After weeks of waiting, Nigeria has announced the resumption of International Flights.
Breaking the heart-warming news in a tweet is the Minister for Aviation, Hadi Sirika.
He tweeted: “Glad to announce the resumption of International Flights from August 29, beginning with Lagos and Abuja as we did with the domestic flight resumption.
“Protocols and procedures will be announced in due course. We thank you for your patience”.
Nigeria closed its airspace to International Flights late March over the COVID-19 pandemic, except for humanitarian and diplomatic flights.
It remains to see which of the International Flights would come to Nigeria. Europe banned Nigerians, and the USA, among other countries from entering for fear of the spread of the Virus.
Governor of Kaduna State, Malam Nasir El-Rufai, says there is no genocide going on in Southern Kaduna. He chided those making such claims, and dismissed them as mischief makers.
The Governor who spoke on a Channels Television program, Politics Today Sunday night, also stood by his earlier opinion penultimate week, that the Presidency should go to the South in 2023.
On Southern Kaduna, he said: “Why is it that when there are killings in Zamfara and Taraba, it is not genocide, but when there is a tribal misunderstanding in Southern Kaduna, it is genocide?.”
His statement is not likely to endear him to most people who are outraged by the incessant killings in Southern Kaduna, and who accuse him of turning a blind eye to the tragic situation.
But the Governor said he was neither moved nor perturbed by the thinking of, or assumption by such people, adding that his conscience was clear.
“I have done more than anybody to handle the Southern Kaduna crisis, but it is deep-rooted, and both sides to the crisis are to blame.”
He said a MOPOL Command has been established there, everything has been done, but he is of the opinion that only the people can make peace when they choose to.
“The warring tribes are the only ones who can make peace among themselves. It doesn’t matter what the Government or anybody does.”
He also chided those who he said ignorantly insist that Southern Kaduna is marginalized.
Far from that, he said, they occupy more government offices than any other group.
He revealed that the region makes up 28 per cent of Kaduna, but revealed: “When we came in, 65 % of the civil service population was from Southern Kaduna. Does that look like marginalization? The more they get, the more they shout.”
According to him, there are people making money out of the situation. “They take photographs and send abroad, shouting genocide, so as to get money from abroad.”
One the reasons, he is not liked, he revealed, is because he stopped the culture of giving such people money. “When we came, I stopped the culture of just giving them Government money. They don’t like me for stopping it”
Asked if he stood by what he was quoted as saying that he would not support a Nothern Presidential candidate in 2023, he denied saying that, but insisted that morally, his form opinion is that the Presidency should rotate to the South, after President Muhammadu Buhari’s eight years. He said it makes for peace, and that it is a gentleman’s agreement that power should rotate from the North to the South. He pointed out that the PDP enshrined it in its constitution.
Penultimate week, