schemes.

‎Google has launched applications for the 10th cohort of its Google for Startups Accelerator Africa program, providing artificial intelligence solutions for the challenges faced by African startups.‎The program so far has empowered over 180 companies across 17 countries, by enabling them to secure more than $350 million in funding and generate over 3,700 jobs.‎Applications opened yesterday February 5, 2026, and will close on March 18, 2026. The 12-week hybrid program will commence in April, targeting growth-stage (Seed to Series A) startups using AI in sectors like health, climate, and agriculture, offering equity-free support, Google Cloud credits, mentorship, and technical expertise. “We want to help founders turn their startups into research labs for the continent, places where real scientific breakthroughs happen” – Folarin Aiyegbusi, Google’s Head of Startup Ecosystem for Africa Interested startups are advised to apply via g.co/acceleratorafrica. Selected participants will be backed with investor networks to advance scalable solutions.‎