Justice Inyang Ekwo of the Federal High Court, Abuja Division has adjourned to September 26, a suit filed by CEC Africa Investment Limited and KANN utility company against the Attorney General of the Federation and others over the take over of Abuja Electricity Distribution Company (AEDC). The judge made the adjournment sequel to an application by counsel to the plaintiffs seeking to adjourn to enable them explore more settlement options. The Plaintiffs had sought an order of the court restraining the AGF and others from interfering in the operations of AEDC. The plaintiffs had approached the court on December 8,…
Author: Temitope N.
The House of Representatives has asked the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), to extend the voter registration exercise by 60 days. The house gave the directive following the adoption of a motion moved by Ben Kalu (APC, Abia) during plenary on Wednesday. June 30 is the scheduled deadline for the closing of the Continuous Voter Registration (CVR) exercise. While moving the motion, Mr Kalu said the extension will enable more eligible Nigerians to register. Mr Kalu noted that the decision to extend the voters’ registration was in line with the provisions of the Electoral Act, 2022, which required INEC to…
Nigeria’s presidential candidates have kept mute concerning Nigeria’s galloping inflation rate, which hit 17.71% for the month of May 2022. This is according to a recent report released by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS). The frontline presidential candidates have remained silent on the issue of inflation despite being at the forefront of most conversations relating to the state of the Nigerian economy. A cursory look at the Twitter handles of Atiku Abubakar, Peter Obi, Ahmed Tinubu, Rabiu Kwankwaso, and Omoyele Sowore, revealed no comments concerning the record-high inflation recorded in May, as Nigeria continues to suffer significant blowback from…
Long-term Bitcoin holders are sitting on their largest losses since the March 2020 COVID-19 selloff and the 2018-2019 bear market but may have to keep waiting for relief. According to Glassnode’s weekly report, the report calculated the long term holder losses by measuring the value of coins deposited to exchanges, aggregated realized losses from long-term holders (LTH) of Bitcoin (BTC) exceeded 0.006% of the market capitalization by May 29. The report explains that the losses may continue for some time if historic loss patterns from previous bear markets are to be repeated. From 2018 to 2019, LTH losses reached a…
Billionaire businessman and investor, Warren Buffett has a tip for people looking to grow their wealth. And in simple terms, it is for them to focus on learning how to write and speak clearly. Buffett stated this in a posted by Michael Hood, the co-founder of the Toronto based start-up Voiceflow, which enables users to design, build and launch skills for Amazon’s smart speaker, Alexa, without needing to know how to code. Michael Hood, who is just 22 years old, was Buffett’s escort for the day when he was heading to the Canadian Walk of Fame Inductee Gala. An event…
The Tata Group is an Indian multinational conglomerate headquartered in Mumbai, India and founded by Jamsetji Tata and currently employs 800,000 people globally (FY 2021). It is listed on the Stock Exchange and is India’s largest conglomerate, founded in 1868, with products and services in over 150 countries and operations in 100 countries across six continents. The group operates in the following industries: Metals, IT, Financials, Automotive, Retail, Infrastructure, Telecoms, Tourism & Travel, Aerospace and Defense. TATA Africa Services (Nigeria) Limited was founded in 2006 and serves as the focal point for Tata businesses in West Africa. The company is…
The Association of Corporate Trustees (ACT) has stated that the organization is positioned to create a more robust capital market, hinging on the adequate implementation of its fiduciary responsibility. This was disclosed in the 2022 Business Luncheon organized by the organization in Lagos State, tagged; “An appraisal of the Nigerian Trust Industry vis-à-vis global trends in Trusteeship.” According to Mrs. Olufunke Aiyepola, Managing Director/CE, UTL Trust Management Services Limited and one of the panellists during the conversation, corporate trustees serve as the third party who shoulder the will and monitors transactions in the capital market from the structuring stage to…
The Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Godwin Emefiele, says investors should suffer from Fear of missing out (FOMO) when considering investing in Africa. Emefiele, represented by his Deputy and Board Chairman of AFC, Dr Kingsley Obiora disclosed this at the Africa Finance Corporation (AFC) Live Infrastructure Solutions Summit. He claimed that Africa had seen several crises in the last two years, each with serious consequences for the continent’s economies. He called on African governments, central banks, corporate leaders and investors to rally together and be bolder in “our ambitions and support our continental champions and institutions like…
Halo Financial Services Limited, a fintech start-up has launched an innovative approach to offer financial solutions to communities and grow their money. According to the firm, focusing on communities will enable it to assist more Nigerians, especially at the grassroots level to grow their finances. Halo defines a community as any group of people with defined membership and identifiable leadership, which includes; professional or trade associations, cooperatives, social clubs, unions, even old boys and girls associations and more. Speaking at a media roundtable to introduce the company, the Chief Executive Officer and co-founder, Chidimma Onyeokoro, disclosed that Halo enables communities…
Minister of Aviation, Senator Hadi Sirika has appealed to member states and the African Civil Aviation Commission (AFCAC) to call on the Secretary General, International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO), Juan Carlos Salazar to use his good offices to revive the ICAO Human Resource Development Fund (HRDF), which has remained inactive since 2018. Sirika said Nigeria generously contributed to the fund and equally benefited from the inaugural secondment of officers to ICAO under the programme. The exposure, experience and knowledge gained by the officers attest to the usefulness of the HRDF programme. Sirika stated this at the seventh Africa-Indian Ocean (AFI)…
