The United Nations Environment has run an interview I granted the global institution few days ago. The focus was measuring the earth to save the earth: yes, with precision agriculture we can at least understand what is happening to soils we farm.

For Ndubuisi Ekekwe, Nigerian founder of precision farming startup Zenvus, African farming must change because traditional practices keep many farmers trapped in a cycle of poverty.

“What we have been doing for generations has not worked so now there needs to be a paradigm shift to try something new that can turn farmers into business people rather than custodians of ancestral history and ancestral norms and dogmas,” he said.

“What will drive that change are new techniques, new procedures and new processes. We believe that precision farming is the separation between what was in the past and what we believe is going to be the future.”

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For Ekekwe, data is the key to success and represents the real value of precision farming.

“The reason we are destroying this earth is because no one is even measuring anything,” he said. “What precision agriculture is really doing is saying, ‘at least, let’s know what is going on’.”

We sincerely apologize to the Central Bank of Nigeria for our comments when the bank imposed fines on MTN and some banks over some foreign transfer transactions.

Yes, MTN Nigeria has another issue: now, it is coming from the Central Bank of Nigeria. The bank asked it yesterday to refund $8.13B (with B) which the apex bank said the mobile giant (allegedly) illegally repatriated. This is the CBN Letter to MTN (MTN-Letter-of-outcome-of-investigation).

Contrary to the statements from some of the entities, CBN actually gave them notices to defend themselves before going public.

He said a one-week deadline for MTN and the banks to reconcile their records and report back to the committee was not met. A fresh deadline also stretched to almost two months without the documents.

“At this point, we (CBN) could not wait endlessly for them. That is why we released the report to the public and imposed various sanctions totaling N5.87bn against the banks,” Mr Emefiele told PREMIUM TIMES.

“What CBN sought was a reversal of the transactions by MTN and return of the funds, because they were not finally authorised by the CBN, and follow due procedures in funds repatriation,” Mr Emefiele explained.

It is fake news to claim you woke up and read the fines on pages of newspapers when you had been given up to 2 months to come clean. I am truly disappointed that companies could manipulate words so devilishly.

From America to UK, everyone has been lambasting the CBN. But looking at the timelines, the banks and MTN had opportunities to have kept this saga private. But when they chose not, CBN went public. There was no malice on that as Nigeria is bigger than any company that operates in Nigeria. Personally, I apologize for accusing CBN of not showing tact to public companies.

This says it all – close to 90% of applicants that apply to a job position are objectively not a match to the role advertised in Africa. This is caused less by a shortage of jobs, but a fundamental misunderstanding of job requirements, both from employers and candidates, ROAM research explains.

This has been uncovered by research conducted by ROAM (Ringier One Africa Media), who is encompassing the market-leading job portals in West Africa (Jobberman) and East Africa (Brightermonday), as well as Executive Recruitment and HR Solutions firm The African Talent Company. The company has analysed data sets from more than 12 million users, as well as from more than 100,000 employers, across Nigeria and Kenya active in the last two years.

Matthew Page, ROAM Head of Jobs, on the background of the research: “We have recently conducted a data review and were shocked by this huge gap. Our initial hypothesis was that this is due to a shortage of jobs, gaps in the labour markets, and desperation. However digging deeper into our database, our analysis found that many candidates were indeed qualified for other available jobs, but did not necessarily apply for these. African employers and our clients indeed face a challenge in hiring the right people.”

The company’s research further brought to light that an average job listing receives about 140 – 160 applications. This showcases that there are huge hiring efforts involved in the application and recruitment process, even before the interview. This is both on the candidate side, to launch this large number of wrong applications, as well as from the employer, to identify the 10% of right candidates, amidst a large number of unqualified requests.

“Hiring the right competency upfront typically returns 3x productivity for the employer. It also minimises the onboarding time required to get an employee up to speed. That is why we have launched smart employer products in the last months. These facilitate a smooth hiring experience for employers, through tech-enabled shortlisting and matching products that identify the best candidate for the best position”, adds Matthew Page.

Clemens Weitz, CEO of ROAM elaborates on the potential for economic growth: “Our research clearly shows that the education of the African job market has a long way to go – both on the seeker and employer side. Solving this challenge will unlock tremendous latent economic potential. Imagine an efficient economy, where all employees sit in the job that is a perfect, natural fit for their individual nature. Productivity and satisfaction would skyrocket. AI and machine learning have tremendous potential, and we plan to fundamentally solve this challenge in 2019.”