Lagos-headquartered FCMB Group Plc says Adam Nuru, the immediate past managing director of the bank who became enmeshed in an alleged paternity scandal month ago, did not breach its policies. “The board had earlier reviewed media allegations made in late 2020 against the former MD and did not establish any contravention of its policies,” the financial services group said in a statement Tuesday. Mr Nuru exited the bank this week four years into a term that ordinarily should last five. The board says Mr Nuru left at the “end of service”, but did not give details of its findings or…
Author: Temitope N.
The Senate has faulted the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) for under-remitting the sum of N3,878,955,039,855.73 trillion revenue from domestic crude oil sales to the Federation Account for the period of January to December, 2015. Accordingly, the upper chamber called on the Corporation to desist from further deduction at source as this contravenes Section 162(1) of the 1999 Constitution (as amended). It also mandated the Federation Accounts Allocation Committee (FAAC) or any other approving authority to, as a matter of urgency, approve agreed percentage which should be allocated to NNPC monthly as operational cost to ensure that their operations…
The Nigerian Association of Chambers of Commerce, Industry Mines and Agriculture (NACCIMA), has charged the Federal Government to domesticate the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) so as to enable the country to benefit from the full implementation of the agreement Domestication of AfCFTA implies that the National Assembly must pass a law to make the operation of the treaty legal in the country, as any treaty (including AfCFTA) is not legally enforceable until an Act of the Assembly. The National President of NACCIMA, Ide Udeaghala, who disclosed this at a Press Conference in Lagos, noted that the law from…
In 2020, import bill ballooned to N12.71tn while export bill dropped below N1tn to N960.7bn. Manufactured trade deficit was highest in 2020 with a deficit in excess of N11tn. Nigeria exported N700.48bn worth of manufactured goods to other African countries; N185bn to European countries; and N42.2bn to Asian countries. In the third quarter of the year, Nigeria spent N5.54tn importing manufactured goods from Asia. In the last quarter of 2020, Nigeria spent N539.4bn importing vaccines and antibiotics from Denmark, Singapore, India, Belgium, the Netherlands, and India. In Q1, 2021, import bill for manufactured goods was N4.53tn, which dwarfed any quarter…
The price of automotive gas oil, better known as diesel, spiked to N290 per litre this week. The surge is on the back of rise in the price of crude oil which sold at $75.55 per barrel at the international market at 11:11 PM (GMT) on Friday. There has been a rally in the price of crude oil as major economies reopen economic activities. However, the prolonged high crude prices will ultimately feed into a climb in fuel landing cost for users in Nigeria — meaning an increase in price of diesel which is not subsided like petrol. The…
The senate has recommended that the importation of Premium Motor Spirit (PMS), popularly known as petrol, be limited to holders of local refining licence. This is according to the Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB) passed by the senate. Holders of crude oil refining licences in Nigeria include Dangote Oil Refinery Company, Waltersmith Refining & Petrochemical Company Limited, OPAC Refineries, Niger Delta Petroleum Resources, BUA Refinery & Petrochemicals and Edo Refinery and Petrochemical Company Limited. At the moment, companies registered under the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) as providers of goods and services in the downstream sector of the Nigerian oil and gas…
Royal Dutch Shell has abandoned its argument that the oil pollution lawsuit filed against it by the Ogale and Bille communities in Rivers state, be heard in Nigeria rather than the UK. Bloomberg reports that Shell’s legal team refused to return to the High Court of England with the argument that the five-year-old case would be better heard in Nigeria, according to the parties in the case, conceding that the Nigerian subsidiary will now be joined to claims made in England against the parent company. In a landmark ruling on February 12, the UK Supreme Court allowed the communities to…
The Kano Electricity Distribution Company (KEDCO) has raised alarm over increasing theft of transformer oil and cables in its franchise. A statement signed by KEDCO Head of Communications, Mr Ibrahim Shawai, on Monday in Kano, urged communities and individuals to assist in tracking the criminals. “The problem has almost become a yearly event when hoodlums take advantage of rainy season to steal the company’s equipment and installation. This needs to be stopped. “Economic sabotage of this act has always affected electricity supply. “Whenever transformer oil and cables are stolen from any transformer, the act will deny customers of their comfort…
Elon Musk took the stand on Monday to defend Tesla Inc’s 2016 acquisition of SolarCity against a lawsuit by shareholders seeking to recoup the $2.6 billion the company paid for the ailing solar panel maker. Soon after taking the stand, Musk denied the deal was a bailout of SolarCity as Tesla shareholders have alleged. “Since it was a stock-for-stock transaction and I owned almost exactly the same percentage of both there was no financial gain,” he said, responding to questions from his attorney. Musk’s testimony kicks off a two-week trial in Wilmington, Delaware, before Vice Chancellor Joseph Slights, who will…
Royal Dutch Shell has given up its struggle to move a Niger Delta oil spill case, involving thousands of the region’s residents, from the UK to Nigeria, Bloomberg said Monday. The decision comes on the heels of two recently lost suits for Shell. In January a Dutch court directed the supermajor to pay compensation to residents of its operational base in the country’s far south for an oil spill action, a couple of decades ago. Members of Nigeria’s Ogle and Bile communities numbering around 40,000 said the energy giant and its local unit, SPDC, are both accountable for oil contamination…
