Total Group Educates Nigerians On Disease Prevention

By Adedapo Adesanya The federal government has pledged to increase domestic health financing to improve health condition of all Nigerians as part of President Bola Tinubu’s administration’s targets. The Vice President, Mr Kashim Shettima, on Tuesday made the pledge when a delegations from the Global Health Partners, the Global Fund, US President’s Malaria Initiative (PMI), and others, paid him a courtesy visit at the Presidential Villa, Abuja. The US President’s Emergency Plan For AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) was also part of the delegations. Mr Shettima emphasised that enhancing domestic health financing and improved health outcomes of Nigerians were topmost on the

By Adedapo Adesanya The founder of Nigeria’s Wellahealth Technologies, Mr Ikpeme Neto, has been selected among the top 10 finalists of Africa’s Business Heroes Prize Competition, the philanthropic programme sponsored by Chinese billionaire, Mr Jack Ma. The foundation, now in its fifth year, announced this year’s finalists after an intense round of semi-finale business pitches and judging held on September 1 and 2 at Norrsken House in Kigali, Rwanda. Mr Neto will be among these 10 entrepreneurs who will compete for their share of the final prize of $1.5 million in grant funding at the competition’s grand finale scheduled for

By Adedapo Adesanya The Coordinating Minister of Health and Social Welfare, Dr Muhammad Pate, has said Nigeria could become a hub for vaccine production and distribution in Africa, banking on his experience at GAVI. According to him, this can be achieved with the country’s large population, skilled workforce, and existing pharmaceutical industry. “On local vaccine manufacturing, as you are all aware, until I came back as a Minister, I was going to work with GAVI, an international organisation created in 2000 to improve access to new and underused vaccines for children living in the world’s poorest countries. And GAVI also

The process of appointing two international banks as joint lead managers and a local bank as financial adviser for the planned Federal Government Medium Term Note (FGMTN) Programme (2016-2018) as well as the issuance of $1 billion out of the $4.50 billion FGMTN programme in 2016 has commenced. The agency handling this on behalf of Federal Government is the Debt Management Office (DMO). The Nigerian government is also seeking to retain the services of an international and Nigerian law firms which will act as joint legal advisers for the FGMTN. The legal advisers will be appointed separately by the DMO.

By Adedapo Adesanya Seplat Energy Plc has announced plans to partner with the Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board (NCDMB) in the area of human capital development, as well as the establishment of skills acquisition centres in the country. the chief executive of Seplat Energy Plc, Mr Roger Brown, made the announcement when he led the management of the firm on a courtesy visit to the Executive Director of NCDMB, Mr Simbi Wabote, at the board’s liaison office. Mr Brown explained that his visit was imperative in order to respond and talk through some of the issues raised by NCDMB

By Dipo Olowookere Fitch Ratings has upgraded United Bank for Africa Plc’s (UBA) Long-Term Issuer Default Rating (IDR) to ‘B+’ from ‘B’ with a stable outlook, a statement from the firm has said. It was stated that UBA’s Viability Rating (VR) has also been upgraded to ‘b+’ from ‘b’, reflecting an improvement in the bank’s performance metrics and funding and liquidity profile, which the rating agency considers to be sustainable. According to the statement, UBA’s strong capital ratios, increasingly diversified funding base and well managed liquidity mean that its risk profile is now more closely aligned with those of Zenith

By Modupe Gbadeyanka The customer service platform of Zoho Corporation, Zoho Desk, has been enhanced with new tools aimed at enabling customer service agents to improve engagement and deliver higher-value customer experiences (CX). In a statement, the company said the new features introduced into the application unify human-driven and bot-powered customer service capabilities for exceptional omnichannel support and better-informed agent interactions. One of these features is blended conversations, a seamless combination of human-driven and bot-powered conversational service experiences, as well as several refinements to the user interface to make it simpler, faster, and more accessible to users with a wide

By Modupe Gbadeyanka About eight Tax Appeal Tribunals have been reconstituted by the federal government across the country. The tribunals are expected to arbitrate over disputes arising from the operation of federal tax laws and regulations in the country. The reconstitution of the tribunals was in accordance with Section 2(1) of the Fifth Schedule of the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) Establishment Act. They were situated in the six geo-political zones as well as Lagos and Federal Capital Territory (FTC) Abuja. Each Tribunal is made up of a Chairman and four Commissioners knowledgeable in the laws, regulations, norms and practices

By Jerome-Mario Chijioke Utomi The debate on climate change is among the most presently discussed topics on the earth’s surface. All these years, I have, going by the commentaries from the Western world, believed that Africa’s non-commitment to the call for global action on climate change was responsible for the real and imaginary challenges confronting the continent. Making this perceived climate change challenge look real was the recent news report that to tackle the problems, the World Bank Group has committed about $70 billion and urged governments of different nations to set up structures to engage and access the fund.

By Modupe Gbadeyanka Stockbrokers in the Nigerian capital market have fixed November 16 and 17, 2017 for their 21st Annual Conference in Lagos. The programme, organised by the Chartered Institute of Stockbrokers (CIS), will hold at the Landmark Event Centre, Lekki. The theme of this year’s conference is ‘Adapting to the Dynamic Changes in the Financial Marke.’ Several experts in the financial sector have been pencilled down to speak at the event, which promises to be explosive. The Chartered Institute of Stockbrokers (CIS) is an Institute chartered by Act of parliament of the Federal Republic of Nigeria in 1992 with

On Friday, June 14, 2019, about 91 top performing students from 46 schools in Nigeria received 125 Outstanding Cambridge Learner Awards following their outstanding performance in the November 2017 and June 2018 Cambridge exams series. The event, which took place at the Civic Centre in Lagos, was hosted by Cambridge International and the British Council. The awards covered various subjects taken in Cambridge IGCSEs, Cambridge O Levels and Cambridge International AS & A Levels. The top achievers included three ‘Top in World’ category winners: Omoshemi Favour Oloriegbe from The Childville Senior for Cambridge IGCSE Sociology in the June 2018 exam