Airtel Trains Nigerian Journalists in Digital Media

By Adedapo Adesanya The Senate has officially confirmed Mr Adamu Aliyu as the substantive chairman of the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC). He was confirmed following a screening session at the plenary on Thursday, a day after President Bola Tinubu pleaded with the upper chamber to speed up his confirmation. The screening commenced at approximately 11:50 am following a request by Mr Bamidele Opeyemi to temporarily suspend specific Senate rules, permitting external individuals to enter the chamber. The Deputy Senate President, Mr Jibirin Barau, led the screening of Mr Aliyu, who was the Attorney General of

By Adedapo Adesanya The Senate on Tuesday confirmed the nomination of Mr Zacch Adedeji as the Chairman of the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS). Mr Adedeji, who appeared at the upper chamber for his screening today, revealed his plans to improve the nation’s revenue, referring to the dearth of information in the oil and gas sector. The FIRS boss promised that most of the leakages would be halted. According to him, the core problem in the country is that of proper data, adding that developing data upon which decisions will be made is fundamental. He explained that this would enable

By Adedapo Adesanya The Minister of Communications, Innovation, and Digital Economy, Mr Bosun Tijani, has disclosed that so far, about 550,000 applicants have indicated interest in the first phase of the government’s plan to train three million tech talents in Nigeria within two weeks of initiating the scheme. The Minister recently revealed that the training would be done in three phases, starting with the training of 30,000 persons in the next three months as dictated by the 1-10-100 model. “We are using a 1-10-100-model. We are starting with 1 per cent of our 3 million target, and that will be

By Modupe Gbadeyanka The publisher of an online news platform, Per Second New (PSN), Mr Femi Oladapo Soneye, has been appointed as the Chief Corporate Communications Officer (CCCO) of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) Limited. The appointment of the veteran journalist was announced on Wednesday night by the state-owned oil agency, which said it looked “forward to his valuable contributions to our company.” The new spokesman will be in charge of the corporate communications of the NNPC, leading the organisation’s “corporate communications team and drive our brand penetration, strategic communications initiatives, and stakeholder management.” According to the statement, Mr

By Adedapo Adesanya The Petroleum Products Pricing Regulatory Agency (PPPRA) has assured consumers that the entry of coronavirus in Nigeria will not result into scarcity of petroleum products as there are enough in stock to cover for the next 40 days. The deadly disease, now present in over 50 countries, has affected sales of commodities at the markets, with Nigeria recording its first case on Thursday, February 27 from an Italian national who came into the country from Turkey. In a statement signed by the Executive Secretary of the agency, Mr Abdulkadir Saidu, over the weekend, the PPPRA said despite

By Dipo Olowookere Popular Nigerian movie actors, Olu Jacobs and Joke Silva, were given the honour to beat the year end closing gong on the floor of the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) on Friday, December 29, 2017. The duo, who are husband and wife, were received by a top official of the stock market regulator, Mr Bola Adeeko. In his emotional message, Olu Jacobs thanked the management of the NSE for the honour bestowed on him and his wife to sound the year end closing gong. He commended the management of the NSE led by Mr Oscar Onyema for restoring

By Adedapo Adesanya Group Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer of United Bank for Africa (UBA), Mr Kennedy Uzoka, and singer, Ayo Balogun, popularly known as Wizkid, have addressed the importance of their recently established partnership to Nigerian small and medium businesses. Speaking on the reason behind the choice of Wizkid as the bank’s brand ambassador, Mr Uzoka said the decision was prompted by UBA’s commitment to small and medium enterprises. He made this known during the fireside chat at the 2019 Tony Elumelu Entrepreneurship Forum, pointing out that the bank was unrelenting in its effort at ensuring SMEs thrive within the

Corporate organisations have been urged to rethink their business model and adopt technologies that would keep the green-light on, should another pandemic of COVID-19 scale ever happen again. This advice was given by the Group Managing Director of Zedcrest, Mr Adedayo Amzat, during an Instagram Live Chat with the Editor of TechEconomy, Mr Peter Oluka on the theme, Implications of COVID-19 on Nigerian Economy: Way Forward for Businesses. The capital market expert said the battle against COVID-19 was one that leaders today must win if we are to find an economically and socially viable path to the next normal. “This

By Adedapo Adesanya Crude oil prices were pointing down on Tuesday as concerns over mounting supply returned after leading producers delayed talks on 2021 output policy that could extend cuts amid weakened demand. This weakened the price of the Brent crude by 24 cents or 0.51 per cent to sell at $47.18 per barrel and battered the price of the West Texas Intermediate (WTI) by 26 cents or 0.58 per cent to $44.29 per barrel. After the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) ended its meeting on Monday without a resolution on its production plans for 2021, it delayed

By Cowry Asset In the just concluded week, FGN bonds traded at the over-the-counter (OTC) segment appreciated in value for most maturities tracked on renewed buy pressure in line with our expectations: the 20-year, 10% FGN JULY 2030 debt, the 7-year, 16.00% FGN JUN 2019 debt and the 5-year, 14.50% FGN JUL 2021 debt appreciated by N0.01, N0.10 and N0.01 respectively; their corresponding yields declined to 14.18% (from 14.19%), 12.64% (from 12.83%) and 13.68% (from 13.69%) respectively; however the 10-year, 16.39% FGN JAN 2022 debt decreased in value by N0.69 and its corresponding yield rose to 13.77% (from 13.55%). Meanwhile,

By Adedapo Adesanya The World Bank Group has discontinued the publishing of its Ease of Doing Business report after 18 years. The report measures regulations directly affecting the ease of doing business in 190 countries. The Bretton Wood institution said it reached the decision to discontinue the report after “internal reports raised ethical matters, including the conduct of former board officials as well as current and/or former bank staff.” It was reported that an independent investigation document found that Ms Kristalina Georgieva, who served as the bank’s chief executive officer from 2017 to 2019 and is now the managing director

By Dipo Olowookere Leading energy firm, Oando Plc, has announced the resignation of two of its non-executive directors from its board. A notice to the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) on Friday said the two persons are Mr Sena Anthony and Mr Oghogho Akpata. However, the statement jointly signed by the company secretary, Ayotola Jagun, and the Head of Corporate Communications, Alero Balogun, did not state the reason for the resignation of the two directors. Last week, Oando received sanctions from the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), which accused the company of market infractions. Oando, this Monday, approached a Federal High