Two weeks to the opening of the Abuja airport runway to traffic, the Minister of State, Aviation Sen. Sirika Hadi Sirika, has said the runway is 75 percent completed. He stated this after routine inspection of ongoing total resurfacing of the runway after its total failure. The Minister said “I am happy to announce we are at 75 percent completion …

Nigeria’s Vice President, Professor Yemi Osinbajo, has presented Aso Villa Demo Day (AVDD) Grant worth N756 million to 81 young innovators to grow and expand their enterprises. Speaking at the grant award ceremony held in Abuja yesterday, Professor Osinbajo said the 81 innovators awarded the grants were expected to bring change to entrepreneurship in the country through the use of …

The Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) has downgraded Guinness Nigeria Plc from its special pricing status category following the depreciation in its share price. The “high-priced stocks”, according to the NSE categorisation, are stocks with share prices of N100 and above and regular and pre-determined level of activities. In 2012, the NSE had, alongside the introduction of market-making, introduced a pilot …

The Lagos State government has paid another N582.195 million to 109 retirees March. The state government through the Lagos State Pension Commission (LASPEC) has since the inception of the administration paid 5,956 retirees from the mainstream civil service, local government and State Universal Basic Education Board, Teachers Establishment Pensions Office and other Parastatals of Government. The Director General, Mrs. Folashade …

Since the inception of the Contributory Pension Scheme (CPS), Pension Fund Administrators (PFAs) have paid N52.91 billion as 25 per cent of their Retirement Saving Account (RSA) balance to 169,419  workers that lost their jobs and unable to secure other jobs within four months of disengagement. According to the National Pension Commission (PenCom) second quarter 2016 report, the private sector …

African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank) has reiterated the importance of factoring services in bridging the assessed gap in financing among small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Africa. While admitting that the business model was scripted to address the challenges the SMEs face in accessing funding for business activities, the bank noted that it is also important to develop the model across …

Seventy seven per cent of board members or senior managers say they can justify unethical behaviour to help a business survive, a new fraud report has found. Despite the sporadic progress in tackling bribery and corruption across Europe, the Middle East, India and Africa, 51 per cent of respondents to the biennial EY EMEIA Fraud Survey still perceived the problem …

The naira recorded a gain against the United States dollar on the parallel market on Tuesday, a day after the Central Bank of Nigeria injected $240m into the foreign exchange market. The local unit rose from 395/dollar on Monday to 390/dollar on Tuesday as the new forex supply weighed on the market. The CBN had on Monday released the sum …

Vice President Yemi Osinbajo on Tuesday said that with the recent involvement of the government in the promotion of technology, the country would soon take over the digital space the way it did in the music, film and entertainment industry. Osinbajo, who said this in Abuja during the presentation of N756.3m grant to 81 young Nigerian innovators as part of …

The Supreme Court of the United Kingdom, in a unanimous judgment, has granted a reprieve to the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation over a $100m bank guarantee in a case involving the corporation and a service company, IPCO (Nigeria) Limited. The reprieve, according to a statement by the corporation on Tuesday, was the latest in the protracted dispute arising from the …