Oil Prices Jump 7% on Fresh Hope of COVID-19 Vaccine

In furtherance of my sacred duties and obligations as President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, it is my honour to be here today to present my administration’s 2024 Budget Proposal to this Joint Session of the 10th National Assembly. This moment is especially profound and significant to me because it is my first annual budgetary presentation to the National Assembly. Distinguished Senators and Honourable Members of the National Assembly, I commend your swift consideration and passage of the 2023 Supplementary Appropriation Bills and the 2024-2026 Medium Term Expenditure Framework and Fiscal Strategy Paper. Your prompt action underscores your devotion

By Adedapo Adesanya The Naira appreciated against the US Dollar in the Nigeria Autonomous Foreign Exchange Market (NAFEM) and the unregulated Peer-to-Peer (P2P) and the parallel market segments of the foreign exchange (FX) market on Wednesday, November 29 as President Bola Tinubu reiterated his administration’s promise to meet its obligations. Speaking during the presentation of his administration’s N27.50 trillion 2024 budget proposal to the joint session of the 10th National Assembly on Wednesday, Mr Tinubu said, “Despite the challenges, we continue to meet our obligations.” In the official NAFEM segment of the market, the value of the local currency went

By Adedapo Adesanya A milk-producing company, FrieslandCampina Wamco Nigeria, helped the NASD Over-the-Counter (OTC) Securities Exchange return to the green territory by 0.54 per cent on Wednesday, November 29. The firm improved its value by N3.50 in the midweek session to settle at N73.50 per share compared with the previous day’s closing price of N70.00 per share. It suppressed the 10 Kobo decline posted by Central Securities Clearing System (CSCS) Plc, which ended lower at N17.00 per unit versus Tuesday’s value of N17.10 per unit. Consequently, the market capitalisation of the alternative stock exchange went up by N6.28 billion to

By Adedapo Adesanya Crude oil prices fell on Thursday members of the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and its allies (OPEC+) agreed to voluntary output cuts for the first quarter of next year, falling short of market expectations. As a result, Brent crude futures lost 27 cents or 0.3 per cent to close at $82.83 per barrel, and the US West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures went down by $1.90 or 2.4 per cent to $75.96 a barrel. On a monthly basis, Brent fell by 5.2 per cent while WTI was down by 6.2 per cent. Saudi Arabia, Russia

By Dipo Olowookere The Nigerian Air Force (NAF), in furtherance of its humanitarian support to victims of the Boko Haram insurgency, has established another field hospital to cater for the healthcare needs of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) in Bama. The latest facility makes the second field hospital to be established by the NAF in Borno State to cater for IDP needs, with the first being in the Dalori IDP Camp. The Bama IDP Camp, before now, had been in dire need of additional medical facilities as the only medical outfit established by UNICEF was already overstretched and lacking the requisite

By Adedapo Adesanya TikTok owner, ByteDance, has rolled out an electronic payment service connected to Douyin, the Chinese version of the popular short video app. Users of Douyin, ByteDance’s Chinese version of TikTok, discovered that they have been offered an additional payment option for in-app purchases called Douyin Pay, alongside the existing Alipay and WeChat Pay. “The setup of Douyin Pay (Douyin Zhifu) is to supplement the existing major payment options, and to ultimately enhance user experience on Douyin,” the Beijing-based company said in a statement on Tuesday. Alipay and WeChat are offered by Ant Group, an affiliate of Alibaba

By Aduragbemi Omiyale President Muhammadu Buhari has declared that he never instructed the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Mr Abubakar Malami, and the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Mr Godwin Emefiele, to defy the supreme court order which extended the validity of the old N200, N500 and N1,000 notes to December 31, 2023. On March 3, 2023, the apex court directed the federal government to allow the currency notes to remain as legal tender till the end of the year. However, 10 days after the judgement, this directive has not been adhered to,

By Adedapo Adesanya A Nigerian startup, Tix Africa, which is a self-service ticketing platform for event creators, has secured six-figure pre-seed funding round to scale its event products and also expand its operations to Ghana and East Africa. Tix Africa is an event technology platform that helps event organisers harness granular data from attendees, reducing costs and maximising revenues in the process. The app provides tools and services that help event organisers efficiently plan and deliver events, with features including online ticketing, access control, cashless payments, and event reporting. The platform currently makes it easy for organizers to create and

By Modupe Gbadeyanka Chinese Consul-General, Mr Chao Xiaoliang has revealed that his country has invested $22 billion in some projects in Nigeria, with another $23 billion on-going investment. Addressing journalists on Friday at the Chinese Lagos Consulate, Mr Xiaoliang noted that Chinese investment in Nigeria grew by 27 percent in 2016. According to him, apart from the investment, his country also made available to Nigeria Chinese technology, management and experienced talents, which he said has hugely enhanced the diversification and development of Nigerian economy. “Although, under the world sluggish economy, we witnessed the downward of trade volume between China and

By Adeniyi Ogunfowoke Over 60 million Nigerians are unbanked. This simply means there is a huge banking gap that needs to be bridged. Unfortunately, a large population of the unbanked or underbanked are located in rural areas. In these areas, there are just a handful of financial institutions. This is one of the reasons why Nigeria’s apex bank, the Central Bank of Nigeria is encouraging banks to open more branches, especially in rural areas. The question now is for how long? This question arises because there is a dire need to bridge the gap. Fortunately and thanks to technology, the

By Adedapo Adesanya The federal government, through the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), has allegedly forced the deactivation of crowdfunding donation links and bank account being used by the coalition supporting the protests to end police brutality across Nigeria. Feminist Coalition, which serves as the channel for receiving donations to sustain the protests ongoing in the country, put out a tweet that its bank account has been deactivated while its donation links have been blocked. “For demanding an end to police brutality, we are now under attack! Our bank account has been deactivated and so has the Flutterwave donation link.

Nigeria, Brazil, China, the European Union (EU) and a host of other leading economic powers has made tremendous progress on Investment Facilitation Initiative for Development, in Marrakech, Morocco, during the World Trade Organisation (WTO) Mini-Ministerial meeting. In a breakthrough for Nigeria, the group of WTO Friends of Investment Facilitation for Development (FIFD) pledged support for the success of the High-Level Investment Forum taking place in Abuja on the 3rd and 4th of November, co-hosted by the Ministry of Industry, Trade and Investment and the Economic Community of West Africa (ECOWAS) Commission in partnership with FIFD. Investment Facilitation for Development is