BD Insider, Letter 122: CBN’s stance on buying dollars

For Letter 122, we will cover:

• what the CBN said about buying dollars in Nigeria
• smart residency identification card in Lagos and how to get yours
• Nigeria, the fifth African country to approve a Startup Bill
• the latest African Tech Startup Deals (in PNG and an interactive format)
• job opportunities, events, and more.

What the CBN said about buying dollars in Nigeria

Ahead of this newsletter, we published a post to clarify what the CBN said about buying dollars in Nigeria.

Although CBN Governor Emefiele has said and done a lot to curtail the circulation of dollars in Nigeria. The July 19 press briefing of the 28th MPC meeting wasn’t one of those days.

Here is an excerpt from the article we just published:  

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For context, many Nigerians and startups depend on access to dollars to pay for their digital tools and subscriptions, which are typically offered by international companies. Take, for instance, an online media house like us, Benjamindada.com. Every month, we pay three bills in dollars and none in naira (apart from salary). We pay AWS—for image storage. We pay Ghost—for content management. We pay SEMRush—for SEO insights. We used to pay Otter.ai—for audio transcriptions and Heroku—for cloud hosting. By further limiting our access to dollars, you are going to put us out of business. And that’s us a media company, now think about startups who make use of about 15 SaaS solutions to run their businesses.

Then, we added in what the Governor actually said:

What Governor Emefiele did, in fact, say was that “As for those who want to take naira from their account to buy dollars because of the election, I want to warn–not advise–that it is illegal to do so, whereas it will sound more convenient to carry dollars because you can carry just little dollars with a lot of value in your pocket, but if the security agencies hold you, you know the implication of that.” And you can listen to the recording of the live streaming on CBN’s YouTube channel (starting at 42:00)

 

This is partner content.

The introduction of a smart residency identification card in Lagos

The Lagos State Government launched an upgraded smart and multi-purpose resident identification card for a comprehensive database of residents on Wednesday (July 20, 2022).

According to Lagos State Governor, Babajide Sanwo-Olu, the new “smart” and “multi-purpose” cards combined biometric identification with other functionalities and benefits that cut across areas such as security, financial services, mobility, and access to government services and amenities.

Although Lagos is deemed the second-worst liveable city in the world, the Governor and his team will look to “re-examine strategies aimed at improving the security of lives and properties of the people of Lagos state” by first attempting to identify residents.

According to the Sanwo-Olu, about 30% (6.5 million) of Lagos residents have been identified and enrolled by the Lagos State Residents Registration Agency (LASRRA). And in the last three years, the state witnessed a four-fold growth in the number of registered residents.

Not only did we report on this, but we also curated a guide on how to enroll on the LASRRA database.

The Nigeria Startup Bill has passed the third reading at the Nigerian Senate

The Nigerian Senate has passed the Nigeria Startup Bill (NSB) to create and develop an enabling environment for technology-enabled startups in the country. Nigeria joins Tunisia, Senegal, Ethiopia, and Kenya as the fifth African nation to pass the bill.

As the Bill has left the floor of the Senate, it will be sent to the House of Representatives, where it is expected to pass before being sent to the President for assent.

“The legislature is excited about this bill as they understand that ultimately the tech ecosystem is critical in the future of our great nation. We look to conclude in the National Assembly soon,” Oswald Osaretin Guobadia, the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Digital Transformation said.

Out of Nigeria’s 36 states and the FCT, only Kaduna and Lagos state have publicly indicated interest to domesticate the Startup Bill (at the time of this report). However, Yobe, Ekiti, Edo, and Anambra are also considering the domestication of the Bill, according to the Nigeria Startup Bill team.

We’ve written about why the NSB matters in the past. And now that the Bill has been passed, we also wrote about it. As our contribution to the tech ecosystem, we will contribute to report on relevant facets of the NSB.

BD Africa Funding Tracker

Last week, African startups raised over $64 million. Cassava Technologies’s $50 million was the largest fund. Unlike the months in H1 2022, funding has slowed down since the start of H2.

Mergers and acquisitions:

• MTN South Africa is in talks to acquire Telkom, a South African telecommunications provider.

Venture fund:

• Dutch’s FMO invested $10 million in Egypt’s Algebra Fund II
• FrontEnd Ventures closed its initial $1 million Fund to back Kenyan founders
• AfricInvest and Cathay Innovation closed its €110 million Pan-African Venture Fund

✍ Noteworthy from African Press

Here are some of the key stories we read (and wrote) in the previous weeks:

• Fleeing Putin, Russian tech workers find a home in Armenia
• Visa backed Bloom, Sudan’s first YC-backed startup to fuel Visa Card adoption in Anglo-East Africa.
• Although blockchain has privacy challenges, Zero-Knowledge Proofs has a way of fixing it.
• Five African startups have been selected for the Y Combinator Summer 2022 batch.
• Web3: Here are 14 African startups driving Web3 adoption on the continent

BD Trivia of the Week

Remember, you stand a chance to win a free feature for your favorite startup when you answer the question correctly on Twitter.

BD Trivia always comes up on Friday, so be on the lookout.

Opportunities

Jobs

Every week, we carefully curate open opportunities in Product & Design, Data & Engineering, and Admin & Growth.

Product & Design:

• Kora — Senior Product Manager (Lagos)
• Jobberman — Product Manager (Lagos)
• uLesson — Animator/Motion Graphic Artist (Abuja)

Data & Engineering:

• uLesson — Data Analyst (Abuja)
• Nomba — Frontend Engineer (Lagos)
• QuickCheck — Senior Software Engineer (Lagos)

Admin & Growth:

• Chipper Cash — Country Director (Nigeria)
• Visa — Marketing & Digital Director (Lagos)
• Zipline — Community Lead (Bayelsa, Nigeria)

Other opportunities:

• For startups: Apply for the Smile For Success program to get $10,000 in usage credits to enable identity verification at your startup.
• For women (and men): Apply for Stutern’s African Tech Sis Scholarship to get 50% off to learn Product Design, Frontend, and Backend Engineering.
• For Lagos-based fintech and proptech startups: The ARMS Labs Lagos Techstars Accelerator Program is now accepting applications from early-stage African fintech and Proptech startups

️ Events:

• Attend the Technext GAT (Government and Tech) Summit: July 28, 2022 at Oriental Hotel, Victoria Island, Lagos.
• The GetEquity Startup Festival has been postponed, a new date will be communicated.

Thanks for reading.

You can get in touch with us by emailing hello@benjamindada(dot)com and we’d reply within the hour.