General
Obafemi Awolowo Foundation to Honour AfDB President Today
By Enyi Ejike-Umunnabuike and Maryam Nwachukwu
Dr Akinwumi Ayode Adesina, the current President and Chairman of the Council of the 20-member Board of the African Development Bank (AfDB) is an urbane man of all seasons. He is an intellectually over-achieving personality, with a high affinity for creativity, uncommon value-addition, skilled corporate governance competencies, a rounded knowledge base, experience, brilliance and intelligence.
Before 2015, he was Nigeria’s Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development.
During his period of development administrative stewardship, under President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan’s administration, Adesina left a highly enthralling scorecard as a political appointee of government, who was able the manage the positive gains of the electoral successes of that administration, achieving lots of feats, amidst very compelling and challenging circumstances.
Perhaps, the successes and lasting impressions that he left behind as Nigeria’s Minister provided a very unbiased career-premised evaluative template that found him worthy of selection and eventual endorsement as the most competent of all the candidates that vied for the exalted position.
This well-cultured, disciplined humble balanced personality will on March 6, 2024 (today), be honoured by the Obafemi Awolowo Foundation at the Lagos Continental Hotel with the prestigious Obafemi Awolowo Prize for Leadership.
As a tie-back to history, it will be recalled that the Obafemi Awolowo Prize for Leadership was first announced in December 2012, with the official award ceremony held on March 6, 2013.
Before Dr Adesina was announced as its fourth recipient, three other distinguished personalities had been conferred with the same award.
These include the Noble Laureate, Prof. Wole Soyinka; former South African President, Dr Thabo Mbeki; and the founder of the Afe Babalola University, Aare Afe Babalola.
A very significant aspect of this event is that it also coincides with the birth anniversary of the late foremost nationalist and statesman in whose memory the award was instituted.
The award is an initiative of the Obafemi Awolowo Foundation, set up in April 1992, to serve as the custodian of Chief Awolowo’s intellectual property and leadership legacy values and norms.
Established as an independent, non-profit, non-partisan organisation dedicated to immortalizing the democratic and development-oriented ideals of Awolowo, the organizers of the event, say the award is a “prestigious, biennial, international prize structured to follow a rigorous process of nomination and subsequent screening by a Selection Committee consisting of some of the most outstanding Nigerians”.
They further said that the prize serves as a strong motivational incentive for persons to pursue excellence in leadership and good governance. The award confers considerable honour and recognition to the recipient.
Speaking on the selection process which led to the choice of Adesina as the 2023 recipient, the foundation spokesperson Mrs Tokunbo Awolowo-Dosunmu, said the call for nomination for the award was published for several months in 2023 and at the close of entries, many nominations of eminent persons were received, with Dr Adesina emerging as a unanimous candidate for the 2023 award.
Expressing his delight about the award and being in the company of previous eminent recipients, Dr Adesina, who has a Five Point Blueprint for repositioning the AfDB, said, “I am delighted to have been selected as a recipient of the prestigious Obafemi Awolowo Prize for Leadership.
“Joining Nobel Prize laureate, Prof. Wole Soyinka and former President of South Africa, Thabo Mbeki, as well as Aree Afe Babalola as prior winners of the prize is such a great honour,” he said.
Adesina, who simply describes himself as a ‘Kenyan, is the eighth elected President of the AfDB and the first Nigerian to be so elected to the position, having been elected on May 28, 2015, for the first time by the bank’s Board of Governors at its Annual Meetings held in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire.
He was re-elected for a second term in 2020 following an excellent performance acknowledged by supporters and critics alike.
The agenda of Adesina’s presidency at the AfDB with the ambition to Feed Africa, Light Up Africa, Industrialise Africa, Integrate Africa and Improve the Quality of Life in Africa, was particularly lauded by the organisers as capable of putting the development of the continent directly in the hands of its people.
By Adedapo Adesanya
The Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority (NMDPRA) has launched a mobile application designed to monitor fuel consumption patterns in real time across retail outlets nationwide.
The NMDPRA, established under the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA) 2021, is responsible for the technical and commercial regulation of Nigeria’s midstream and downstream petroleum operations. The deployment of the mobile application aligns with the authority’s broader efforts to leverage technology to improve regulatory compliance and strengthen accountability.
The pilot phase of the project began on August 1 in Abuja and its six Area Councils, the authority said in a statement published on X.
As part of the rollout, the Executive Director for Distribution Systems, Storage and Retailing Infrastructure (DSSRI), Mr Ogbugo Ukoha, led a team alongside officials from the Abuja Regional Office to assess the readiness and operational performance of the digital platform at participating retail outlets.
