Business
PLASMIDA Congratulates Job Fair and Pitch Competition Winners, Urges Them to Mentor Others
The Plateau State Microfinance Development Agency (PLASMIDA) on Monday, December 1, hosted beneficiaries of its Job Fair Programme, Pitch Competition winners, and members of the SHAN (C-Hub Alumni Network) Entrepreneurship Club to a strategic interactive session at the agency’s secretariat in Jos.
The engagement brought together individuals who recently secured employment through the Job Fair, young entrepreneurs who received funding through the PEACH Competition, and members of the SHAN Entrepreneurship Club—a network of CEOs under the age of 25, established through PLASMIDA’s secondary school entrepreneurship programme.
PLASMIDA Team
Speaking at the event, PLASMIDA Director General, Hon. Bomkam Ali Wuyep, congratulated participants for their achievements and encouraged them to share their knowledge and experiences with others. He said, “Your success is a reflection of your ingenuity, resilience, and the opportunities created by government initiatives. I urge you to mentor others, so we continue building a culture of entrepreneurship and job creation across Plateau State.”
Hon. Wuyep highlighted the agency’s role in reducing poverty and promoting economic empowerment through initiatives such as:
- Plateau Job Center, which connects youths to employment opportunities, career counseling, and training.
- Modular Basic Entrepreneurship Training Programme (MBETP), implemented with GIZ and GOPA Worldwide Consultants through the Inspire, Create, Start and Scale (ICSS) framework.
- Entrepreneurship and Financial Literacy Training, providing business development, coaching, and mentoring for MSMEs.
- Agric-Business Small and Medium Enterprises Investment Scheme (AGSMEIS), facilitating access to finance as a Central Bank-certified Entrepreneurship Development Institute.
- SLEMS Scheme, empowering youths, women, and start-ups across all 17 LGAs with diverse skills.
- Plateau-CARES, a post-COVID economic recovery initiative supporting businesses and households.
Pitch Competition Winners
Hon. Wuyep commended the participants’ creativity, noting that the Pitch Competition winners stood out among over 120 competitors. “Your innovation and drive have earned you recognition, small business funding, and the opportunity to showcase your ventures in upcoming exhibitions. This is a platform to grow further and inspire others,” he said.
Job Fair Beneficiaries
He also reminded participants that PLASMIDA remains a continuous resource for mentorship, training, access to markets, and financial literacy. “This agency is your home. Use these resources, continue to build your businesses, and help others along the way,” he added.
Daniel Awin, who came first in the Pitch Competition and serves as President of the SHAN Entrepreneurship Club, expressed gratitude to PLASMIDA. “It’s really an honor. From the start, PLASMIDA has empowered us with knowledge, funding, and guidance. Today, we are inspired to mentor others and give back to our communities,” he said.
The session closed with participants encouraged to leverage the agency’s programmes, not just for their personal growth, but to train, mentor, and empower the next generation of Plateau State entrepreneurs.
Pitch Competition Winners and PLASMIDA DG
SHAN Entrepreneurship Club Members with PLASMIDA DG
Africa’s richest man, Aliko Dangote, has revealed how entrenched interests benefiting from Nigeria’s fuel import and subsidy regime tried to frustrate the construction of his $20 billion refinery, describing them as a powerful “mafia” determined to preserve a lucrative subsidy system.
Mr Dangote said the resistance came from traders, shippers and local beneficiaries of Nigeria’s long-running petrol subsidy arrangement who saw the refinery as a threat to billions of naira in profits.
Speaking in an interview with Nicolai Tangen, chief executive officer of the Norwegian Sovereign Wealth Fund, he said these interests worked to delay access to project land and frustrate the refinery’s take-off.
“All this would have been blocked by what you call the mafia in oil business to make sure that we don’t come and address these issues,” he said.
He said securing land to build his world-class refinery took five years, with one site delayed for three and a half years and another for one and a half years, as vested interests sought to stop the project.
“But we were not deterred at all. We were actually focused. We knew what we were doing,” he added.
Mr Dangote explained that for decades Nigeria spent huge sums importing refined petroleum products despite being a major crude producer, creating a system that enriched a few players at the expense of the wider economy.
He said subsidy payments alone reached nearly $10 billion annually.
“The people who were actually benefiting because Nigeria was giving almost about $10 billion every year as subsidy… there are shippers who are making tonnes of money, there are traders who are making tonnes of money,” he said.
He added that a small group also profited from local product allocations under the subsidy regime.