The Nigerian government does not plan to privatise the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN), the Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE), has said. Yunana Malo, Director, Energy Department, of the BPE said at a media conference on Monday in Abuja, that the bureau would instead hand over the company to a private manager on a concession arrangement to get maximum value. He said transmission was the weak link in the power reform, as generation which was privatised had since attracted investments, making it more efficient. He said the generation capacity had improved, adding that 60 per cent of the distribution segment…
TikTok has said it will use automation to detect and remove many of the videos that violate its policies. According to engadget.com, for the past year, the service has been testing and tweaking systems to find and take down such content. It will roll out those systems in the US and Canada over the next few weeks. To start with, the algorithms will be on the lookout for posts that violate policies related to the safety of minors, violence, graphic content, nudity, sex, illegal activity and regulated goods. If the systems detect a violation, they’ll yank the video immediately and…
Restrictions on movement and reduction in the handling of physical cash because of the COVID-19 pandemic caused mobile money transaction volumes in sub-Saharan to reach $490bn in 2020, Visa has said. This was a 23 per cent increase from 2019, according to a report titled ‘Innovation, partnership, and co-creation key to driving digital payment growth in sub-Saharan Africa’ by Senior Vice President and Head of Sub-Saharan Africa at Visa, Aida Diarra. The company said in the last decade, digital technology, including payments, had witnessed tremendous growth. The report said, “Innovation and technological advances are bringing exciting opportunities for financial inclusion…
Experts have highlighted the need to boost Nigeria’s services exports and encourage business services outsourcing in order to spur job creation and economic development. A senior analyst at SBM Intelligence, Joachim MacEbong, said Nigeria must learn to be export-focused to achieve prosperity for its large population. He said, “There is a lot of potential for business process outsourcing. However, Nigeria is still not friendly to the foreign investment that could create jobs for youths who are struggling with unemployment. “We need to address our hostility to foreign capital. Having more French speakers could help Nigeria take advantage of the AfCFTA…
A new World Bank report estimates that the collapse of ecosystem services provided by nature including wild pollination, food from marine fisheries and timber from forests could result in Nigeria’s GDP declining by $139bn in 2030. The report titled ‘The economic case for nature’ underscored the strong reliance of economies on nature, particularly in low income countries. The report highlighted that Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia would suffer the most relative contraction of real GDP due to a collapse of ecosystem services by 2030, 9.7 per cent annually and 6.5 per cent respectively. Nigeria which is regarded as a lower-middle…
Stakeholders in the aviation sector have urged the Federal Government to learn from the experience of the defunct Nigeria Airways as it pushes ahead to establish a new national carrier. The Federal Government, in its updated roadmap status, disclosed its plan to establish a national carrier that would enable Nigeria to gain optimal benefits from Bilateral Aviation Safety Agreements. The status showed that the establishment of the carrier would enable Nigeria to take advantage of the Single African Air Transport Market and also introduce competition. Nigeria Airways, which was established in 1958, was dissolved in 2003 during the administration of…
Nutrition experts have said that requesting vegetable sellers to slice it at the point of purchase is unhygienic, warning that the practice can cause food poisoning. They also noted that slicing vegetables at the point of purchase could lead to loss of vital nutrients. The experts, a Registered Dietician-Nutritionist at the Alex Ekwueme Federal University Teaching Hospital, Abakaliki, Ebonyi State, Nwabumma Asouzu; and a Lagos-based Registered Dietician-Nutritionist, Cynthia Onyekwere, said there are serious hygiene issues with slicing vegetables before washing. According to them, all vegetables should be treated with the utmost care, from the point of harvest to the consumer’s…
A Consultant Dermatologist, Dr. Toyosi Ilesanmi, says there is hope for people with skin damaged by bleaching cream. Ilesanmi who works with the University of Ilorin Teaching Hospital said that it is always difficult to repair skin damaged by bleaching cream, there is always hope of helping people with the problem. Speaking In an interview, the dermatologist, said, however, that repairing damaged skin, is dependent on how long the skin has been bleached and with what item. “There are some people that just started bleaching their skin may be less than six months, such people’s skin can be saved. “The…
The Chief Medical Director, Federal Teaching Hospital Gombe, Dr. Yusuf Abdullah, has bemoaned the huge cost of power supply to the health facility. The hospital, he said, is burdened by over 13 million naira monthly power bills. He urged the federal government to provide the health facility with an alternative power supply, adding that the bulk of the hospital’s revenue goes to servicing power. The CMD disclosed this during the virtual unveiling of vital medical equipment donated to the hospital by the Federal Government. Also present at the virtual launch were the Minister of Special Duties and Inter-Government Affairs, Dr.…
Following the pronouncement of the Federal Government that airline operators must refund the full cost of travel tickets to passengers after a two-hour delay, commercial airlines have listed the conditions for such reimbursement. The airline operators made this known in separate interviews with newsmen. The Minister of Aviation, Hadi Sirika, had, on Thursday at the weekly State House briefing in Aso Villa, Abuja, read out some of the rights of air passengers as enshrined in Part 19 of the Consumer Protection Regulations of the Nigerian Civil Aviation Regulations (2015) and charged them to demand their rights whenever they were…