European Shares Extend Gains on Earnings Optimism

By Adedapo Adesanya  Oil prices rose by more than $1 a barrel on Wednesday as investors focused their attention on an upcoming OPEC+ output policy meeting and looked past a jump in crude stockpiles in the United States. Brent crude futures were up by $1.01 or 1.2 per cent to $82.69 per barrel, and the US West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures gained $1.16 or 1.5 per cent to close at $77.57 a barrel. Prices were lifted by a media report that the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and allies such as Russia, known collectively as OPEC+, was considering

By Modupe Gbadeyanka The chairman of the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), Mr Zacch Adedeji, has asked his counterpart in the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Mr Ola Olukoyede, to support his agency to achieve the Renewed Hope Agenda of President Bola Tinubu, who appointed both of them. Speaking during a courtesy visit to the headquarters of the anti-money laundering firm, Mr Adedeji said the EFCC has a role in ensuring that taxpayers’ funds are “judiciously utilised in line with the social contract with the people.” He assured that the FIRS would continue to strive to raise the revenue

By Adedapo Adesanya The Naira put up a weak performance against the United States Dollar across the various segments of the foreign exchange (FX) market on Thursday. November 30, 2023, the last trading session of the month. In the Nigerian Autonomous Foreign Exchange Market (NAFEM) window, which is the official market, the Nigerian currency lost 0.1 per cent or 85 Kobo against the greenback during the session to settle at N832.32/$1 compared with the preceding day’s value of N831.47/$1. A slight strain in the supply of forex into the spot market was partly responsible for the weakening of the local

By Adedapo Adesanya The Debt Management Office (DMO) has disclosed that Nigeria’s total debt profile as at the end of the first quarter of the year stood at N28.6 trillion. This indicated a 4.4 percent quarter-on-quarter increase from N27.4 trillion that was on record in the fourth quarter of 2019. In a breakdown that was released on the DMO website, domestic debt accounted for 65.1 percent amounting to N18.6 trillion ($51.6 billion), while external debt made up for the remaining 34.9 percent, which translates to N9.9 trillion ($27.7 billion). Federal Government’s debt during the period stood at N14.5 trillion, representing

By Adedapo Adesanya South African ed-tech startup The Student Hub, has become the fourth startup to secure backing from Naspers Foundry, raising $2.9 million to help expand its service. The Student Hub increases access to vocational education to large numbers of students, whilst reducing the costs of delivery of education and training by partnering with government accredited Technical and Vocational Education and Training colleges to help them deliver their courses online. The startup secured the funding round from Naspers, one of the largest technology investors in the world. Naspers launched Naspers Foundry, a $96 million fund to help South African

By Dipo Olowookere The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) has revealed that transactions valued at N1.6 trillion were recorded in Q2 2018 by banks operating in Nigeria via the Automated Teller Machine (ATM). In terms of volume, a total of 217.4 million transactions were carried out at various ATM points across the country in the period under review. According to the Sectorial Breakdown of Credit, e-Payment Channels and Staff Strength report released by the stats office, a total volume of 509,7 million transactions valued at N32.90 trillion were recorded in Q2 2018 as data on Electronic Payment Channels in the

The contract is a big deal from both sides: it shows how desperately the club needs this particular player and how much he respects the badge. But in the end, it all gets to a couple of straightforward questions: how big will the salary be and how long will he stay. The second part became the most uncomfortable one in the pandemic days. Many big clubs can’t splash their money as they used to, so they think more strategically. The players and their agents understand that and try to adapt to these new market rules. The situation brings us to

By Modupe Gbadeyanka Governor Godwin Obaseki of Edo State has asked police in the state under the leadership of Mr Johnson Babatunde Kokumo, to provide adequate security for youths protesting police brutality in the state. Youths across the country have been on the street, asking the authorities to scrap the notorious Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS), which was done last Sunday. A few days later, the Inspector General of Police, Mr Mohammed Adamu, replaced the disbanded police unit with Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT), which the demonstrators have again said should be scrapped. On Friday, during the protest in Benin City,

By Abdullateef Alagbonsi Water is a necessity for life and it is the responsibility of every responsible government to give priority to provision of good water. The unmatchable importance of hygienic water to human survival has triggered the consciousness of some international organisations to flag off different water provision programs for developing countries including Nigeria. Ilorin metropolis has three water dams (Asa dam, Agba dam and Sobi dam) with capacity to supply water to every part of the city and take care of any expansion in the future. Asa dam, which has capacity to supply water that would cover up

By Adedapo Adesanya The Naira continued its price discovery on Thursday in the Investors and Exporters (I&E) segment of the foreign exchange market, looking to close the disparity in its value in the other windows of the market. In the official market, it depreciated against the US Dollar during the session, while it appreciated in the Peer-2-Peer (P2P) and the parallel market at the close of transactions. Business Post reports that the domestic currency succumbed to forex demand pressure yesterday as it lost N1.76 or 0.26 per cent against the greenback to sell at N765.13/$1, in contrast to the preceding

By Adedapo Adesanya The World Health Organization (WHO) has disclosed that about 10.9 million persons displaced by insurgency have benefited from emergency health interventions in the past three years in the north eastern part of Nigeria. WHO disclosed this in an annual situation report, stating that Grade-3 health emergencies were provided to persons affected by the conflict between 2016 and 2019 in Adamawa, Borno, and Yobe states. The report disclosed that 3.3 million Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) were vaccinated against cholera in the affected states and three million children screened against malnutrition. It was added that 13,000 of them with