The Infrastructure Concession Regulatory Commission (ICRC) has unveiled new guidelines on Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs), decentralizing approval powers to Ministries, Departments, and Agencies (MDAs) in a move aimed at accelerating project delivery and unlocking private sector investments for Nigeria’s ailing infrastructure.

The Commission announced the reforms in a statement on Sunday, explaining that the framework was developed under the ICRC Act of 2005 and aligns with a Presidential directive to overhaul Nigeria’s infrastructure delivery model through PPPs.

The new rules establish a structured process for the conception, development, and execution of PPP projects nationwide. They also grant MDAs greater authority to approve projects, while the ICRC retains oversight responsibilities to ensure compliance, transparency, and accountability.

Speaking during the launch of the framework at a high-level stakeholders’ engagement, ICRC Director-General Dr. Jobson Oseodion Ewalefoh underscored that the reforms are central to President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s economic vision of liberalizing and modernizing the nation’s infrastructure financing.

“The new guidelines are in response to President Tinubu’s vision to liberalize the economy and in line with his charge to the ICRC to seek innovative ways to attract private sector finance to build infrastructure through PPPs,” Ewalefoh said. “They decentralize project approvals to empower MDAs for faster delivery while safeguarding the ICRC’s role as regulator of PPPs in Nigeria.”

Ewalefoh clarified that the ICRC will continue to act as a regulator and facilitator, not an operator or grantor of projects, and will remain central to coordinating negotiations between MDAs and private partners to ensure projects are bankable, transparent, and fair.

The Commission also emphasized that while MDAs now enjoy more flexibility, the decentralization comes with stricter accountability measures and a zero-tolerance stance on non-compliance. According to the ICRC, the combination of decentralized approvals and stronger compliance checks is expected to unlock billions of naira in private investment and cement Nigeria’s standing as one of Africa’s leading destinations for transformative infrastructure projects.

The guidelines build on a policy approved by President Tinubu in June 2025, which empowered the ICRC to independently approve projects below N20 billion without seeking Federal Executive Council (FEC) clearance. Under the updated rules, ministries can now greenlight projects under N20 billion, while agencies and parastatals can approve those below N10 billion. Larger projects above the threshold, or those spanning multiple ministries, will still require FEC approval.

To support this process, the framework introduces Project Approval Boards (PABs) within MDAs, tasked with vetting and approving eligible projects, subject to ICRC certification. Crucially, all PPPs must be fully financed by the private sector, with no federal treasury guarantees or commitments. Regardless of scope or value, every project must undergo ICRC’s due diligence before securing final approval.

Analysts say the move signals a bold attempt by the Tinubu administration to close Nigeria’s yawning infrastructure gap, estimated at over $100 billion, while reducing bottlenecks that have historically stalled project delivery.

Why This Matters

Nigeria’s big-ticket PPP projects—roads, bridges, ports, pipelines, and power plants—have historically been hampered by bureaucratic delays, fragmented approval processes, and underfunding. The new ICRC framework, by decentralizing approval authority via MDA-embedded Project Approval Boards (PABs) and streamlining due diligence, aims to:

• Decrease lead times for project selection and contracting.
• Enhance institutional capacity through accountability incentives.
• Attract private capital by offering clarity and regulatory predictability.
• Ensure compliance and value-for-money through ICRC oversight, zero public treasury guarantees, and mandatory private financing.

If applied effectively, this reform could help restart and scale landmark projects like the AKK Gas Pipeline—and put more stalled initiatives back on track.

OpenAI has announced a subtle but notable update to its latest flagship model, GPT-5, aimed at making it “warmer and friendlier” after days of mixed user reactions to its launch.

The announcement, made late Friday, comes in response to feedback from users who said GPT-5 felt “too blunt” or “detached” compared to earlier versions such as GPT-4o. CEO Sam Altman himself admitted the rollout was “a little more bumpy than we’d hoped for,” acknowledging that OpenAI’s most advanced release to date had not immediately resonated with everyone.

In a social media post, the company said the changes would not alter the underlying reasoning power of GPT-5 but would instead make its interactions “more approachable.” According to OpenAI, users can expect “small, genuine touches like ‘Good question’ or ‘Great start,’ not flattery,” while internal tests showed “no rise in sycophancy compared to the previous GPT-5 personality.”

At a dinner with journalists earlier in the week, OpenAI executives tried to shift attention to the company’s long-term strategy — including AI’s potential to reshape work, education, and even address looming demographic crises. But the uneasy launch of GPT-5 lingered in the background.

Vice President Nick Turley admitted that GPT-5, in its initial release, “was just very to the point,” a quality that frustrated some users who had grown used to the lighter tone and conversational fluidity of GPT-4o.

“This update will bring back some of that warmth,” Turley explained, framing the changes as a recalibration rather than a redesign.

The episode highlights a recurring pattern in OpenAI’s product evolution: every major release has faced a wave of pushback over tone and usability. When GPT-4o debuted earlier this year, some users complained it was “too chatty” and prone to filler language, prompting the company to tighten its style. Now, with GPT-5, the pendulum seems to have swung in the opposite direction, with users asking for more friendliness.

This back-and-forth underscores the difficulty of building AI systems that are both powerful and personable. For OpenAI, the challenge lies not only in advancing reasoning capabilities but also in meeting shifting user expectations about how AI should “feel.” Personality, it turns out, is just as important as raw intelligence when it comes to daily adoption.

Despite the rocky start, OpenAI remains the most highly valued AI company. Its most recent funding round placed its valuation at about $500 billion, far ahead of rivals like Anthropic, Mistral, and Google DeepMind. Analysts believe that even with occasional missteps, OpenAI continues to dominate adoption across industries, from enterprise software to healthcare applications.

The update is expected to serve as a test of whether GPT-5 can strike the right balance between intelligence and approachability. If it succeeds, the company could put its latest stumble behind it, reinforcing its position at the center of global debates over how AI should evolve — not just in terms of what it can do, but in how it relates to people.

A Comment on the piece on Igbo song: “Chi is different from Chineke.”

My Response: For all of us, our Chi will guide us to victory. For me, I am convinced that I will have victory, and my chi is aware of that. When used in plural, in Igbo mythology, I can use “Chi” to mean Chineke, Chukwu Abiama, Osebuluwa , Chukwuokike, Obasi di n’elu, the Supreme God.

Example: “anyi na ekele Chi anyi “; here the “Chi” is Chineke, and not the personal chi. So, you can use Chi to mean Chineke if “Chi” is used in plural sense. In Igbo language 1978 convention chaired my Emenanjo and which later crystallized moving from A B GB to A B CH, in edemede Igbo (Igbo writing), the contextualization of plurality in Igbo writing was well established.

Emenanjo who is regarded as the father of modern Igbo writing took pains to explain many things. For example, “Nkem is a fox” does not mean that Nkem is “nkita ohia” which is Igbo animal equivalent of a “fox”. But he noted that Nkem is mbe (tortoise) because culturally, fox is to the English culture what tortoise is in Igbo culture [a cunning animal]. So, when you translate, it is not the animal but what the cultural equivalent is in Igbo culture that matters.

That is where WAEC translation part of Igbo exam becomes interesting as context matters, from idiom to axiom, on the Igbo worldview. When you say “uwa bu ahia”, you have a literal meaning of the “world is a marketplace”. But the idiomatic real meaning is that the world is a stage, where players come and go, just in the same way people go to open markets, do business, and return to their homes.

Looking at all, Chi when used in the plural sense does mean Chineke, the supreme God, within the context of my piece.

The Indefatigable Spirit of Igbo Nation, Captured in “onye kwe chi ya ekwe”