NAIJAFEED

Wednesday, April 29, 2026

UK launches fund to boost production in Nigeria’s creative sector

The UK-Nigeria Technology Hub has launched its Creative Fund, a first-phase grants initiative designed to address critical technical capacity gaps across Nigeria’s film, fashion, and music industries.
The fund will support the development of local digital production capacity, encourage the adoption of modern creative technologies, and promote the responsible use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) to strengthen Nigeria’s creative value chain.

The initiative, announced yesterday, directly supports the priorities of the UK-Nigeria Economic Transformation and Investment Partnership (ETIP) Creative Working Group launched in March 2025 and delivers on commitments made during President Bola Tinubu’s State visit to the UK in March 2026. It is designed to ensure that high-potential creative projects can access the technical talent, tools, and resources required to produce, scale and complete their work locally.

Funded by the UK-Nigeria Tech Hub, under the UK Government’s Digital Access Programme and implemented by Tech4Dev, the Creative Fund responds directly to evidence gathered through the State of the Creative Innovation Ecosystem in Nigeria, a study in 2024. Drawing on over 1,700 survey responses and fieldwork across seven states, the research showed that Nigeria’s creative economy employs approximately 4.2 million people and contributes around $3 billion to Gross Domestic Product (GDP) yearly.

Despite this scale, the sector continues to face structural constraints, as over 80 per cent of practitioners are self-taught, fewer than 10 per cent have access to formal financing, and high-value technical work is routinely outsourced outside the country. The Creative Fund is a direct response to these gaps and is central to the work of the ETIP Creative Working Group.

Director of the UK-Nigeria Tech Hub, Oyinkansola Akintola-Bello, said: “Nigeria’s creative sector already delivers real economic value, and both governments have committed under the UK-Nigeria Economic Transformation and Investment Partnership to supporting its growth.

Through the ETIP Creatives Working Group, we are moving from ambition to action. The Creative Fund is a practical first-phase intervention that addresses critical gaps in skills, infrastructure, and access to advanced tools, enabling Nigerian creatives to produce and scale high-quality work locally.”

The Fund will support high-potential creative projects covering three industries: Film, Fashion, and Music and will focus on initiatives that demonstrate strong potential for impact, scalability, and job creation. It will subsidise projects that need to close technical gaps, including critical specialists like VFX artists, sound engineers, post-production editors, and design professionals, or the digital tools and resources that make professional-quality work possible locally, for example, digital asset management systems, content delivery tools, Digital Rights Management solutions, and AI-driven production technologies. The aim is straightforward: Nigeria’s best creative work should be made in Nigeria.

By Adeyemi Adepetun, The Guardian

Nigeria’s military backs local defense technology startup

Nigerian defense-tech startup Terra Industries unveiled its latest autonomous defense systems including interceptor drones, mine-detection vehicles and battlefield intelligence software.

Reuters

US tech billionaire Joe Lonsdale invests $11.8m in Nigerian drone firm to tackle Africa’s insecurity

Nigeria's commercial capital Lagos bets on local power as grid falters

Lagos is betting ‌that Nigeria's chronic electricity shortages can be addressed outside the national grid, scaling up state-backed power generation and distribution after securing 400 megawatts of new supply, the state's energy commissioner said.

Africa’s largest city is pressing ahead under reforms that allow sub-national governments to regulate power as Nigeria’s grid struggles. At least 22 other states are also setting up electricity markets to reduce reliance ⁠on the centralised system in Abuja, according to data from the power regulator.

"We are seeking to move beyond a single point of failure," Lagos Commissioner for Energy and Mineral Resources Biodun Ogunleye said at a conference organised by BusinessDay newspaper on Tuesday.

Nigeria's grid delivers about 3,000 MW on a good day, far short of estimated demand of more than 30,000 MW, according to government power plans, forcing businesses and households to rely on diesel generators.

Lagos activated its electricity regulatory regime in June 2025 and transferred oversight of intrastate electricity matters from the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) to the Lagos State Electricity ‌Regulatory ⁠Commission. By the end of the year, it had assumed full regulatory control of its electricity market, becoming the first Nigerian state to do so, officials said.

In a circular last year, NERC said state regulators would oversee intrastate electricity matters, while it would retain responsibility for interstate electricity transactions, national grid operations and industry standards.

Lagos ⁠has signed power purchase agreements with Fenchurch Power, Mainland Power and Viathan Engineering Limited to supply up to 400 MW to public facilities over three years.

"These are not business-as-usual PPAs," Ogunleye said. "They represent a fundamental shift in ⁠how Lagos procures and pays for power."

Lagos has scrapped "take-or-pay" and "deemed energy" provisions, which required payments even when power was not delivered, and will instead pay only for metered electricity supplied, officials said.

Analysts said ⁠state-level power markets could improve reliability but would not remove constraints including gas supply, foreign exchange exposure, affordability, transmission bottlenecks and weak technical capacity.

