PREMIUM TIMES

MainOne network, whose facilities provide internet services to many parts of western and southern Africa, said it observed stability on its network across the region on Monday morning. The company disclosed this in a statement posted on its X handle on Monday. The service provider said it worked with regional partners late last week and over the weekend to reroute traffic with restoration capacity. “MainOne worked with regional partners late last week and over the weekend to reroute traffic with restoration…

The uptrend in the Nigerian equity market appears to have come to stay further than anyone could have expected on the back of buy interest that has failed to wane. It stands to reason that the lion’s share of portfolio investment would have shifted to treasury bills, bonds and other fixed income securities, whose yields became dramatically attractive to both foreign investors and investors at home after a big hike in interest rate last month by the central bank. That regardless, stocks continue to have their…

Nigeria’s annual inflation rate rose to 31.70 per cent in February from 29.90 per cent in January, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said on Friday. The statistics office said the February 2024 headline inflation rate showed an increase of 1.80 per cent compared to the January 2024 headline inflation rate. The NBS said on a year-on-year basis, the headline inflation rate was 9.79 per cent points higher than the rate recorded in February 2023, which was 21.91 per cent. “This shows that the headline…

The Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (FCCPC) on Friday described the increase in the price of sachet water in the country as unacceptable and unfair. The FCCPC acting Executive Vice-Chairman/Chief Executive Officer, Adamu Abdullahi, disclosed this while speaking at an event to commemorate the 2024 World Consumer Rights Day in Abuja on Friday. The price of sachet water has gone up across the country in recent times. Currently, a bag of sachet water sold between N200 and N250 now sells as high…

Agricultural development agencies, researchers, and policymakers from Liberia are set to organise a business summit to draw a seed road map for the West African country. The consortium includes the Building an Economically Sustainable Integrated Cassava Seed System, Phase 2 (BASICS-II) project of the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA), AfDB-funded Technologies for African Agricultural Transformation (TAAT) of IITA, the Sasakawa Africa Association (SAA) in Nigeria, and the Liberian government.…

The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has reaffirmed its directive to banks regarding the utilisation of foreign currency (FCY) revaluation gains. In a circular released by the bank on Thursday and signed by the Acting Director of the Banking Supervision Department, Adetona Adedeji, the CBN advised banks against undertaking such actions. In the circular, referencing a letter dated 11 September 2023, the CBN emphasised the need for banks to exercise utmost prudence in handling these gains. According to the directive,…

MainOne, a Digital Infrastructure Service Provider, on Saturday, said that it had restored service to some customers and was actively working on restoring all services through capacity acquired on available cable systems. The organisation made this known via a statement on its website after it earlier said it would take two weeks to five weeks for it to fully restore internet services. The statement said that the estimated repair time that it had earlier declared was for its submarine cable fault to be fixed.…

The Minister of Solid Minerals Development, Dele Alake, has urged mineral-rich African countries to use the proven mineral reserves of their countries as equity in joint ventures, instead of taking loans that worsen the plight of their people. Speaking at a Ministerial Roundtable on Powering Africa in Washington DC recently, Mr Alake deplored unwholesome pressure on African governments by loan marketers despite global concerns over the declining capacity of many countries to settle their debts. The minister said,…

Nigeria’s crude oil daily output has increased by 200,000 barrels over the last six months due to security measures introduced in the Niger Delta, a presidential aide has said. Stability in the oil producing areas has also increased the availability of NLNG Trains 1-6 from 57 per cent in 2023 to 70 per cent in the first quarter of 2024, the Special Adviser to the President on Energy, Olu Verheijen, said. She stated this on Friday in Abuja at a media briefing on policy directives of the President Bola Tinubu…

The Central Bank of Nigeria on Wednesday issued a stern warning to all development finance institutions, primary mortgage banks, and microfinance banks regarding the timely submission of their statutory monthly returns through the Financial Institutions Returns Automation (FinA) application. FinA is an advanced off-site surveillance automation system for online submission of returns by financial institutions to the CBN, sponsored by USAID. Deployed in 2011, its key functions include collecting data from FIs…