NDLEA Nabs Suspected Kingpin in UK Drug Export Bust

By Adedapo Adesanya The management of Ikeja Electric Distribution Company (IKEDC) has cautioned customers not to load the energy tokens purchased during a recent upgrade glitch which left customers unable to buy and load much-needed electricity tokens on their prepaid meters. In a statement on Friday, the distribution company said, “We apologise for the inconvenience experienced when loading your energy token during the TID rollover upgrade. The issue has been resolved and we thank you for your patience and understanding.” The issue commenced when the company instructed customers to link their respective prepaid meters to the National Identification Number (NIN)

By Bliss Okperan The Deputy Governor of Edo State, Mr Philip Shaibu, has announced his interest in the governorship election slated for 2024. Mr Shaibu, who fell out with former Governor Adams Oshiomhole to pitch his tenth with Governor Godwin Obaseki, declared his interest in the number one office of the state on Monday. In a televised announcement, the former student union leader said he intends to govern the state because of his desire to transform the Heartbeat of the Nation. According to him, his past records will make it easy for him to clinch the sole ticket of the

By Bliss Okperan Governor Abba Kabir Yusuf of Kano State has presented another supplementary budget to the Kano State House of Assembly. Recall that about two months ago, the Governor presented a supplementary budget of N58 billion to the state legislative arm of government. On Tuesday, he approached the parliament for approval for another supplementary budget of N24 billion, noting that the funds would be used for the settlement of gratuity and personnel costs. According to him, the payment of gratuity will gulp N20 billion, while N4 billion is for personnel costs. The first and second supplementary budgets under Mr

By Osita Chidoka In 2014, a few weeks after joining the Federal Executive Council, I asked a question in the course of a debate about some buildings for renovation. My question was, who is in charge of elevator regulation in Nigeria? Who ensures that the elevators imported meet specifications and that periodic maintenance is enforced? I sensed the irritation of most members at my ‘irrelevant’ question, and nobody provided an answer as we moved to other topics. A few days ago, Vwaere Diaso, a medical intern, tragically died in an elevator accident at the doctors’ residence of the General Hospital

By Adedapo Adesanya The federal government, as part of efforts to boost the Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) sector, has assisted in the registration of more than 245,000 businesses free of charge. This was disclosed by the Registrar-General of the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC), Mr Garba Abubakar, in Abuja on Wednesday. He noted that the agency registered the business names of the beneficiary SMEs with the approval of the national government. The central government, he said, approved the free registration of 250,000 business names as part of its intervention to assuage the economic effect of COVID-19. According to him, 50

By Adedapo Adesanya The National Liquefied Gas Petroleum (LGP) sensitization and awareness campaign to reduce gas flare has kickstarted in 12 states across the country. Speaking at a two-day sensitization and awareness campaign held in Abuja, Mr Dayo Adeshina, the programme manager National LPG expansion implementation plan (NLEIP), said the exercise was the commitment of the climate change initiative to reduce emission by 20 per cent. He said the National LPG pilot programme, which will start after the sensitization, is to begin in Enugu and Ebonyi States for South-East then to the South-South States of Delta and Bayelsa and in

By Dipo Olowookere The much-awaited share buy-back programme of Dangote Cement Plc will commence Wednesday, December 30, 2020, and end on Thursday, December 31, 2020, the board has confirmed. Recall that on January 21, 2020, the shareholders of the cement giant authorised the board to carry out the exercise at an Extraordinary General Meeting (EGM). The company had said it was planning to mop up 10 per cent of its 17,040,507,404 fully paid-up ordinary shares of 50 kobo each. In a notice to the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) on Monday, Dangote Cement said it would do the share buy-back in

By Modupe Gbadeyanka Over 1,000 agents of Quickteller Paypoint have been rewarded with exciting prizes from the company’s ongoing Double Up Promo. Five of the winners, Bamidele Aminat, Ishaya Galion, Ayinla Habeeb of Achiever’s world, Edozie Joy, and Ilonwa Peter of Oxford Logistics, visited the Quickteller Paypoint premises to receive their prizes and celebrate their win. The campaign was introduced by the financial inclusion services vehicle of Interswitch as part of its effort to reward agents’ loyalty. The promo, which began in September, has seen participation from over 2,000 individuals/businesses within the Quickteller Paypoint agency network. After a series of

By Adedapo Adesanya The 14 kobo decline recorded by the share price of Afriland Properties Plc welcomed the bears to the NASD Over-the-Counter (OTC) Securities Exchange for a third successive trading session this week. Stocks of the property investment company, which closed at N1.98 per unit at the previous session, depreciated by 7.61 per cent to settle at N1.84 each. This contributed to the 0.04 per cent loss published by the unlisted equities market and led to the 0.26 points depreciation suffered by the NASD Unlisted Security Index (NSI), which closed at 709.17 points against 709.43 points it recorded at

By Adedapo Adesanya Oil prices on Wednesday held on to gains from the previous session despite increase in crude inventories in the United States, hitting a record high. Brent Crude, international benchmark, rose 2 cents or 0.02 percent to trade at $41.19 per barrel. Brent has more than doubled since falling to a 21-year low below $16 in April. The US West Texas Intermediate (WTI) Crude was up 11 cents or 0.28 percent at $39.05 per barrel. US crude stocks rose by 5.7 million barrels in the week ended June 5 to 538.1 million barrels, according to a US Energy Information

By Modupe Gbadeyanka About 21,227 unverified pensioners from various parastatals of government would be removed from the payroll of the Pension Transitional Arrangement Directorate (PTAD) from October 2020. A statement from the agency said the list containing names of the affected pensioners has been forwarded to pension unions, associations, agencies and institutes since July 2020 for dissemination and sensitization of their members and to give feedback to the directorate. According to PTAD, the 21,227 pensioners were those who failed to turn up for the directorate’s 2019 PaPD nationwide and in-house verification exercises. Also, they neither submitted a documentary request for