Jesam Michael, the Chief Executive Officer of Afriq Arbitrage System (AAS), has been awarded the ‘Fintech CEO of the Year’ by the Nigerian Association of Social and Resourceful Editors, NASRE, while his company, AAS, picked the ‘Most Secure and Reliable Fintech Company of the Year 2023.’
Additionally, Jesam Michael was honoured as the patron of the association.
The awards presentation and decoration were held on Thursday, 25th of January, 2024, at the Lagos headquarters of the company with top members of the AAS community, traditional rulers, and veteran media practitioners in attendance.
The awards and decoration, according to the association’s president, President, Femi Oyewale , was in acknowledgment of Jesam Michael’s giant strides in financial technology, his efforts to support the Nigerian government in alleviating poverty, his innovations that are geared towards national development, among many others.
The association explained that Jesam Michael was selected after a meticulous study of his works, which put him in the position of an enigma that deserves to be honoured. Micheal was applauded by the association for reducing unemployment and driving federal government policies on financial inclusion.
‘’There are people who are innovating and making giant strides in a manner that makes Nigeria worthy of competing with other nations in the world, Jesam Micheal is unarguably one of them. We are here to honour a man who deserves to be honoured. He is defeating unemployment, and this is not about giving him honour alone, What we are doing today is to encourage him to continue what he is doing.’’
‘’Jesam Micheal is driving federal government policies on financial inclusion and all he needs is our encouragement so that in years to come, Nigeria will have individuals in this country that will be recognized worldwide playing their roles in different sectors.’’
‘’As an association, we fight what is bad and promote what is good. AAS has to be sustained, and we will always be behind you as you continue to put Nigeria on the map for good.’’
In his acceptance speech, Jesam Micheal appreciated the association for honouring him with their presence and awards. He expressed joy while underscoring the weight of the awards and decoration, making it known that they are the reasons he accepted to be part of the Nigerian association of online social and resourceful editors.
’’My happiness and joy goes to these awards, I am happy and glad this is coming at the right time. We never lobbied for it. We never ran for it, I have about 32 awards on the line, but I selected this due to the calibre of people that belong to this association.’’
‘’From the depth of my heart, I am happy for this award because it’s not just coming from a group of members that came up to talk but the caliber of people in the association are mind blowing. ‘’
He stated that his decision to build technology was borne out of the need to support the government instead of joining the crowd to fault them.
‘’You don’t fight the government, but you use tech to help the government. Most of them don’t know what to do, so if you know what to do to help them, build tech. You don’t call them names or fight them, build tech.’’
Speaking on how he has been able to scale through all these years, Jesam Micheal explained that his focus has kept him going and that despite the challenges; he remained resilient. He shared with well-wishers how he has been able to build AAS into a system that runs in milliseconds for the first time in history.
‘’I have seen gladiators who fought tooth and nail to bring me down, but I keep telling them my hands are clean, and there’s nothing that can be done to bring me down. When they say what I am doing won’t see the light of the day, I tell them to go to bed because when they wake, I will be far gone.’’
‘’I also want to say that whatsoever you are doing, you need to close your ear not to hear, eyes not to see, and mouth not to talk but before this, your mind is focused towards what you want to do.’’
‘’When I shared my dream, they said it wouldn’t work, but before they knew it, AAS was already built into a system that runs in milliseconds for the first time. Everything, including transactions and payments, is done in milliseconds. We had challenges, even internal challenges, and they thought we had crashed, but it worked.’’
Continuing, Jesam Micheal shared the several innovative techniques of Afriq Arbitrage System (AAS) and other revolutionary plans of the company, which are all geared towards national development.
‘’For the first time in the history of the world, a system called Token has been built and is currently going through testing. We went in and changed disadvantages to advantages. We have built one of the biggest e-commerce platforms whereby anywhere you are in the world, you can order any gadget in the Apple family and get it delivered to you. Very soon, you will be using our platform to recharge electricity here, You will soon be using our platform to recharge cards and many more. We have also come up with a digital solar powered estate whereby you can monitor your property wherever you are because it is 100% digital.’’
