Business
NASENI Wants 3% Yearly Revenue
To sustain Nigeria’s indus-trial development, there is need to adequately fund the National Agency for Science and Engineering Infrastructure (NASENI), by allocating three per cent of Federal Government’s yearly income to it, the Director-General of the agency, Mohammed Haruna, has said.
Haruna said over the weekend, when he visited the Nigerian Television Authority (NTA), that Nigerians would derive a lot of benefit from well-funded NASENI.
He particularly called for a special funding for the agency, in order to achieve its targets.
“For example, our Power Equipment and Electrical Machinery Development Institute (PEEMADI) gets requests for components and backups needed in the power infrastructure industry through local manufacturing.
“However, PEEMADI was given only N23 million in 2012 Appropriation Act. How can such meager amount support the power industry in Nigeria? Until local industries and manufacturing companies like NASENI get involved in local manufacturing of power generating equipment, we will never have adequate power supply in the country,” he said.
The two organisations have, however, agreed to work together for the promotion of indigenous technologies, especially in the areas of technology transfer and manufacturing of local engineering equipment for industries within and outside Nigeria.
Haruna said his agency was the only organisation set up by government to ensure full industrialisation of the country through its engagement in local mass production of standard parts, capital goods and services required for the nation’s technology advancement.
According to him, the agency was established because of the need to develop the country in the area of science, engineering and technology on the one hand and push for economic and industrial development of the country on the other hand.
The NASENI chief urged the organised private sector, entrepreneurs and industrialists to take advantage of prototype industrial equipment that had already been produced by the agency and help in mass producing them for the development of the nation’s economy, stressing that unless Nigeria begins to make use of locally produced tools, spare parts, goods and services, which NASENI is already doing, technology transfer would always remain a mirage in production activities.
The Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement System (NIBSS) has said that Bank Verification Number (BVN) enrolments rose by 6.8 per cent year-on-year to 67.8 million as at December 2025, up from 63.5 million recorded in the corresponding period of 2024.
In a statement published on its website, NIBSS attributed the growth to stronger policy enforcement by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and the expansion of diaspora enrolment initiatives.
NIBSS noted that the expansion reinforces the BVN system’s central role in Nigeria’s financial inclusion drive and digital identity framework.
Another major driver, the statement said, was the rollout of the Non-Resident Bank Verification Number (NRBVN) initiative, which allows Nigerians in the diaspora to obtain a BVN remotely without physical presence in the country.
A five-year analysis by NIBSS showed consistent growth in BVN enrolments, rising from 51.9 million in 2021 to 56.0 million in 2022, 60.1 million in 2023, 63.5 million in 2024 and 67.8 million by December 2025. The steady increase reflects stronger compliance with biometric identity requirements and improved coverage of the national banking identity system.
However, NIBSS noted that BVN enrolments still lag the total number of active bank accounts, which exceeded 320 million as of March 2025.
The gap, it explained, is largely due to multiple bank accounts linked to single BVNs, as well as customers yet to complete enrolment, despite the progress recorded.