Don Jazzy just added another artist to Mavin Global, and this time it's LOVN from the Mavin Academy program. The producer hyped him up on X by pointing out that the guy has been grinding through talent competitions like Access The Stars and The Voice Nigeria for years without giving up.
Jazzy said LOVN represents what happens when someone keeps posting their stuff online and stays ready to work, which is apparently the formula he tells every new artist trying to break through. The label boss thinks social media hustle combined with actual talent is what cuts through all the noise, and LOVN checked both boxes hard enough to get signed.
Rahma Adam Mohammed from Amaryadotcom and HER360 just made the Global 100 Most Impactful Leaders list that PAYLEF put together, and the award ceremony went down in Kigali. Her COO, Summaya Mohammed, picked up the trophy since Rahma couldn't make it, and the recognition was basically for building platforms that help Nigerian women level up through wellness programs, leadership training, and business development stuff.
HER360 mixes beauty services with psychology support, cultural identity work, and career advancement resources, which apparently nobody else in Nigeria had done before at that scale. The organization runs a mentorship program for younger girls during International Women's Day each year. Rahma said the award represents...
The Nigerian Marketing Awards handed out trophies to companies that actually delivered results this year, and Insight Publicis grabbed the top agency spot while Lafarge Africa scored brand innovation honors for their Ecoplanet cement thing. Dufil Prima won for best AI usage in marketing campaigns, PZ Cussons got recognized for the Carex rebrand, and X3M Ideas killed it on social media strategy.
Tony Agenmonmen, who started the whole awards program four years back, said the goal was building credibility standards instead of just throwing participation trophies at everyone. The Award Decision Council picked winners based on actual merit rather than popularity contests, and Iquo Ukoh from the council mentioned the industry has been...
Abode Assets just dropped a 100-acre project called Empire Park Estate, and they're letting people buy in with literally 100,000 naira, which is wild for Nigerian real estate. CEO Jeffrey Itepu said the whole point was making property investment accessible beyond just rich people, and COO Damilare Oshokoya mentioned they digitized everything so their 2,000-plus investors across 13 countries can track stuff with a button press.
The launch had horse riding and face painting because, apparently, turning regular folks into landowners should feel like a party instead of some stuffy wealth thing. The company is basically trying to prove that getting into property doesn't require massive upfront cash anymore.
The head of the Nigerian Railway Corporation just dropped some brutal numbers about how the country basically ignored trains for six decades straight. Kayode Opeifa pointed out that from 1962 through 2000, the government built absolutely nothing while other places were upgrading to bullet trains and magnetic levitation tech. Nigeria sits at 4,000 kilometers of track compared to South Africa's 35,000.
The big shift happened when lawmakers moved rail from federal-only control to something states and private companies can actually touch. Lagos had been trying to build metro lines for years, but kept getting blocked until the 2023 constitutional change freed everything up. Six state governments are moving forward with their metro plans...
Paul Alaje from SPM Professionals told a journalism training session in Abuja that Nigeria keeps spinning its wheels because the country never properly built out its manufacturing base. The economist said America and China both needed industrial revolutions before they became economic powerhouses, and Brazil followed the same playbook to lift millions out of poverty.
Manufacturing and construction need to become the priority instead of services dominating everything, according to Alaje. He pointed out that oil revenue looks good on paper but doesn't create enough jobs or spread wealth around. Premium Times ran the workshop with Central Bank backing to help reporters cover financial policy better through data analysis instead of just...
MATAN Food Bank rolled out a digital food security system at a three-day event in Lagos that pulled farmers from every state to talk about fixing hunger from the ground up. Olakunle Johnson said the plan uses multipurpose ID cards linked to bank verification numbers and national ID info to cut down on food line chaos, and they want to register over 200 million people while setting up street-level feeding machines for both raw and cooked meals.
The group partnered with large-scale farmers to handle production, while MATAN manages storage and distribution through community teams that collect data and run local food banks. Former Gombe deputy governor Joshua Lidani called it unprecedented, and Dr. Olajide Bashorun from Miss Farms said...
Olaide Alimi got fed up after getting debited for a bill payment that never went through, so he built SnappyPay to fix the busted digital payment system in Nigeria. The Lagos entrepreneur said the platform handles stuff like airtime top-ups and data purchases without the usual failed transaction headaches that plague existing services.
Snappy Technology launched the app at an event in Ikeja while celebrating five years of their other product, SnappyExchange. Alimi thinks the real issue is deeper infrastructure problems that keep people from getting instant value after they pay, and his company is trying to smooth out those friction points.
FoodCo just snagged Retail Brand of the Year at the Nigerian Business Leadership Awards for the second time in a row, and it's their fifth trophy from that series overall. BusinessDay handed out the recognition, with publisher Frank Aigbogun praising the supermarket chain for staying competitive despite inflation problems, currency issues, and power grid nightmares that keep hitting Nigerian businesses.
CEO Ade Sun-Basorun thanked the team and customers through his HR chief, saying the company has been grinding since 1982, when it started as a single fruit stand. The chain employs over 2,000 people across South-West Nigeria, and they've made the Financial Times list of Africa's fastest-growing companies multiple times.
