NEWS MIRROR

Benzema Favour Ajibade France International and Real Madrid Superstar, Karim Benzema, has won the Ballon d’Or for 2022. He was awarded the prestigious prize for the best male player in the world after helping Carlo Ancelloti’s side to a memorable La Liga and Champions League double. The Laliga Pichichi winner for 2022 amassed a whopping 44 goals in a stellar season which saw him scoop the prize from fellow contenders such as Erling Haaland, Kylian Mbappe and Mohammed Salah. This year’s event took place on Monday night at the elegant Théâtre du Chatelet in Paris with pomp and pageantry.  In attendance were the crème de la crème of the footballing society; from Christano Ronaldo, Robert Lewandoski, Alexia Putellas, Son and Kane of Tottenham Hotspur among others. With this victory, the Real Madrid marksman becomes the 66th winner of football’s most coveted individual prize honour, also making him the eighth player from football’s most decorated club to win the Ballon d’Or. He

By Akinola Ajibade The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation  (NNPC) will collapse the nation's economy, if it not sold to private investors, who would run it in a more profitable manners, the Kaduna state governor, Nasir Ahmed El-Rufai has said.. He spoke recently on Channels Television Special Programme introduced in order to mark the 7th edition of the annual Kaduna Investment Summit( KADinvest 7.0) .  He said the nation's oil company is not well manage, adding that if the company is not given to investors, who has the prerequisite knowledge to run the firm, the country will come to its knees. He said the Federal Government has failed in the oil and gas business and should therefore stop managing the sector.  While Speaking on the theme of the Summit “Building a Resilient Economy”, El-Rufai said that NNPC has since the beginning of this year, NNPCL has not brought even N20,000 to the Federation Account. According to him, “NNPC is a big problem to Nigeria and un

By Akinola Ajibade Rising cost of operations has claimed the  N106billion generated  by Flour Mills of Nigeria in the second quarter of 2022. This marked 45 per cent increase over N340billion recorded in the first quarter of the year.  Two major cost increases were said to have claimed all the increase in revenue and left after-tax profit flat at N5.5 billion. According to the company's financial reports, its first-quarter operations for the period ended June 2022 show that input and interest expenses grew ahead of sales revenue and prevented the revenue gains from getting down to profit. Input cost rose by over 47 per cent quarter-on-quarter to over N306 billion, representing an increase of N98 billion over the period. That claimed much of the N106 billion increase in sales revenue over the period, which limited the increase in gross profit to 29 per cent, amounting to a little over N33 billion. Also, interest expenses surged upward by 79 per cent or N3.6 billion quarter-on-quarte

By Akinola Ajibade Millions of residents of Iwaa, Oyo, Obajana, Apata and other communities, which host and border  Dangote Cement Plant in Kogi, North Central Region of Nigeria, were drowned in ecstacy, following the decision by the Federal Government to re- open the plant in the state.  The reason is because the development signals a return of economic activities in those areas, as owners of vehicles, travellers, traders, artisans, students, motorcyclists, applicants, among people, visit those areas for sustenance. The plant, which boasts of 3,500,000 metric tonnes per annum was re- opened by President Muhammed Buhari, who incidentally stands as  Chairman, National Security Council (NCS), an institution charged with the provision and maintenance of the nation's security matters. Subsequently, the Minister of Interior, Rauf Aregbesola had last week announced the plans by the government to reopen the plant, which was under locks and keys due to closure by the Kogi state

By Akinola  Ajibade Lagos  state government has received a formal approval to b uild $2.5billion Badagry Deep Seaport, which was approved by the Federal Executive Council (FEC) last August. This means that a new deep seaport is coming to compliment the almost completed deep seaport at the Lekki Free Trade Zone. Earlier in the week,  the government received approval to build an airport in the state.  When the two are deployed, it will reduce the pressure on the seaports at Apapa area of Lagos and free the roads that are always clogged with traffic. The final approval now authorises and provides legal basis for the concession of the Badagry Deep Seaport, following the issuance of the Full Business Case Certificate by the Infrastructure Concession Regulatory Commission (ICRC) last April. The project, which will be funded through Public Private Partnership (PPP), will be built on approximately 496 hectares.  Part of its facilities include 2,470m quay length container terminal,

