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The Nigerian Startup Act has been passed into law since October 2022, but only a handful of states have made concrete efforts toward the domestication of the Act. Why is that?

The Nigeria Startup Act (NSA) was signed into law in October 2022 after a rigorous year of deliberations by the Nigerian presidency; the minister of digital economy Isa Pantami; tech stakeholders; and officials of the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA).Formulated to mark a watershed phase in the growth of Nigerias technology ecosystem, the act was designed to be carefully domesticated across the countrys 36 states and its capital, Abuja. But six months later, no state has domesticated the act, and only a few have made concrete efforts in that direction.

The Nigeria Startup Act was formulated to create an enabling environment for startups to thrive, align all government agencies and parastatals on the vision for Nigerias tech ecosystem, address the lack of local content support, and provide a clear regulatory framework for startups. The Act also provides incentives like tax breaks, protection, access to an exclusive list of public and private-led funding opportunities for local entrepreneurs, and incentives to attract local and foreign investors to Nigerias startups.

One reason which necessitated the development of the Act was the shutdown or serious crises that several startups faced due to sudden regulations imposed by the government. In 2021, the Central Bank of Nigeria prohibited all banks from dealing in cryptocurrencies or facilitating payments for crypto exchanges, a decree that negatively impacted crypto companies in Nigeria. Fejiro Agbodje, CEO of crypto company Patricia, told TechCabal that his companys growth was seriously affected by the CBNs restriction on crypto trading.

Similarly, several ride-hailing startups suddenly had their business models disrupted after the Lagos state government banned two-wheelers. These kinds of events paint a gory view of what running a tech-powered business looks like in Nigeria.

A focus on elections

To ensure that the Act is effective, Nigerian states have to domesticate it. Domestication is the process of adopting federal laws as state laws so that they can have the force of law in that state. But six months after the Act became law, only eight states have indicated an interest in domesticating the Act.

Of the eight states, the Lagos state government had already announced plans to domesticate the Act in June 2022, months before it became law. TechCabal reported last week that Osun state plans to become the first state to domesticate the Nigerian Startup Act. The other states include Kaduna, Yobe, Edo, Anambra, Ekiti, and Zamfara.

Tracy Okoro Isaac, the state adoption and domestication lead for the Nigeria Startup Act, told TechCabal that the ongoing elections have diverted attention from the domestication process, as state governors prepared for elections. Theres not a lot of momentum because of the whole election fever. But when the elections are done, the whole conversation will move back to the domestication of the bill by states, she said. (Not all states are having gubernatorial elections during this election period, but state assembly elections are expected to take place.)

Osun state is in the second phase of stakeholder validation. Kaduna state has a bill that we just reviewed and sent back. Anambra state is also working on theirs, and we are supposed to have an ecosystem validation session on their own bill this month. Edo state is also working on theirs, Isaac added about the states that currently have plans in motion for domestication.

When asked what challenges states might have in adopting the Act, she shared that most states do not have a startup ecosystem but rather a business ecosystem. Due to this, the states will have to first map out their startup ecosystem, the problems they might have, and the stakeholders in the ecosystem. She added that this has been the major setback that states have faced in trying to domesticate the Act.

She also shared that there has been excitement from state governors because of the positive economic impact their states will get from domesticating the Act. According to Isaac, the enabling environment that the Act is trying to create is enticing to state governments, and after the elections, she expects an upward trend in the domestication of the Act.

Following a framework

In domesticating the national startup act, states are expected to work with the NSA secretariat to develop a bill that reflects the peculiarities of each state. But, so far, some states do not seem to be playing by the stipulated framework. This, according to Isaac, could lead to future problems.

Some states domesticating the NSA without the guidelines stipulated by the national and state secretariat run the risk of not having the bill approved. Instead of copying the national Act verbatim, each states bill is supposed to be unique, reflecting current realities of the state, she said.

The concentration of startup activity in a few states like Lagos, Rivers, Oyo, and the Federal Capital Territory Abuja has left most states behind in charting their startup ecosystems. This varying maturity of tech ecosystems across the federation lends credence to the state-based approach to domesticating the bill.

For Isaac and her team, the mandate is to ensure that the forwarded state bills are conditioned to help grow the sub local startup ecosystems. That means taking a hard stand when state governments decide to do things their own way.

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Why some states are not domesticating the Nigerian Startup Act - TechCabal

Published 5:52 pm Tuesday, March 14, 2023

The 35th annual Suffolk Sister Cities Young Authors and Artists Showcase, Peace by Piece: Food Security in My Community, debuted at the Suffolk Center for Cultural Arts Tuesday, Feb. 28.

