Daily Watch – Osun waives right-of-way fees, Safaricom fields $2.4bn M-Pesa suit

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) says it will approach the Court of Appeal for an order to allow it to reconfigure its Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) for the 11 March 2023 state elections. The News Agency of Nigeria cited an unnamed “credible source” in the commission as saying the order was necessary since it had been ordered to restrain from tampering with BVAS until an inspection was conducted and Certified True Copies of result returns were issued. The source said INEC would require sufficient time to reconfigure the BVAS, which had to be done individually, and deploy them to polling units for Saturday’s elections. A failure to get the machines reconfigured risks making the postponement of the governorship and state Houses of Assembly elections inevitable.

The Minister of State for Budget and National Planning, Prince Clem Agba, said the Federal Government has committed ₦291.5 billion ($632 million) for the conduct of the 2023 population and housing census. Agba made this known at the high-level partners’ engagement to galvanise support for the 2023 population and housing census in Abuja. This amount, the Minister said, was just 46 per cent of the total sum the National Population Commission (NPC) would need to have a concrete exercise. He added that an additional and immediate sum of ₦327.2 billion ($709.9 million) is required to complete the census. Agba further disclosed that the census exercise was to be conducted last year but rescheduled for March 2023. He, however, said there is a recommendation that it should be held in May 2023.

Osun has officially cancelled right-of-way fees, allowing telecom companies and internet providers to lay fibre optic cables for free. Governor Ademola Adeleke disclosed the cancellation of ROW fees on Monday as part of a digital economy policy. The state is betting that cancelling right-of-way fees–a contentious matter between state governments and Nigeria’s telecommunications commission–will improve broadband penetration. According to the National Bureau of Statistics, there were 3.5 million active internet subscriptions in the state in Q1 2021. The data doesn’t show the state’s 4G or broadband coverage. Nigeria only has 45% broadband penetration. Osun will sign a Memorandum of Understanding with Oodua Infraco to immediately deploy Fiber Optics across the state with the first phase covering 64 kilometres. It is also poised to be the first state to domesticate the Nigerian Startup Act.

Three plaintiffs have indicted Safaricom and Vodafone in a lawsuit which claims that Kenyan operator Safaricom is operating its mobile money arm, M-Pesa and Fuliza, its overdraft service, illegally. According to the petitioners—Gichuki Waigwa, Lucy Nzola, and Godfrey Okutoyi—since Safaricom uses the money from non-borrowing M-Pesa account holders as loans to Fuliza users, then the interest Safaricom accrues from Fuliza should be shared with all M-Pesa account holders. In the case filed before the anti-corruption high court, the petitioners also want the courts to declare M-Pesa as a banking service, claiming that Safaricom developed M-Pesa for a separate reason and is now using it as a banking product without obtaining the necessary licences. The petitioners, who allege to be acting on behalf of all M-Pesa users, now want Ksh305 billion ($2.4 billion) in damages for fraudulent misrepresentation and non-disclosure of information.