With over N144 billion ($362 million) spent on its building and more on the construction of ground station infrastructure, the country’s communications satellite is still idle in the ongoing switchover from analogue to Digital Terrestrial Television (DTT) broadcasting.

The reason: there is no backup to switch to, if the satellite, for any reason, packs up, prompting a warning by experts that the entire DDT broadcasting could hit the rocks in the event of a system failure.

Information and Culture Minister, Lai Mohammed, was, however, quoted recently as saying: “The process of digitalisation is unstoppable and irreversible; it’s not a matter of choice. If we do not follow the world to digitalise and meet the June 2017 target, it means our telephones, televisions and radios would not be free from interference.

Mohammed confirmed to The Guardian: “When the White Paper on utilisation came out, the Nigerian Broadcasting Commission (NBC), the digital team set up by government, paid a visit to Nigeria Communication Satellite Limited (NIGCOMSAT) and explained to them how ready they were to patronise them. But unfortunately, as we speak today, NIGCOMSAT has no redundancy. In other words, they have no backup. If we sign with them and for any reason the satellite goes down, it means we cannot transmit.”

He stated, however, that as soon as NIGCOMSAT scaled the hurdle, the Federal Government would have no choice but resort to the main local player.

Mohammed’s position corroborates that of his Communications counterpart, Adebayo Shittu. At the end of the National Council on Communication Technology (NCCT) in Kaduna, last week, Shittu highlighted the fears of investors and users about losing data to an unreliable satellite.

He disclosed government’s plans to procure two backups for NIGCOMSAT at the cost of $550 million. “Once that is done, we can beat our chest and say, ‘nobody should take Nigerian money outside for the purpose of storing data’. I am confident that with the Federal Government’s approval, we will get what we want.”

In 1900, the average American lived for less than 50 years. Over the last century, improvements in medicine and public health have contributed to a steady increase in life expectancy. Life expectancy at birth is now 76 for men and 81 for women.

The increase in longevity has been so consistent that it’s permeated actuarial science for life insurance and annuities. The Society of Actuaries has for many years incorporated an assumption that longevity will keep improving over time.

Data over the last five years, however, indicates that this trend may be decelerating, and 2016 saw a rare decrease in life expectancy. Talented entrepreneurs seem undaunted! The fact that the U.S. life insurance industry collected $151.4B in premiums in 2015 has a number of them (including SoFi) extremely focused!

Finally, some futurists such as Aubrey de Grey believe that we don’t need coverage, we will continue chipping away at the aging process until we reach “longevity escape velocity” and live to 1,000. Aubrey does, however, fail to point out how to deal with the dodgy Salmon Mousse you might get served at a holiday dinner party.

All the leading telcos in Nigeria have joined together to launch a mobile payment system called mCash.

The solution designed to facilitate low-value retail payments, grow e-payments by providing accessible electronic channels to a wider range of users and to further enhance financial inclusion in Nigeria, by extending e-payment benefits to Payers and Merchants at the bottom of the pyramid where usage of cash has been predominant.

The solution proposes to aid payments to Merchants (Sellers) for commodities and services. It leverages the NIBSS Instant Payments infrastructure (NIP) for immediate fund delivery to Merchants accounts and the mobile telephone USSD technology which in recent times has become the most accessible channel for financial and non-financial transactions.

Financial Institutions have a choice of allowing their respective customers to access this new service with the mCASH general short code 402 or with their own custom short codes. Either way there are no USSD charges to pay.

It works on all networks.