By Akinola Ajibade The National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) has put in measures at various ports in order to  prevent contaminated cough syrups from entering the country, its  Director-General, Prof Mojisola Adeyeye, has said.  She said this recently at a news conference in Abuja.  Recall that the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reported that the agency has on Sunday, issued an alert with No. 040/2022 about some contaminated cough syrups circulating in the Gambia. NAN also reports that the syrups were identified as Promethazine Oral Solution, Kofexmalin Baby Cough Syrup, Makoff Baby Cough Syrup and Magrip N Cold Syrup. The syrups were said to have been manufactured by an Indian company, Maiden Pharmaceuticals, and had failed to provide guarantees about the safety of the cough syrups. Meanwhile, the NAFDAC boss said that the agency had put appropriate measures at the various ports of entry to curtail the entry of these syrups into Nigeria. She s

Akinola Ajibade An end to pipeline vandalism and crude oil thefts is in sight, if the plans by the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited and the Petroleum Training Institute(PTI)  to install anti-theft integrated monitoring systems on pipelines to monitor the facilities against crude oil theft in the country is anything to go by. The Goup Chief Executive Officer, NNPC Limited, Mallam Mele Kyarid disclosed this yesterday, at the Petroleum Training Institute’s 50th Anniversary in Abuja. According to him, both organisations are already in talks to partner on a number of things including expansion of capabilities in the areas of modern technology, energy transition, pipeline protection among others. He said the oil company was pleased to hear what the institute had done in terms of pipeline monitoring,adding that the NNPC would work with the institute to deploy the technology to further boost the monitoring its pipelines to address crude oil theft in Nigeria. Kyari added:

 By Favour Ajibade Lagos state governor, Mr Babajide Sanwoolu, yesterday, said that plans are underway to turn Lagos to Africa model mega city by 2052. He spoke in Victoria Island, during the 9th edition of Ehingbeti Lagos Economic Summit. According to him, the government is making concerted efforts towards conceptualising  and developing  a comprehensive 30-year plan. He said that  Lagos State Development Plan 2052 has the ambition of transforming Lagos into Africa’s Model Mega City. “The Lagos State Development Plan 2052 is built around four strategic pillars – Thriving Economy, Human-centric City, Modern Infrastructure and Effective Governance. This plan focuses on 20 strategic areas that will drive this ambition. “This long-term development plan has been meticulously devised to accommodate the best of all existing and prior high-level policy documents, transformation plans and development policies, including the THEMES Agenda. “In line with the ongoing work to finetune

NIPCO Outlet  By Favour Ajibade  Independent Petroleum Company ( NIPCO) Plc has announced the acquisition of a majority shares in Capital Hotels, which is the former owner of Abuja Sheraton Hotel.  22 Hospitality Limited,a, NIPCO Plc, has announced the deal in a statement. The company explained that the deal is part of the concerted efforts of the integrated downstream operator to diversify into the nation’s hospitality industry Alhaji Aminu Abdulkadir, a Group Executive Director of NIPCO Plc, said  that the new investors are now desirous to restore the hotel to its former glory and to reposition it as the first-choice luxury hotel in Abuja. The hotel is currently managed by Starwood / Marriott under various system license Agreements with CHP. Sheraton Hotel, Abuja Starwood had in the past acknowledged in various reports that the hotel was ‘in a very degraded state and will require hard renovations’ to make it brand compliant. However, despite the hotel’s poor c

CBN's Headquarters, Abuja By Akinola Ajibade  The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has shut the door against some dealers, who want to access discount window for business.  The dealers, CBN said, are authorised ones, which are officially licensed to do so. The apex bank, in a circular to all dealers on the access to the discount window, which was dated October 7, 2022, and signed by the its  Director, Financial Markets Department, Dr. Angela Sere-Ejembi. The circular reminded participants with successful bids at the Open Market Operations (OMO) auctions to refrain from accessing the discount window on the auction date. The bank warned that henceforth, failure for non-compliance to the directive shall result in the reversal of the allotment. The bank emphasized that successful bids at the government securities auctions, including the Nigerian Treasury Bills (NTBs) FGN Bonds, and Sukuk, are not permitted to access the CBN discounted window on the settlement date. It explaine