Michelle Wren, president of Suffolk Sister Cities International, and Mardane McLemore, chairman of Young Artists and Authors, welcomed students and their families, thanked judges for sharing their expertise and acknowledged Suffolk Public School and Nansemond Suffolk Academy teachers for supporting the efforts of their creative students.

Suffolk Mayor Michael D. Duman presented 53 awards to students in digital art, photography, painting, drawing, mixed media, essay, poetry, and music.

The Young Artists and Authors Showcase exhibition features 118 art entries and 81 authors entries created by SPS and NSA students. Works were judged by experts in the related field, winners include:

These winners are eligible to participate in the Sister Cities International Competition, where they compete with entries from around the world and United States. There is a $1,000 cash prize for winners of the international competition.

Peace by Piece: Food Security in My Community student showcase continues through Wednesday, March 22 at the Suffolk Center for Cultural Arts. Gallery admission is free and open to the public 10 a.m.-4 p.m., Tuesdays-Saturdays, 110 W. Finney Ave.

To learn more about Suffolk Sister Cities International, visit http://www.suffolksistercitiesinternational.org.

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'Peace by Piece' showcase offers look at students' creativity - The ... - Suffolk News-Herald

Three arrested on charges of killing cow in Bhopal; NSA to be slapped on them  Deccan Herald

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Three arrested on charges of killing cow in Bhopal; NSA to be slapped on them - Deccan Herald

Putin Cleared the Room for NSA Ajit Doval, Talked Perception Sharing: Inside the Closed-Door Meet  msnNOW

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Putin Cleared the Room for NSA Ajit Doval, Talked Perception Sharing: Inside the Closed-Door Meet - msnNOW

What is the National Security Agency (NSA)?

The National Security Agency (NSA) is a federal government intelligence agency that is part of the United States Department of Defense and is managed under the authority of the director of national intelligence (DNI).

The intelligence agency, led by the director of the NSA, does its global monitoring, collection and processing of information and data electronically from its headquarters in Maryland. The NSA is in the Intelligence-gathering business and -- unlike the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) -- its agents don't make arrests. Instead, the NSA turns information over to the military.

In 1952, President Harry S. Truman officially formed the NSA to perform a specialized discipline known as signals intelligence (SIGINT). SIGINT is intelligence gathering by interception of signals -- either communications between people or through electronic signals not directly used in communication.

Two decades later, in 1972, a presidential directive established the Central Security Service (CSS) to provide cryptologic support, knowledge and assistance to the military cryptologic community. The NSA and CSS together form the National Security Agency Central Security Service (NSA/CSS). The job of the NSA/CSS is to create a more unified cryptologic effort with the armed forces and team with senior military and civilian leaders to address and act on critical military-related issues in support of national and tactical intelligence objectives, according to the government.

The NSA exists to protect national communications systems integrity and to collect and process information about foreign adversaries' secret communications in support of national security and foreign policy.

Its role in preserving national security is twofold:

In October 2017, Attorney General Loretta Lynch signed new guidelines enabling the NSA to provide intercepted communications and raw SIGINT -- before applying domestic and foreign privacy protections -- to 16 government agencies, including the FBI and Central Intelligence Agency.

Although the organization's number of employees -- as well as its budget -- falls into the category of classified information, the NSA lists among its workforce analysts, engineers, physicists, linguists, computer scientists, researchers, customer relations specialists, security officers, data flow experts, managers, and administrative and clerical assistants.

It also claims to be the largest employer of mathematicians in the U.S. and possibly worldwide. NSA/CSS mathematicians perform the agency's two critical functions: They design cryptographic systems to protect U.S. communications, and they search for weaknesses in the counterpart systems of U.S. adversaries.

The NSA denies reports claiming that it has an unlimited black budget -- undisclosed even to other government agencies. Nevertheless, the agency admitted that, if it were judged as a corporation, it would rank in the top 10% of Fortune 500 companies.

It's been known that the NSA listens in on every international phone call made to and from the U.S., but that's just one aspect of the agency's work. Another aspect is the agency's focus on intelligence gathering.

It was believed that the NSA only focused on international intelligence gathering. However, that belief was derailed in 2013 when details about some of the NSA's other surveillance programs became public.

That's when former Booz Allen Hamilton contractor Edward Snowden leaked troves of confidential NSA information to the national and international press. The documents indicated the agency had broadened its domestic surveillance activities to bulk collection of U.S. communications.

