Nigeria has recorded a sharp rise in foreign investment, attracting more than 10 billion US dollars in the first quarter of 2026. This represents nearly double the inflows seen in the same period last year, driven by recent economic reforms such as currency liberalization and fuel subsidy removal. Despite the strong figures, some analysts caution that broader economic challenges remain.
Wednesday, June 17, 2026
Video - Nigeria sees surge in foreign investment inflows
Nigeria has recorded a sharp rise in foreign investment, attracting more than 10 billion US dollars in the first quarter of 2026. This represents nearly double the inflows seen in the same period last year, driven by recent economic reforms such as currency liberalization and fuel subsidy removal. Despite the strong figures, some analysts caution that broader economic challenges remain.
Nigerian government to launch free digital television for residents
The federal government has announced that it will launch FreeTV, a national digital television platform, on Wednesday.
This was disclosed in a statement posted on the Presidency Nigeria X page on Tuesday night.
The FG said the platform will give households across the country access to free digital television, more channels, clearer pictures, and Nigerian content without monthly subscription fees.
Director-General of the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC), Charles Ebuebu, said the launch marked another important step in delivering President Bola Tinubu’s Renewed Hope Agenda.
He said the agenda prioritised inclusion, access to opportunity, job creation, local enterprise, and the use of technology to improve everyday life for Nigerians.
He said: “FreeTV is part of Nigeria’s Digital Switch-Over programme and is designed to ensure that no Nigerian is left behind as the country moves fully from analogue to digital broadcasting.
“Through the platform, Nigerians will have access to over 100 national, regional and state channels, including news, sports, movies, music, children’s programmes, educational content, and dedicated Yoruba, Hausa and Igbo language channels.”
This was disclosed in a statement posted on the Presidency Nigeria X page on Tuesday night.
The FG said the platform will give households across the country access to free digital television, more channels, clearer pictures, and Nigerian content without monthly subscription fees.
Director-General of the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC), Charles Ebuebu, said the launch marked another important step in delivering President Bola Tinubu’s Renewed Hope Agenda.
He said the agenda prioritised inclusion, access to opportunity, job creation, local enterprise, and the use of technology to improve everyday life for Nigerians.
He said: “FreeTV is part of Nigeria’s Digital Switch-Over programme and is designed to ensure that no Nigerian is left behind as the country moves fully from analogue to digital broadcasting.
“Through the platform, Nigerians will have access to over 100 national, regional and state channels, including news, sports, movies, music, children’s programmes, educational content, and dedicated Yoruba, Hausa and Igbo language channels.”
Service
Additionally, Mr Ebuebu said FreeTVservice will reach viewers via satellite, terrestrial transmission and the FreeTV mobile app.
He said citizens in major cities, towns, rural communities and areas left out of earlier DSO pilot phases would all have access to it.
“Nigerians do not need to buy a new television to watch FreeTV. Existing televisions can work with compatible OVB-T2 or DVB-S2 decoders, and those who already have compatible free-to-air decoders may not need to buy a new one.
“Free TV speaks directly to President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s vision of Renewed Hope towards expanding access, creating opportunity and ensuring that every Nigerian, regardless of location or income, can benefit from the digital economy. With Free TV, families across Nigeria can enjoy quality digital television without a monthly subscription, while our local content producers, technicians and young creatives gain new platforms and new jobs,” he said.
Creative economy
Furthermore, Mr Ebuebu said the platform will also support Nigeria’s creative and broadcast economy.
He said this will happen through regional production studios in Lagos, Abuja, Port Harcourt, Enugu, Kano and Benin.
According to him, it will create new opportunities for content producers, technicians, editors, camera operators, sound engineers and young creatives.
“The final analogue switch-off remains scheduled for 31 December 2028, and Nigerians are encouraged to begin preparing by checking their decoder compatibility and downloading the FreeTV app.”
Additionally, Mr Ebuebu said FreeTVservice will reach viewers via satellite, terrestrial transmission and the FreeTV mobile app.
He said citizens in major cities, towns, rural communities and areas left out of earlier DSO pilot phases would all have access to it.
“Nigerians do not need to buy a new television to watch FreeTV. Existing televisions can work with compatible OVB-T2 or DVB-S2 decoders, and those who already have compatible free-to-air decoders may not need to buy a new one.
“Free TV speaks directly to President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s vision of Renewed Hope towards expanding access, creating opportunity and ensuring that every Nigerian, regardless of location or income, can benefit from the digital economy. With Free TV, families across Nigeria can enjoy quality digital television without a monthly subscription, while our local content producers, technicians and young creatives gain new platforms and new jobs,” he said.
Creative economy
Furthermore, Mr Ebuebu said the platform will also support Nigeria’s creative and broadcast economy.