A coalition of aviation workers’ unions yesterday, raised the alarm over alleged imminent plan to ground Areo Contractors airline and further downsize another 40 per cent of its workforce. The coalition, made up of the National Union of Air Transport Employees (NUATE) and the Air Transport Senior Staff Services Association of Nigeria (ATSSSAN), told reporters that the airline was already on its way to decommissioning following claims that its operating airlines and assets were too old to fly. The management, however, said that the claims were unfounded and carrier was still on the path of recovery. Recall that the Asset…
Nigerian and Swiss firms have signed a pact to develop precious metals and artisanal gold mining value chain. On the sideline of the Investing in African Mining Indaba at Capetown, South Africa, Dukia Gold & Precious Metals Refining Co. Limited Nigeria and Philoro Global Trading AG Switzerland, signed a Working Together Agreement to deepen participation in the extractive industry as well as consolidate strategies in the development of programmes needed to exploit the expected benefits in the sector. Minister of Mines and Steel Development, Olamilekan Adegbite, said the signature was a simple affair but one with enormous significance. Adegbite described…
Unless Nigeria becomes structurally balanced by addressing various issues that have constrained the nation’s economic potential over the years, the country may not record any meaningful growth. Chief Executive Officer of Financial Derivatives Limited, Bismarck Rewane, while addressing participants at the Vetiva virtual 2022 Africa Macroeconomic Conference held at the weekend, stated categorically that the nation is currently beset by numerous structural issues, ranging from monetary policy framework, exchange rate processes, investment uncertainties and other impediments to growth. Rewane pointed out that the leadership of the country has failed to address these constraints that have hampered the nation’s industrialization and…
A consortium of Falcon Corporation, ND Western Midstream Limited and First Hydrocarbon Nigeria (FHN) Gas Limited, have signed a gas infrastructure development agreement worth over $25 million in the Lagos Free Zone (LFZ). According to the Chief Financial Officer, FHN, Kayode Olatunbosun, the investment, which is for the construction phase, would be funded through equity. He stated this during the agreement signing ceremony for the gas development infrastructure. The consortium has been selected to build exclusively, own, and operate a natural gas distribution infrastructure network within the LFZ and would incorporate a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV): Optimera Energy LFZ Enterprise…
The Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Zainab Ahmed, has said despite the Federal Government’s efforts to leverage the benefits of tax exemptions and concessions, the incentive has rather led to huge revenue loss to the government. According to her, though the government is committed to reducing tax expenditure, the nation’s current revenue to Gross Domestic Product (GDP) ratio of about seven per cent was poor and unsatisfactory. The minister stated this on Monday in Abuja, at the workshop on tax expenditure organised by the ECOWAS Commission under the Context of the Implementation of the Support Programme for Tax…
Stakeholders, yesterday, in Abuja, raised concerns about the growing level of deforestation triggered by activities in the oil and gas sector in Nigeria. This is coming as Seplat Energy said over five million trees would be planted in some oil producing and Northern states. Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Timipre Sylva, Board Chairman of Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPC), Senator Margery Chuba Okadigbo and Chairman of Seplat, ABC Orjiako were among stakeholders who insisted that unless concerted efforts are made, achieving the 2030 target to end deforestation may remain elusive. Speaking as Seplat unveiled the tree planting initiative,…
Less than two weeks to the presidential primaries of the political parties ahead of the 2023 elections, the US dollar has broken the N600/$ mark at the parallel market and set the tone for a possible uptick in the coming days. The black market rate had traded between N570/$ and N590/$ since the beginning of the year while the Central bank of Nigeria (CBN)’s intervention at the Nigerian Autonomous Foreign Exchange (NAFEX) has kept its rate under N420/$. With the latest slump of the naira, the arbitrage between the parallel and NAFEX, which is regarded as the official window, is…
Microblogging platform, Twitter, has informed that it has suspended over half a million accounts suspected to be spam every day. In addition to this, Twitter said millions of accounts that are unable to pass human verification are locked each week. Twitter Chief Executive Officer, Parag Agrawal, who stated this, yesterday, explained the efforts of the company at reducing spam accounts. Agrawal said the company also faces the challenge of many accounts that look fake because they have no pictures, but are later verified to have real humans behind them. The Twitter CEO also admitted that fighting spam is incredibly dynamic,…
Poor implementation of the patronage policy, high cost of production, high level of importation, smuggling among other challenges have continued to undermine Nigeria’s textile sector, shrinking the number of viable textile firms to less than 20 from 175 firms in 1985. According to the Nigerian Textile Manufacturers Association (NTMA), the textile sector, which used to be the highest employer of labour, lost at least 117,000 jobs within 26 years, with more losses underway without government’s intervention. The association noted that the industry’s declining export capacity, having led to the loss of preferential market access in the EU and US, was…
Amid uncertainties in the global economy and rising insecurity in the country, the nation’s stock market continued its bullish run, giving hope to patient investors who endured long periods of downturn on the Nigerian Exchange Limited (NGX). After getting to a rock-bottom low for several years, the equities market have recorded an unprecedented upbeat rally since the beginning of the year to emerge the best performing market in Africa and third in the world. The NGX’s All Share Index (ASI), an indicator used to track the general market movement of all listed equities on NGX, crossed 53,000 mark to hit a 14-year high…