President Bola Ahmed Tinubu will, on Thursday, send off Team Nigeria, ahead of the contingent’s departure to the United Kingdom for the 2026 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, Scotland.

The send-off event, which will take place at the Presidential Villa, is part of the President’s show of support for the Nigerian contingent before they depart the shores of the nation to begin the final phase of preparations before the Games.

President Tinubu is expected to charge the athletes and officials to compete with honour and resilience for which Nigerians are renowned.

Nigeria is looking to build on its impressive outing at the 2022 Commonwealth Games in Birmingham, where the country emerged as the highest-ranked African nation on the medals table after winning 35 medals comprising 12 gold, 9 silver and 14 bronze.

Team Nigeria has been in camp in Abuja, where athletes have been undergoing intensive training in preparation for the Games. The contingent is scheduled to depart Nigeria on Friday for Aberdeen, Scotland, to undertake a three-week training camp before proceeding to Glasgow, the host city of the Games.

Nigeria will compete in 10 sports at the Commonwealth Games, with a contingent of 74 athletes expected to represent the country.

The 2026 Commonwealth Games will take place from July 23 to August 2, bringing together athletes from across the Commonwealth to compete for honours in various sporting events.

President Tinubu has previously expressed confidence in Nigeria’s ability to excel on the international stage and has constantly assured athletes of the Federal Government’s support at all times.

The Open Access Data Centre (OADC) has projected that the data center market in Nigeria is valued at $2 billion.

Nigeria’s data center ecosystem is largely concentrated in Lagos, especially in and around the Lekki-Victoria Island corridor. Major operators like Unitella Edge Cloud, Rack Centre, Equinix (MainOne).

MTN Nigeria operates the Tier III certified Sifiso Dabengwa Data Centre, located in Ikeja, Lagos, and Africa Data Centres provide Tier III colocation services, while Galaxy Backbone operates the country’s first Tier IV facility.

Speaking at a virtual interactive session with journalists, the OADC’s Chief Executive Officer, Ayotunde Coker, said local servers’ owners have the capacity to host banks and other financial institutions’ data locally.

“The infrastructure argument is over. The only thing left is execution”, Coker said.

The OADC CEO allayed the fear of inadequate infrastructure with the precision of someone who has spent a decade building the infrastructure at the centre of the debate.

The Central Bank of Nigeria had in a circular dated June 15, 2026, directed all financial institutions and payment operators to store and manage payment transaction data generated within Nigeria on local servers, giving the industry until January 1, 2027 to achieve full compliance.

The directive addressed to deposit money banks, microfinance banks, mobile money operators, switching and processing companies, payment terminal service providers, payment solution service providers, super agents, and other licensed payment operators has since triggered a wave of institutional anxiety, centred primarily on whether Nigeria’s data centre ecosystem can absorb the compliance load or not.

The CBN had warned that compliance will be closely monitored and that supervisory sanctions will be imposed on defaulting institutions.

as National Total Hits 102,025Lagos State has recorded the highest number of new HIV infections in the country, according to fresh data from the Federal Ministry of Health and Social Welfare, raising concerns about the ongoing challenge of controlling the epidemic despite years of prevention efforts.

A total of 102,025 new HIV infections were documented across Nigeria’s 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) in 2025, per the State of the Health of the Nation Report 2025. Lagos led with 10,430 new cases, followed by Rivers State (6,287) and Kano State (6,106).

Other states with significant new infections in the top 10 included Akwa Ibom (5,413), Taraba (4,854), Benue (4,804), Anambra (4,468), Kaduna (3,659), Adamawa (2,989), and the FCT (2,764). Several additional states reported over 2,000 new cases each, highlighting a concentrated burden in certain regions.

The report underscores that while Nigeria has achieved notable progress in HIV management compared to previous decades—through expanded antiretroviral therapy (ART) access and awareness campaigns—the 2025 figures indicate the epidemic is far from over. Health experts point to factors such as population density in urban centers like Lagos, high mobility, and gaps in consistent prevention and testing as contributors to the state’s leading position.

Officials and advocacy groups have called for intensified, targeted interventions, including scaled-up testing, education on safe practices, and sustained funding for treatment programs to meet the 2030 goal of ending AIDS as a public health threat. Stakeholders warn that declining external support could reverse hard-won gains if not matched by increased domestic investment.

This data comes amid broader efforts by the National Agency for the Control of AIDS (NACA) and state agencies to strengthen surveillance and response strategies. Public health authorities urge Nigerians to prioritize regular testing, condom use, and adherence to treatment for those living with the virus.