He said this will happen through regional production studios in Lagos, Abuja, Port Harcourt, Enugu, Kano and Benin.
According to him, it will create new opportunities for content producers, technicians, editors, camera operators, sound engineers and young creatives.
“The final analogue switch-off remains scheduled for 31 December 2028, and Nigerians are encouraged to begin preparing by checking their decoder compatibility and downloading the FreeTV app.”
Tuesday, June 16, 2026
The bat that weighs the same as a teaspoon of salt – and the biologist who rediscovered it
Just after sunrise, a cacophony of whoops and chatter can be heard over the verdant forests of the Afi mountain wildlife sanctuary. Nestled within the Cross River rainforest in south-east Nigeria, and spanning an area about the size of central Paris, the steep sanctuary is a haven for endangered gorillas, drill monkeys, the grey-necked rockfowl – and the short-tailed roundleaf bat.
The Nigerian biologist Iroro Tanshi remembers the moment she first spotted the endangered bat in 2016, during a field expedition for her PhD research. “We were trapping near a roost that night, so we caught a lot of bats,” says Tanshi. But, she adds: “This looked very, very different. Big-eared.” She promptly turned to her identification guide, which revealed that the tiny furry creature she was holding between her fingers was Hipposideros curtus, better known as the short-tailed roundleaf bat, last recorded in the wild in the 1970s.
“That was the moment that changed everything. Actually, there was the catching and the moment of realisation, like: ‘Oh my gosh,’” she says of her breakthrough.
Spurred by this discovery, Tanshi and her small crew of local assistants set up harp traps and mist nets, tracking the cave networks within the Afi sanctuary and the nearby Cross River national park. During their gruelling survey, they found 15 more of the bat species.
The short-tailed roundleaf bat weighs about the same as a level teaspoonful of salt. Unlike large fruit bats, it has relatively small eyes and a large intricately folded nose, which helps it to navigate total darkness through echolocation. It is extraordinarily sensitive to noise and bright lights, so Tanshi typically uses red light during her field research.
“You put it on for a short time and turn it off again to kind of see your way or see the bat that’s hanging there,” she says.
For decades, the species was believed to exist only within specific forest caves in Cameroon and Equatorial Guinea. Thanks to human activities such as deforestation and hunting, all previously documented roosts had been erased by the 2010s. Scientists feared that the species had quietly gone extinct – until Tanshi’s all-important discovery. The small colony she rediscovered around the Afi sanctuary is the only confirmed population of the endangered bat still actively roosting.
However, having rediscovered the bat, Tanshi noticed that most of the attention in the sanctuary went to primates and other large animals, which local people treated with respect.
“People were very familiar with the need to protect nature and conserve these animals,” Tanshi says. “You couldn’t kill those animals in the village without getting reported. But everything else was up for grabs. Regardless of the fact that we were in a protected area, bats were still heavily hunted.”
Historically, bats have been burdened by negative stereotypes, commonly linked to witchcraft and bad omens. Their association with health emergencies, including the Ebola outbreak and Covid, has not helped. “Bats can’t catch a break, sadly,” says Tanshi, who describes the cultural perception of bats in Nigeria as a “complex scenario”. Amid the broader cultural aversion, some Nigerian communities treat the bats as food.
In Abia, a remote village 70km (45 miles) from the Afi sanctuary, the straw-coloured fruit bat is regarded as “normal bushmeat for us, like fish and chicken in other places”, says one villager, Judith Ojong, adding that bats for meat are typically sold in fours for 5,000 naira (about £2.70).
In response, Tanshi, along with Benneth Obitte, another bat specialist, set up the Small Mammal Conservation Organisation (Smacon) in 2016 to champion bats, rodents and other little creatures. The next year they launched the Zero Wildfire Campaign, to combat the destructive blazes that pose another threat to bats.
As part of the campaign, Tanshi and the team at Smacon designed colour-coded alert systems to guide farmers on safe bush burning. To supervise farmers during burning and provide a swift response in the event of an outbreak, Tanshi also formed a group called Forest Guardians. The incidence of wildfires within the forest area has plummeted in the past five years, she says.
In April, Tanshi became one of only six women globally to receive a Goldman environmental award, in recognition of her successful wildfire campaign around the Afi mountain wildlife sanctuary. She was also recently named a National Geographic explorer and has won a Whitley award.
A decade after finding the short-tailed roundleaf bat, Tanshi, a postdoctoral fellow at the Washington Research Foundation, remains enraptured by the hidden diversity in Nigeria’s rainforest and is still amazed at her discovery.
“Something that we thought was extinct was in this beautiful place that nobody goes to,” she says.