By Akinola Ajibade Ajaokuta Steel Company  will generate N809.56 billion in 10 years, if it given N701billion as capital to reactivate it, a fellow of Nigerian Society of Engineers (NSE),Dr. Otis Anyaeji has said. Averagely N80 billion profit will be generated in a year, a development, which translates to N800 billion in 10 years. Onyeaji said this in a presentation during the October 28, lecture titled: ‘Advocacy and Activism in our Engineering DNA’ A combination of public and private sector funds should be considered for adoption, probably on a 30:70 ratio in order to raise the needed fund,he said. “This is very crucial, being another significant and consistent effort by the Nigerian Society of Engineers to further argue for ways of adding value to local resources and thereby create jobs at this difficult periodIn doing this, the investments on ground at Ajaokuta would be taken into due consideration on the public side. In other words, the real cash injection by the gover

President Muhammed Buhari yesterday said that the Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE) will fund the 2023  country's budget deficit with  N206.18billion, being the proceeds from the privatisation of the power sector in 2004. He said said this in Abuja, while presenting next year budget estimates totalling N20.51 trillion and tagged: Budget of Fiscal Consolidation and Transition to the joint session of the National Assembly. According to him,  other sources of funding the budget estimates of N20.51 trillion include new burrowings totaling N8.80 trillion and N1.77 trillion drawdowns on bilateral/ multilateral loans secured for specific development projects/ programmes. Recall that the N20.51 trillion budget proposed for 2023 expenditure comprises the followings:  Statutory Transfers of N744.11 billion;   Non-debt Recurrent Costs of N8.27 trillion;   Personnel Costs of N4.99 trillion;   Pensions, Gratuities and Retirees’ Benefits of N854.8 billion;  Overheads of N1.11 trilli

Deborah poses after the  legal competition The University of Houston, United States is one with a difference in the area of bringing out the best in its products. Deborah Gills- Harry, a Law Student in the school bares her minds on how she won the Moot Court Competition.  The atmosphere was cool, a development, which informed the decision of Deborah, a first generation student in the school to speak with nostalgia how she emerged victorious in the recently organised competition for students, intending to ply their trade in the legal world. According to her, she was not longing to win the award, when she does. Her reason was borne out of  the facts it was rigourous and demanding to study law in the US, not to talk of winning awards. Hear her: " As a first generation law student, I never expected to win my very first University of Houston Law Center  Moot Court competition during my 1L first semester.  Beaming with smiles in a manner depicting somebody who breasted the t

By Favour Ajibade Prices of crude oil rose for a fourth session yesterday(Thursday), following the decision by  OPEC to  further tighten global crude supply with a deal to slash production by about 2 million barrel per day, the largest reduction since 2020. Brent crude futures for December settlement rose 22 cents, or 0.2%, to $93.59 per barrel by 0234 GMT after settling 1.7% higher in the previous session. U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures for November delivery gained 22 cents, or 0.3%, to $87.98 per barrel, building on a 1.4% rise on Tuesday. The agreement between the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and allies including Russia, a group known as OPEC+, comes ahead of a European Union embargo on Russian oil and would squeeze supplies in an already tight market, adding to inflation. Given that production at some of the OPEC+ countries are below target levels, the actual cut would be smaller than the 2 million bpd reduction agreed to at the

By Akinola Ajibade The Chief Executive Officer,Royal Dutch Shell, Mr Ben Van Beurden, says taxes from energy companies are huge enough to deal with spiralling inflationary rates in the world. He  urged authorities to take from the rich to assist the poor, in order to stem the growing rates of inflation across the world. According to him, the need for the government's intervention one way or the other is necessary, as the cost of gas skyrotted in the United Kingdom and across Europe. Beurden, who spoke  at the Energy Intelligence Forum in London on October. 4, was quoted by  Bloomberg  as saying: “A government intervention that somehow results in protecting the poorest, that probably may then mean that governments need to tax people in this room to pay for it.” Executives from the energy sector’s largest companies, including from oil and gas majors Saudi Aramco, ExxonMobil, and Chevron, among others, are in attendance at the  two-day conference , which concludes on Oct.