Snowden told the press about 10 NSA surveillance programs:

Early interception techniques relied on radio signals, radar and telemetry.

The first traces of SIGINT date back to July 1917 when the government created the Cipher Bureau of Military Intelligence. This was three months after the United States had declared war on Germany, in part because of the infamous Zimmerman Telegram.

Intercepted and deciphered by British intelligence, the Zimmerman Telegram revealed that the German foreign secretary attempted to entice Mexico into war against the U.S. by promising to return the states of Texas, New Mexico and Arizona to Mexico should Germany win the war.

When British codebreakers intercepted this message, it inflamed the U.S. and proved the value of SIGINT.

After the war, SIGINT work became fragmented and scattered among numerous agencies and government entities. The Army Signal Corps developed the Signal Intelligence Service (SIS) in May 1929 after taking over cryptology from military intelligence. Civilian William F. Friedman became chief cryptologist at SIS and was tasked with educating a small team of civilians on cryptanalysis so they could compile codes for the U.S. Army.

After the armed forces succeeded in cracking German and Japanese codes during World War II, President Truman reorganized American SIGINT under the NSA. SIS, renamed the Signal Security Agency and then the Army Security Agency in the mid-1940s, became part of the National Security Agency.

In 1957, the NSA moved to Fort Meade in Maryland, where it is still based today.

In 2012, The New York Times reported that Stuxnet malware, discovered in June 2010 after a damaging attack on Windows machines and programmatic logic controllers in Iran's industrial plants, including its nuclear program, had been jointly developed by the U.S. and Israel. Neither country has admitted responsibility for the malicious computer worm.

A hacker organization dubbed Equation Group allegedly used two of the zero-day exploits prior to the Stuxnet attack, according to antivirus company Kaspersky Lab, which is based in Moscow and made the claims in 2015.

In addition to protecting national security through cryptography and cryptanalysis, the NSA has weathered security breaches beyond Snowden that have caused embarrassment for the agency and affected its intelligence-gathering capabilities.

An unidentified NSA contractor removed classified U.S. government information from the NSA in 2015 and stored the material, which included code and spyware used to infiltrate foreign networks, on a personal device. The files were allegedly intercepted by Russian hackers. The contractor acknowledged using antivirus software from Kaspersky Lab.

In 2017, Israel intelligence officers revealed that they detected NSA materials on Kaspersky networks in 2015. Kaspersky officials later admitted that they became aware of unusual files on an unidentified contractor's computer, and they did not immediately report their findings. In December 2017, the U.S. government banned the use of Kaspersky Lab products for all federal agencies and government employees.

A hacker group calling itself The Shadow Brokers claimed it had stolen NSA files in 2017. It released batches of files on the internet, some of which allegedly contained the Internet Protocol addresses of computer servers that were compromised by Equation Group -- hackers reported to have ties to the NSA.

The continual dumping of NSA files has exposed zero-day exploits targeting firewalls and routers, Microsoft Windows vulnerabilities and other cyberweapons. The NSA, according to the ongoing leaks, has been stockpiling vulnerabilities, most notably the Windows EternalBlue exploit used by cybercriminals in the global WannaCry ransomware attacks.

The FBI arrested Harold T. Martin III, a former NSA contractor employed by Booz Allen Hamilton, in August 2016 and accused him of violating the Espionage Act for unlawful possession of terabytes of confidential materials allegedly taken from the NSA and other intelligence agencies over a 20-year period. A grand jury indicted him in February 2018. The case is still pending as prosecutors wrestle with criminal counts and the sheer volume of materials.

In October 2020, the NSA released an advisory specifying 25 publicly known vulnerabilities actively exploited or being scanned by Chinese state-sponsored actors. Later that year, the NSA verified that SolarWinds Orion Platform version 2020.2.1 HF 2 eliminated the malicious code used in the extensive SolarWinds hack.

In January 2021, for the first time, the FBI, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), the Office of the DNI and the NSA publicly suggested Russian threat actors were responsible for the SolarWinds supply chain attack.

That April, the Biden administration formally attributed the SolarWinds attacks to the Russian government's Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR). The FBI, NSA and CISA jointly warned that state-sponsored, SVR-allied threats were actively exploiting known vulnerabilities to get access to national security and government-associated networks.

Also that April, the NSA found four new Microsoft Exchange Server vulnerabilities, of which three were critical.

Learn more about how the SolarWinds attack puts national security strategy on display.

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What is the NSA and how does it work? - SearchSecurity