Firm to unveil Nigeria’s first instant messaging app, Lets Talk

Ms Folashade Ayeni, Chief Operating Officer, Lets Talk I.T& Communications Company

A Telecommunications firm, Lets Talk I.T and Telecommunications Company, says it is working on launching Nigeria’s first instant messaging application, ‘Lets Talk’ before the end of the third quarter of 2022.

The Chief Operating Officer of the company, Ms Folashade Ayeni made this known while speaking with newsmen on Sunday in Abuja.

Ayeni said the application was designed by a team of Nigerian software engineers in line with the vision of the National Information Technology Development Agency ( NITDA) for indigenous companies to come into the social media space.

She said: “Lets Talk was created out of a need that Nigerians and Africans have.

” If you look at it, sometime last year in October, October 4 To be precise, WhatsApp, Facebook, Instagram crashed. No one was able to use those applications because of one thing or the other.

“Many people lost money, several people were not able to reach families, friends, relatives and do business normally, because a whole lot of people have taken business and relationship to the social media.

“It crashed for about six hours or so and the reality dawned on us that really, whether it was intentional or not on purpose that we could lose everything.

” " So, we thought about owning our social media platform; where Nigerians can have guaranteed communications, with outmost security, which is  Nigerian owned and indigenous to us and for us in Africa."

Ayeni said the company was aiming to collaborate with NITDA, the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) and other relevant agencies to ensure the success of the application and acceptability by Nigerians.

On the unique features of the app, she said it is end-to-encrypted, allows users to listen and share music, video and audio call, 5,000 member group chat, seven person conference calls and file exchange up to 2GB.

According to her, it also allows for device and cloud caching as well as sharing moments and trends which will give users very pleasant experiences.

She said the application could be downloaded on Google Play and App Store for both android and Apple phones.

Ayeni also explained that the application would be in two parts, Lets Talk Basic which would be a free social media platform while there would be a secondary phase that would be on subscription basis.

“Now, there will be Lets Talk social which is the basic one that everybody knows.
You chat, you speak to people, you do video calls do video conference for free, but there’s a secondary part of it.

“And the secondary part of it is to provide enterprise resource management. So there are people who want to subscribe to that package.

“We are talking about ministries, parastatal agencies, businesses, banks and other sectors that can utilise the platform to improve their businesses and services and that is where value comes in,” she said.

High diesel cost: NARTO seeks review of petrol freight rate

The Nigerian Association of Road Transport Owners (NARTO) has called for an upward review of the freight rate for Premium Motor Spirit (PMS) due to the high cost of diesel in the country.

NARTO is also asking for access to foreign exchange at official rates for its members for procurement of spare parts for their vehicles to ensure safety and stability in the distribution of petroleum products across Nigeria.

NARTO’s President, Alhaji Yusuf Othman, made this known in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Thursday in Lagos.

Othman said NARTO members were barely surviving as the price of diesel had continued to increase following the ongoing conflict between Russia and Ukraine.

He said: “Government has to do something urgently about the situation. It is affecting our operations adversely.

“For instance, you fuel a truck with 1,000 litres of diesel, the cost as of today in the market is about N750,000.

“At the end of the day, when you come to Abuja, you are paid N16 per litre for the 45,000 litres you are bringing in which is N720,000.

“That is even less than the cost of the diesel. You have to pay the loading fees, the driver allowance and other costs.

“What we are paid is by far lesser than our expenditure so, how can you cope?

“You cannot survive and some of our members have already parked their trucks and many others will soon join them.”

Othman said the current transport template payable under the N165 per litre petrol pump price was no longer sustainable despite government’s decision to continue subsidy on PMS.

He said apart from depriving the nation of huge funds that could be deployed to other critical areas, it was also encouraging smuggling of petrol across the border to neighbouring countries.

“We believe it is best to fix the price by ourselves but we cannot do that because the pump price remains N165 officially.

“We know the government is doing its best because this problem is not related only to Nigeria.

“The Pipelines and Products Marketing Company is giving us some diesel as palliative at a discounted rate. The marketers too are giving us but for how long can this continue?

“Businesses cannot be sustained on subsidy or palliatives. Businesses should be allowed to run according to market forces.

“The way forward is for government to allow the Petroleum Industry Act to perform maximally to its full potential which include the removal of subsidy on PMS.

“That is the only option because they cannot continue to sustain it,”Othman said