By Akinola Ajibade The Academic Staff Union of Universities ( ASUU) has defied the order to resume work today,  Friday, October 7.  The striking lecturers were ordered to go back to work today, with immediate effect  by the Appeal Court sitting in  Abuja days ago. The court gave the order in a ruling on an application by the ASUU seeking permission for it to appeal against the order of the National Industrial Court which asked the striking lecturers to resume duty. Recall that the national industrial court had on September 22, granted an interlocutory order following an application to that effect by the Federal Government, ordering university lecturers to return to work pending the resolution of their dispute with government. ASUU, through its counsel, Femi Falana SAN headed to the appellate court to seek redress. At the Appeal Court, ASUU filed an application dated September 28, seeking the leave of court to file an appeal against the industrial court order. But in its rul

The Bi-annual Joint Generation, Operation, and Distribution Planning Meeting hosted by EKEDC at the Civic Center, Ozumba Mbadiwe, Victoria Island, Lagos. In attendance were stakeholders from NERC, TCN, ANED, GenCos

By Favour Ajibade The Federal Government has blamed the non-payment of N75,000 stipends approved for students of tietsry institutions on the strike by Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), the Minister of Education, Mallam Adamu Adamu, has said. The government approved the money as bursary allowance for students sometimes ago. However, it is yet to pay to the beneficiaries, due to strike actions employed by ASUU, in order to press home its demands for improved condition of service. Represented by the 2022 World Teachers Day( WTD) press briefing in Abuja, by  the Permanent Secretary of the Federal Ministry of Education, David Gende, Adamu said ASUU’s strike has delayed the commencement of the packages. He said, “Most importantly is the support of giving bursary awards to all students of education. As a matter of fact, for that one the ministry of education is going to try and commence it this year. It is because of the current strike that it has not been commenced, bu

Above: CBN's headquarters. Below: Mr Emefiele By Akinola Ajibade The decision by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to aggressively hike the rate of interest rate in order to cusion the effect of inflation on the masses would not achieve any meaningful results, experts have said.  They are Chief Executive officer, Highcap Securities Limited, Messers,  David Adonri, and Principal Partner with Afrique Capital and Equity Funds, Kazeem Bello. Already, inflation has gone mad, hitting a 17-year high at 20.52 per cent in August, throttling the exchange rate to N720/$1 at the parallel market,  heightening food shortage, and quickening the food basket index (food inflation) to 23.12 per cent, among other macroeconomic uncertainties.  CBN further raised the interest rates by 150 basis points to 15.5 per cent at its just-concluded two-day Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) meeting, on Tuesday. This represents the third consecutive time, since May, the apex bank raised the

By Akinola Ajibade The Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) says it has restored the national grid, which collapsed in early hours of Monday ( Yesterday). TCN, in a statement signed by its General Manager, Public Affairs and made available to the media, said that  “the restoration of the affected part of the grid commenced immediately at 11.55 am with Osogbo/Ihovbor back to the grid followed by Jebba/Osogbo, Kainji/Jebba, Benin/Onisha, Shiroro/Kaduna, Shiroro/Katampe, and Alaoji/Ikot-Ekpene,” it said in a statement on Monday. “Others are, he said, include Lokoja/Gwagwalada, Odukpani/Ikot Ekpene, Benin/Omotosho, Oke-Aro/Ikeja west, Egbin/Oke-Aro and Kaduna/Kano.” Explaining the cause of the incident, the TCN said it was due to “a sudden drop in system frequency, which created system instability”. “The National Control Centre (NCC) said a full-scale investigation is being conducted to establish and ascertain the cause of the partial disturbance as this unwholesome event has