The Industrial Training Fund rolled out plans to pump up technician skills through their SUPA program, and director Afiz Ogun dropped by the Lanre Shittu Motor plant in Lagos to lock down partnerships. The fund wants to move past just handing out starter packs because those apparently send people back to square one, so they built out a business incubation setup that helps trainees launch their own operations after finishing courses in electrical work, plumbing, fashion design, and ICT.
Taiwo Shittu from LSM praised the collaboration and mentioned his company runs three training centers across different states that gear up auto technicians with modern equipment before shipping them off to customers for jobs. Ogun said thousands of...
AltBank just dropped a new branch in Effurun over in Delta State, and Chukwuemeka Agada from the south division said the move helps them lock down the Edo-Delta corridor for non-interest banking. The launch pulled traditional rulers like Emmanuel Ekemejewa Sideso Abe I and local government reps, and Chief Samuel Eshenake told the bank to actually create jobs instead of just setting up shop.
Regional head Akanni Owolabi mentioned the branch should pump up local business growth through their Islamic finance model, which runs on asset-backed deals and risk-sharing instead of regular interest. Traders, small businesses, and young professionals around Warri can access the services, and the whole thing seems aimed at the massive informal...
The Central Bank bumped Treasury Bill rates up by 146 basis points after the latest auction pulled tight subscription numbers, and the one-year spot rate just punched past the 16.05 percent inflation mark by 145 basis points. The bank floated 700 billion naira worth of bills across three different maturities, but total demand only scraped 775 billion, even though disinflation is happening.
Investors basically dumped 90 percent of their cash into the 364-day bills while ignoring the shorter stuff. The 91-day offer pulled a pathetic 44.17 billion in bids against a 100 billion target, and the 182-day notes only grabbed 33.38 billion out of 150 billion available. The longest tenor got slammed with 697.29 billion in demand for 450 billion...
UBA just teamed up with Lions Group to hand out perks through their Red Pass card during the Detty December season, and marketing head Alero Ladipo said customers get 25 percent off entry to Wave Beach, Kyma Beach, and Athena Beach. Anyone buying concert tickets for shows like Kizz Daniel Live or Fireboy Live through the Detty Side website gets 5 percent cashback when they use the pass.
Adebayo Abe from Lions Group mentioned the partnership targets Nigerians flying back home who want a solid festive experience, and Wakanow vice president Gbolahan Salami backed the whole thing as a way to reach more people. The Red Pass basically works as an access card for the entire campaign.
The Chartered Institute of Taxation of Nigeria just wrapped its 58th induction ceremony, and President Innocent Ohagwa told everyone the new tax reforms should bump up living standards while getting more people to actually pay their taxes. He mentioned the institute will keep handling professional standards and member discipline under the updated rules, and he basically told the fresh inductees to hit the books on current legislation if they want to stay relevant.
Guest speaker Oladeji Akinyele from CSDC Consulting dropped some advice about becoming policy influencers over the next ten years. He pushed the new crew to get tech-savvy and ethically grounded, saying intelligence quotient builds credibility, emotional quotient makes people...
CBN governor Olayemi Cardoso told senators that inflation dropped from 34.6 percent to 16.05 percent while foreign reserves climbed to 46.7 billion dollars, and the naira gap between official and parallel markets shrank to under 2 percent compared to over 60 percent a year back. Capital inflows hit 20.98 billion dollars through October, which beat the entire previous year by 70 percent, and the bank cleared a 7 billion dollar FX backlog that had been choking investor confidence.
Real GDP grew 3.98 percent in Q3 thanks to crop production and ICT, and the Purchasing Managers Index reached 56.4 points in November. Food inflation fell to 13.12 percent, giving households and businesses some breathing room after getting hammered for years...
The government just approved paying back 185 billion naira to gas companies that have been waiting forever to get their money, and Vice President Kashim Shettima signed off on the whole thing through the National Economic Council. Gas minister Ekperikpe Ekpo said the debt settlement uses a royalty-offset deal and should get suppliers back on board after years of sketchy payment history basically killed their confidence. The outstanding bills apparently choked cash flow for producers and made them pump less gas into power stations, which helped tank electricity supply across the country.
Ekpo thinks clearing the arrears will restart upstream drilling and exploration while pushing gas output closer to the 12 billion cubic feet per day...
Lagos officials are claiming their tech scene hit 15.3 billion dollars in value, and Commissioner Olatunbosun Alake said the state grabbed around 6 billion in startup funding from 2019 through 2024. That cash represents over 70 percent of what Nigeria pulled overall, and Lagos apparently hosts somewhere between 80 and 90 percent of the roughly 2,000 tech startups that popped up recently.
Deputy governor Kadri Obafemi Hamzat mentioned they want to double the share of tech and innovation in the economy by 2030, and the government already threw almost 2 billion naira at food innovators and researchers. More than 75 startups across fintech, agritech, and climate tech got grants.
The Art of Technology conference just wrapped its seventh...
The agriculture minister dropped some rough news about a third of Nigerian soil being completely trashed, and the government is scrambling to fix it before food production totally tanks. Aliyu Sabi said the degradation comes from climate issues and bad farming methods, and it could take a thousand years just to bring back a few centimeters of topsoil.
They launched the Nigeria Farmers' Soil Health Scheme back in October to help farmers stop dumping excessive fertilizer everywhere, and the plan involves setting up soil-testing labs in all 774 local government areas run by young farmers and women. Twelve labs with modern gear are already up across the six geopolitical zones.
Abubakar Musa Kundiri from the Nigerian Institute of Soil...