By Kingsley Charles, The Guardian
Related story: Video - Bat researchers of Nigeria
Vidoe - Nigeria says nearly 10,000 former Boko Haram fighters have been reintegrated
Authorities in Nigeria's northeastern Borno State say nearly 10,000 former Boko Haram fighters have now been reintegrated into society under a government-backed rehabilitation and deradicalisation programme aimed at encouraging defections from insurgent groups.
The announcement came as 720 former militants graduated from a rehabilitation centre in Maiduguri, the capital of Borno State, during a ceremony attended by state officials. According to Borno authorities, the latest group brings the total number of former insurgents reintegrated into their communities to 9,680.
The programme forms part of broader efforts by Nigerian authorities to weaken jihadist groups operating in the Lake Chad region by encouraging fighters to surrender and return to civilian life. Images from the ceremony showed hundreds of former militants gathered at the rehabilitation centre, where participants took an oath before being formally discharged from the programme.
Boko Haram's insurgency, which began more than a decade ago in northeastern Nigeria, has killed tens of thousands of people and displaced millions across Nigeria and neighbouring countries. Although the group's capabilities have been significantly reduced by military operations, armed factions continue to carry out attacks in parts of the region.
Borno State authorities say rehabilitation and reintegration programmes remain an important component of efforts to end the conflict and promote long-term stability in communities affected by the insurgency.
The announcement came as 720 former militants graduated from a rehabilitation centre in Maiduguri, the capital of Borno State, during a ceremony attended by state officials. According to Borno authorities, the latest group brings the total number of former insurgents reintegrated into their communities to 9,680.
The programme forms part of broader efforts by Nigerian authorities to weaken jihadist groups operating in the Lake Chad region by encouraging fighters to surrender and return to civilian life. Images from the ceremony showed hundreds of former militants gathered at the rehabilitation centre, where participants took an oath before being formally discharged from the programme.
Boko Haram's insurgency, which began more than a decade ago in northeastern Nigeria, has killed tens of thousands of people and displaced millions across Nigeria and neighbouring countries. Although the group's capabilities have been significantly reduced by military operations, armed factions continue to carry out attacks in parts of the region.
Borno State authorities say rehabilitation and reintegration programmes remain an important component of efforts to end the conflict and promote long-term stability in communities affected by the insurgency.
Stablecoins gain in Nigeria for cross-border transfers
Nigerians are increasingly turning to U.S. dollar-pegged digital tokens, or stablecoins, to move money across borders, as households and small businesses seek cheaper and faster alternatives to traditional channels, the IMF said on Tuesday.
The Fund said what began as a niche crypto use has grown into a significant payments route, with Nigeria receiving about $59 billion in crypto inflows between July 2023 and June 2024 and accounting for roughly 60% of stablecoin inflows in sub-Saharan Africa.
Stablecoins - cryptocurrencies pegged to assets and designed to hold a stable value - have gained global traction, backed in part by support from U.S. President Donald Trump.
Their price stability, combined with fast transfers via smartphones and digital wallets, has driven rapid adoption in Nigeria, the IMF said.
For users, they offer near-instant cross-border payments and a way to store value outside a volatile naira currency, effectively bridging crypto markets and traditional finance.
They can also undercut conventional remittance channels, where sending $200 to sub-Saharan Africa costs on average about 9% of transaction value, compared with a global average of 6%, said the IMF, citing World Bank data.
However, their rise poses policy challenges.
Widespread use of dollar-linked tokens could weaken monetary policy by reducing demand for the naira, while shifting transactions to digital wallets complicates oversight and raises the risk of illicit flows, the IMF said.
The Fund said what began as a niche crypto use has grown into a significant payments route, with Nigeria receiving about $59 billion in crypto inflows between July 2023 and June 2024 and accounting for roughly 60% of stablecoin inflows in sub-Saharan Africa.
Stablecoins - cryptocurrencies pegged to assets and designed to hold a stable value - have gained global traction, backed in part by support from U.S. President Donald Trump.
Their price stability, combined with fast transfers via smartphones and digital wallets, has driven rapid adoption in Nigeria, the IMF said.
For users, they offer near-instant cross-border payments and a way to store value outside a volatile naira currency, effectively bridging crypto markets and traditional finance.
They can also undercut conventional remittance channels, where sending $200 to sub-Saharan Africa costs on average about 9% of transaction value, compared with a global average of 6%, said the IMF, citing World Bank data.
However, their rise poses policy challenges.
Widespread use of dollar-linked tokens could weaken monetary policy by reducing demand for the naira, while shifting transactions to digital wallets complicates oversight and raises the risk of illicit flows, the IMF said.
By MacDonald Dzirutwe, Reuters
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