Navy Nabs Notorious Militant Leader In Calabar

By Adedapo Adesanya An initiative to boost youth employment and shore up Nigeria’s foreign exchange (FX) earnings has been introduced by the Nigerian government. The scheme, the National Talent Export Programme (NATEP), was unveiled over the weekend at the Microsoft Office in New York, United States of America by the Minister of Industry, Trade and Investment, Mrs Doris Uzoka-Anite. She said the programme would position Nigeria as an export hub for talent outsourcing in Africa following the example of India, Bangladesh, Mexico and The Philippines. Mrs Uzoka-Anite noted that NATEP is a key national initiative that will serve as a

By Adedapo Adesanya The House of Representatives has urged the Federal Ministry of Power and the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) to urgently provide funds for the completion of the Okpai–Kwale Transmission Line Project in Delta State. At the plenary on Tuesday, the lower chamber of the parliament mandated its Committee on Power to ensure that bottlenecks mitigating against the completion of the project are effectively addressed and the project is completed in due time. This followed a motion moved by Mr Nnamdi Ezechi, the lawmaker representing Ndokwa/UKwuani Federal Constituency in the National Assembly on the floor of the green

By Adedapo Adesanya President Bola Tinubu has promised fresh growth and job reforms in the coming months after he removed fuel subsidies and directed the float of the Naira to unify the exchange rate. The Nigerian president made this known during his first address at the 78th United Nations General Assembly in New York, the US, after he took over the helm of office from Mr Muhammadu Buhari in May. He said, “To foster economic growth and investor confidence in Nigeria, I removed the costly and corrupt fuel subsidy while also discarding a noxious exchange rate system in my first

By Bliss Okperan The early morning fire that gutted a part of the Supreme Court complex in Abuja has been blamed on an electrical malfunction. The Director of Information of the apex court, Mr Festus Akande, said this on Monday morning when he appeared on Arise Television’s breakfast programme, The Morning Show. According to him, preliminary investigation showed that the fire was triggered by an electrical fault, playing down rumours that the Supreme Court was attacked by arsonists. Attention is on the apex court over the outcome of the presidential election held on Saturday, February 15, 2023. The Appeal Court

By Nneka Okumazie Arguing that people who do evil and wickedness get away with it because they aren’t poor, or suffering, is the same as saying walking around means an individual is physically and psychologically healthy. People are convincing others – on social media that people don’t reap what they sow because one person somewhere, or people, or nation who did despicable stuff in the past, aren’t poor, or confessing, or looking like they are paying for their sins. Some say curses aren’t responsible for Africa’s underdevelopment, so, true churches and prayers aren’t necessary. They point to some of the

By Adedapo Adesanya Oil prices turned lower on Monday as the US Dollar strengthened and as investors mulled over a possible May interest rate hike by the US Federal Reserve. Brent crude futures fell by $1.55 or 1.8 per cent to settle at $84.76 a barrel, while the US West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude dropped $1.69 or 2.1 per cent to trade at $80.83 a barrel. The US Dollar has been strengthening alongside interest rate hikes, making Dollar-denominated oil more expensive for holders of other currencies. The US Dollar index gained around 0.6 per cent on Monday. Traders are betting

By Investors Hub Asian stock markets ended mostly higher on Monday as investors awaited further progress on a U.S.-China trade deal, while China’s central bank surprised markets by cutting a key interest rate for the first time since 2015. On Saturday, Chinese state media said that the U.S. and China had ?constructive discussions? regarding a phase one trade deal in a high-level phone call. Chinese shares closed higher after the People’s Bank of China unexpectedly lowered the rate on seven-day reverse repurchase agreements by five basis points to 2.50 percent. The move stoked hopes of more stimulus measures to revive

Olusegun Olatunde Oyegbami is the author of Reversing the Rot in Nigeria. In this book, he analysed the alleged fraud behind the Petroleum Equalization Fund (PEF) and other national issues. Excerpt. Sir, what is the inspiration behind this book? The inspiration is that things have become so bad that we must speak out and I have plumbed the depth of what has been happening in Nigeria for the past forty to forty-five years and have struck the nail on the head that the way we have being running the oil industry is what has led the economy collapse as we

By Adedapo Adesanya Nigerians will have to contend with a total blackout as the national electricity grid of Nigeria has collapsed again. Reports emerged across the country that customers Ikeja Electricity, Eko Electricity and other nine power distribution companies have reported no power supply on Monday. As of the time of this report, only Eko Electricity has issued a statement confirming this development. The Disco said in the statement, “Dear esteemed customer, we regret to inform you of a total system collapse on the national grid at 10:40 am today, leading to outages across our network,” “We are closely monitoring

By Aduragbemi Omiyale The $5.8 billion loan request by President Muhammadu Buhari has been approved by the House of Representatives. At the plenary on Tuesday, the lower chamber of the National Assembly also approved the request to receive a grant of $10 million from the Islamic Development Bank Business Post reports that the fresh borrowing by the federal government is under the 2018-2020 External Borrowing (Rolling) plan. The approval followed the submission of a report by the House Committee on Aids, Loans and Debt Management headed by Mr Ahmed Safana Dayyabu: A breakdown showed that $2.3 billion would be sourced

By Dipo Olowookere The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) conducted the first sale of treasury bills of the new decade on Thursday, January 2, 2020 via the primary market auction (PMA). During the exercise, the central bank offered for sale to investors the debt instruments worth N74.8 billion, but the demand pressures continued, though lower than what were achieved in the previous exercise held on December 18, 2019. Subscription worth N174.7 billion were received from market participants yesterday, indicating a subscription rate of 233.6 percent, lower that the 1428.6 percent rate at the last auction. This must have informed the

By Aduragbemi Omiyale A collateralized credit facility worth N2.25 billion designed to enable the provision of credit services to the informal sector in Nigeria has been secured by OnePipe. The debt security-backed loan was provided by a pan-African alternative investments firm, TLG Capital, for the firm to scale up its operations and provide inventory finance to small shops in Nigeria. According to a statement, the deal was completed by the TLG Africa Growth Impact Fund (AGIF), and it represents TLG Capital’s 34th investment. OnePipe is a fast-growing financial infrastructure company that enables merchants to access goods on credit from larger