According to the NMDPRA, the application captures inventory and compliance data in real time, enabling regulators to monitor fuel distribution more effectively while improving operational efficiency across the sector.
The authority said the platform would generate reliable, data-driven insights to support evidence-based decision-making, strengthen national energy security planning and enhance transparency in the downstream petroleum industry.
It added that the initiative is expected to provide significant value to government, investors, operators and other stakeholders by improving access to accurate fuel consumption and compliance data.
Nigeria’s downstream petroleum sector has undergone significant changes since the deregulation of the petrol market and the removal of fuel subsidies, with regulators placing greater emphasis on data-driven supervision to ensure product availability, prevent supply disruptions and discourage sharp regional disparities in distribution.
By Modupe Gbadeyanka
No doubt, moving money among African markets remains a slow, fragmented process that relies on multiple intermediaries and prolonged settlement cycles.
To solve this issue and drive the development of stablecoin-enabled payment services for businesses across the continent, Onafriq has joined forces with a leading stablecoin infrastructure provider, Privy.
The collaboration will enable Onafriq to create and manage embedded digital asset solutions for its partners and, in time, institutional clients where regulation allows. The initial phase focuses on cross-chain stablecoin transfers and treasury and settlement workflows, creating the foundation for future cross-border payment and liquidity solutions.
Integrating Privy’s secure infrastructure enables Onafriq to build the capabilities required to support a new generation of efficient digital payment services for banks, fintechs, and mobile money operators.
This partnership is a key component of Onafriq’s broader strategy to modernise pan-African payment infrastructure, enabling secure multi-modal wallets and more efficient movement of value across the continent.
The outcome will support a range of future institutional use cases, including stablecoin-enabled settlement, treasury management and liquidity services, as it reflects Onafriq’s commitment to driving Africa’s digital transformation agenda by investing in technologies that make financial services more efficient, connected and accessible.
It was gathered that Onafriq selected Privy for its enterprise-grade infrastructure to enable the seamless integration of digital asset wallet capabilities into its products, subject to regulatory approval, and deliver a simple user experience while abstracting the complexity of blockchain technology.
“At Onafriq, we keep investing in technology that makes payments faster and more accessible. Privy gives us a building block for faster settlement and better liquidity management. As demand for digital asset services grows, our goal is to ensure Africa’s payment ecosystem benefits securely and in line with regulatory frameworks,” the Group Chief Product and Innovation Officer at Onafriq,” Mr Luke Kyohere, said.
The chief executive of Privy, Mr Henri Stern, said, “Stablecoins will play an increasingly important role in the future of global payments, but real-world adoption depends on infrastructure that is secure, scalable and simple to implement. Working with Onafriq allows us to help build that foundation across Africa and beyond.”
By Adedapo Adesanya
The Osun State Government has announced plans to institute legal action against the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), following an alleged freezing of the state’s bank account, describing the action as unlawful and capable of disrupting governance.
The Governor of the state, Mr Ademola Adeleke, through the state’s Attorney General and Commissioner for Justice, Mr Oluwole Jimi-Bada, made this disclosure on Wednesday.
According to the statement, Governor Adeleke has directed him to challenge the anti-graft agency’s decision at the Federal High Court.
It was widely reported that the anti-graft agency issued a “Post No Debit” directive to the management of First Bank, where the state’s accounts are domiciled, effectively restricting transactions.
He argued that while the commission has the authority to investigate financial records, it cannot freeze a state government’s accounts without first obtaining a court order.
“I have the mandate of the governor to proceed to the Federal High Court to challenge this move. EFCC can investigate the accounts, but it can’t freeze the accounts without an order of court.
“This step will affect government running, but we will challenge the move and ensure that the agency acts within the ambit of the law,” Mr Jimi-Bada said.
Also speaking, the Commissioner for Finance, Mr Sola Ogungbile, alleged that police officers stormed the main branch of First Bank in Osogbo and arrested some members of the bank’s staff.
Mr Ogungbile maintained that Governor Adeleke was not deploying state resources for his re-election campaign and urged the EFCC to consider the potential impact of its actions on public services and the welfare of residents.
Governor Adeleke had earlier raised concerns over an alleged plan by the EFCC to freeze all Osun State Government accounts, including those of senior government officials.
In a statement issued by the Commissioner for Information and Public Enlightenment, Mr Kolapo Alimi, the governor described the reported move as unlawful and politically motivated.
He alleged that the planned freezing of the accounts was intended to cripple government operations ahead of the August 15 governorship election.
Governor Adeleke further insisted that there was no legal justification for freezing the state’s accounts, arguing that the EFCC lacks the authority to take such action against a state government without due legal process.
The EFCC had not issued an official response to the allegations as of the time of filing this report.