“So these are the people that are not agreeing for us to settle down because they believe that no, we are coming here to displace them. Of course, that’s what we have done now,” he said.
The refinery, which required the construction of an entirely new port, roads and water infrastructure, employed 67,000 people during construction, the African billionaire said.
Mr Dangote said the project became far larger and more difficult than initially imagined, but abandoning it was never an option.
READ ALSO: Dangote rejects NNPC’s bid for bigger refinery stake, pushes for wider ownership
“When you get to the middle of the ocean, you realise that the tide was bad. When you go forward, it’s bad. When you go backwards, it’s bad. So you have to work forward,” he said, using the analogy to paint a broader picture of the difficulties he encountered while building the refinery.
He said the refinery has now changed the market structure and significantly reduced the influence of those who depended on imports and subsidy payments.
The plant currently sources over half of its crude from Nigeria while also importing from Angola, Libya and the United States.
“We source about 56 per cent from Nigeria and some from Angola. We buy quite a bit from Angola, we buy from Libya, and we buy from the US. At one point, we were doing about seven to eight cargoes of WTI from the US. But we’re getting more of Nigeria’s crude now, he said.
Mr Dangote explained that the refinery is currently buying 21 cargoes every month in Nigeria. “That’s how big we are,” he added, stating that they are more than doubling the refinery.
“You know, in the next 30 months, we will be at 1.4 million barrels per day, which is huge,” he noted.
BY NECHI NAECHE-ESEZOBOR—The Securities and Exchange Commission has said it is placing artificial intelligence, data analytics and technology-driven regulation at the centre of Nigeria’s capital market reforms to attract both local and foreign investments.
Speaking at the FSDH Investor Conference 2026 in Lagos, the Director-General of the SEC, Emomotimi Agama, said the future of global investing would increasingly depend on the quality of intelligence, data and technology supporting investment decisions rather than the size of capital alone.
According to him, the era of “intelligent investing” has already arrived, driven by artificial intelligence, real-time analytics, distributed ledger technology and algorithmic systems that are reshaping how investments are priced, allocated and protected globally.
He said, “We are at the threshold of what scholars and practitioners are calling the era of intelligent investing — a paradigm in which data does not merely inform decisions, but actively participates in them.”
Agama noted that the SEC had embarked on what he described as the most comprehensive regulatory reform agenda in its history to ensure Nigeria remains competitive in the evolving global investment environment.
He explained that the Commission’s reforms were aimed at creating a forward-looking market structure capable of supporting intelligent investing through faster settlement systems, tokenised securities and deeper derivatives markets.
According to him, the Commission’s seven-pillar capital market infrastructure vision includes plans to achieve T+1 settlement cycles, expand digital assets regulation and build a comprehensive framework for tokenised securities.
The SEC boss said the Commission was also developing governance frameworks for artificial intelligence applications in the capital market to ensure transparency, accountability and investor confidence.
“We are developing AI governance frameworks for capital market participants — frameworks that demand explainability, accountability and algorithmic fairness. An investor in Nigeria deserves to know not only what decisions were made on their behalf, but how those decisions were reached,” he said.
Agama stated that intelligent investing must be inclusive and accessible to ordinary Nigerians, adding that the SEC’s fintech-bank integration strategy targets about 20 million retail investors across the country.
He said technology and data-driven investing tools could democratise access to wealth creation opportunities for small businesses, artisans and low-income earners who had previously been excluded from formal investment systems.
The SEC DG also stressed the importance of collaboration between regulators, financial institutions, fintech firms and investors in building a resilient and technology-driven market ecosystem.
According to him, Nigeria’s capital market reforms and adoption of intelligent investing frameworks would strengthen investor confidence, improve market transparency and position the country as a leading investment destination in Africa.
He added that the Commission was strengthening investor protection through enhanced enforcement mechanisms, financial literacy programmes and the establishment of a dedicated Investor Protection Department.
Agama said, “Confidence is the ultimate asset in a capital market. Every disclosure we enforce, every fraud we prosecute, every investor we educate adds to the stock of market confidence.”
He further noted that Nigeria’s growing role in African capital market integration and digital finance initiatives would help channel long-term investments into infrastructure, gender finance and other critical sectors of the economy.
The SEC DG commended FSDH Merchant Bank for creating a platform for stakeholders to discuss the future of intelligent investing, adding that collaboration and data-sharing among market participants would be critical to building globally competitive financial markets in Nigeria.
The post SEC positions AI, data-driven regulation to attract investments appeared first on Business Today NG.
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