"Capital is available, but revenue assurance is a problem," said Bola Adigun, a partner at Deloitte Nigeria.

By Isaac Anyaogu, Reuters

Stock market in Nigeria surges as industrial stocks power a strong rally

Nigeria’s equities market extended its strong run on Tuesday, with a sharp rise in industrial and energy stocks lifting the benchmark index to new highs and reinforcing one of the world’s best-performing market trends this year.

The NGX All-Share Index climbed 2.24% to close at 228,602.00 points, gaining 4,999.71 points in a single session. The move pushes the market’s return to 46.9% so far in 2026, underlining sustained investor appetite despite macroeconomic uncertainties.

Trading activity was robust. A total of 907.9 million shares worth N68.2 billion were exchanged in 72,697 deals.

Compared with the previous session, volume rose 34% and turnover jumped 55%, even as the number of deals declined by 12%, suggesting larger ticket trades dominated the session.

Market capitalisation stood at about N147.3 trillion, equivalent to roughly $107 billion.

Gains were broadly distributed, with 39 stocks gaining and 39 declining, showing a balanced but active market.

Industrial names led the rally. Lafarge Africa posted the maximum daily gain of 10% to close at N324.50, alongside Industrial & Medical Gases and FTN Cocoa Processors, which also rose by the daily limit. Austin Laz & Company followed closely with a 9.71% increase.

The strong performance in industrial counters helped push the NGX Industrial Index up 4.86% on the day and nearly 80% year-to-date, highlighting renewed investor interest in infrastructure-linked and manufacturing plays.

Banking stocks weigh on losers’ chart

On the downside, banking and mid-tier names faced selling pressure. United Bank for Africa declined 10% to N44.55, while Trans-Nationwide Express, Jaiz Bank and Berger Paints also recorded steep losses.

Despite the declines, banking stocks still dominated trading volumes, reflecting continued liquidity and investor positioning in the sector.

Access Holdings led activity with 220 million shares traded, followed by Fidelity Bank, Wema Bank and Linkage Assurance.

Sector performance remained strong across the board. The NGX Oil & Gas Index rose 4.66%, taking its year-to-date return above 100%, while the Consumer Goods and Main Board indices also posted solid gains.

The NGX Top 30 and Premium indices, which track large-cap stocks, continued to trend higher, reinforcing the role of heavyweight companies in driving the rally.

Nigeria’s stock market has attracted increased attention in 2026 as investors seek protection against inflation and currency volatility, while also rotating into equities with strong earnings outlooks.

Reforms in the foreign exchange market and improving corporate profitability have also helped restore confidence, drawing both local institutional funds and foreign portfolio investors back into equities.

With returns nearing 50% this year, the Nigerian market is emerging as one of the standout performers globally, though analysts warn that volatility could increase as valuations rise and profit-taking sets in.

By Ayodeji Adegboyega, Business Insider Africa

Kenya's leader backtracks after comments mocking Nigerians' English

Kenya's President William Ruto has been forced to respond to the backlash over his recent remarks suggesting Nigerian-accented English was incomprehensible.

His clarification came at a mining conference in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, attended by Nigeria's Minerals Minister Henry Dele Alake, who told the gathering: "President Ruto, the people of Nigeria have mandated me to inform and assure you that Nigerians speak good English."

To much laughter, Ruto took to the stage to explain his comments to Kenyans living in Italy last week were intended to be private and had been "taken out of context".

"The fact is that I was talking about how we in Africa speak very good English, all of us," he said.

"In fact, in some countries like Nigeria, if you do not speak excellent English like the one we speak in Kenya, you may need a translator to understand the excellent English of Nigeria. So that was the comparison. But somebody misrepresented the facts."

President Ruto reminded the audience at the mining development conference that Nigerians were his in-laws - one of his daughters, June, is married to a Nigerian.

"I want to send my regards to my brothers and sisters in Nigeria… my in-laws."

He told Alake to pass on his greetings his Nigerian counterpart Bola Tinubu: "Tell President Tinubu that I said, 'Hi'. And tell him I said that in good English… so that there will be no consequences."

Following an explanation about how he felt he had been mispresented, the president ended by saying: "It is as well that we can have this conversation - my in-laws I hope there will be no consequences for whatever was done," he said.

The good-natured banter was in sharp contrast to barrage of criticism President Ruto has faced online.

Last week, he had boasted about how Kenya's education system was producing some of the best human capital in the world, with strong English proficiency.

"We speak some of the best English in the world, that is true. If you listen to a Nigerian speaking, you don't know what they are saying. You need a translator even when they are speaking English."

The condemnation that followed was widespread - fuelling an online cyber rivalry between the two nations.

Kenya and Nigeria are both former British colonies and share English as an official language but have distinct spoken varieties with different phonetic structures.

These differences reflect the influence of indigenous languages - Nigeria has more than 500 languages which shape its cadence and intonation, while Kenya's Bantu, Nilotic and Cushitic mix give rise to its own accents.

By Basillioh Rukanga, BBC