Fake COVID-19 Vaccines in Nigeria—NAFDAC Cries Out

By Adedapo Adesanya  The Lagos State Chapter of the Nigeria Medical Association (NMA) on Wednesday directed doctors working in three hospitals, General Hospital Lagos, Lagos Island Maternity Hospital, and Massey Street Children Hospital, to commence an indefinite strike action. This followed the tragic death of their colleague, Dr Diaso Vwaere, a medical house officer, from injuries sustained when a faulty elevator crashed at the hospital. The occurrence which is generating buzz and conversation around the handling of medical practitioners, happened at the Lagos General Hospital on Tuesday night. The deceased was reportedly trapped for more than 40 minutes. The medical

By Ifeanyi Onuba The Nigerian Sovereign Investment Authority (NSIA) has convened critical oncology stakeholders and strategic partners at the maiden edition of the NSIA Oncology Summit in Lagos. The move, according to a statement from NSIA on Wednesday, is to drive collaborations amongst partners and improve overall patient outcomes in cancer care. Participants at the Summit included over 200 medical professionals in oncology, over 11 Nigerian tertiary hospitals, as well as over 10 external collaborators from the University of Chicago; American Oncology Institute India; American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO); Bio Ventures for Global Health (BVGH); Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer

By Ifthakaar Shaik The African healthcare industry faces an immediate challenge: a dire shortage of skilled professionals, leading to alarmingly low doctor and nurse-to-population ratios in many countries. Training medical professionals, especially specialists like pathologists or oncologists, is a multi-year-long process. Moreover, foundational education at the primary and secondary levels is crucial to supply tertiary institutions with a stream of candidates equipped with the necessary aptitude, literacy, and numeracy skills to pursue medicine. Recent technological leaps catalysed by the COVID-19 pandemic and expanding telecommunications infrastructure, including ventures like Starlink, have bridged some of the distance between communities in need of

By Modupe Gbadeyanka The medical practitioner who performed surgery on the late 12-year-old Adebola Akin-Bright at the Obitoks Hospital in the Alimosho area of Lagos State, Dr Abayomi Baiyewu, has been described as a quack surgeon. The Chairman of the Lagos State House of Assembly ad-hoc committee with the mandate to investigate the circumstances that led to the disappearance of Adebola’s small intestine, Mr Noheem Adams, said the doctor was not qualified to carry out the exercise. Adebola died on Tuesday at the Lagos State University Teaching Hospital (LASUTH), Ikeja, where he was receiving treatment after he underwent surgery two

By Adedapo Adesanya Global cybersecurity company, Kaspersky, has noted that more than 30 per cent of industrial computers in Nigeria and other African regions were attacked in the first half of the year. Industrial Control Systems (ICS) computers are used in oil and gas, energy, automotive manufacturing, building automation infrastructures, and other spheres to perform a range of OT functions – from the workstations of engineers and operators to supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) servers and Human Machine Interface (HMI). According to the ICS threat landscape report by Kaspersky, in the first half of 2022, in the African regions,

By Dipo Olowookere In other to serve its numerous customers better, pan-African financial institution, United Bank for Africa (UBA) Plc has announced opening for business on Saturdays. In a notice to its customers on Friday, the lender, however, disclosed that banking operations on Saturdays would only be offered in “select branches across the nation.” UBA said the services to be offered during the Saturday banking would include cash deposit, cash withdrawal, funds transfer, ATM services, account opening and Moneygram and Western Union. The lender said its branches Mushin, Ikeja, Idumota and Iddo are those in Lagos that will open on

By Dipo Olowookere Shareholders of Airtel Africa will receive an interim dividend of $1.5¢ (one and a half cents of the US dollar) per share for the half-year ended September 30, 2020, the board of the telco has declared. This, according to the board, is in line with the new progressive dividend policy to focus on growth opportunities and faster deleveraging. The new policy aims to grow the dividend annually by a mid to high-single-digit percentage from a base of $4 cents per share for the full year, the company noted in the statement on Friday. The key highlights of

By Dipo Olowookere The benchmark interest rate in the country has been retained at its previous level by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN). The Governor of the CBN, Mr Godwin Emefiele, at a briefing with newsmen in Abuja on Monday, said the decision to hold the Monetary Policy Rate (MPR) at 12.50 per cent was reached at the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) meeting today. According to him, there was no reason to tamper with the interest rate at this moment because the various interventions of the bank to sustain the economy were yielding positive results. “Loosening monetary policy stance

By Ebitonye Akpodigha Nigeria’s President, Mr Muhammadu Buhari, is presently having a closed-door meeting with leaders of Niger Delta region of the country. The meeting is aimed at finding a lasting solution to the restiveness in that part of Nigeria, which has led to drop in the volume of crude oil produced from the region. Nigeria relies heavily on oil from the Niger Delta and its production is still below 2 million barrels per day. The price of the commodity still hovers around $50 per barrel. At the moment, Nigeria is struggling with forex issue due to shortage in Dollar

By Modupe Gbadeyanka A system aimed to allow businesses and merchants to collect online payments without stress has been launched by OnePipe and Fidelity Bank Plc. The platform called PayGatePlus is an enhanced version of PayGate, which is Fidelity Bank’s flagship gateway. PayGatePlus helps take away the hassles of irreconcilable payments, reporting and settlement as the comprehensive embedded finance platform empowers organisations in any sector to integrate financial services within their businesses and offerings. Since its soft launch about a year ago, several brands across FMCG, aviation, agency banking and fintech sectors have embedded a range of the services available

By Adedapo Adesanya Nigerian football legend, Augustine ‘Jay Jay’ Okocha will have his childhood story retold in cartoon form as streamer Showmax’s first animated series, Jay Jay: The Chosen One. Okocha played as a midfielder and later captained the Nigerian national team, the Super Eagles, between 1993 and 2006 and led the country to Olympics glory at the 1996 Atlanta Games. The show will run for 13 episodes and follow an 11-year-old Augustine, who dreams of representing his school at a prestigious football tournament with a team made up of his rag-tag group of friends. Along with his passion for

By Adedapo Adesanya South African logistics startup, GoMetro, has secured a $1 million (ZAR16.3 million) seed extension round to accelerate its growth, bolster its commercial team and rapidly expand into the UK and American markets. The funds were received from Kalon Venture Partners, Hlayisani Capital, Tritech Global, 4Decades Capital, and E Squared Investments and would be used for key hires and investment in its innovative tech platform, product engineering and development. GoMetro is a mobility management platform that enables public transport and logistics operators to boost operational efficiency, futureproof their services, and tighten their competitiveness. The solution improves the operations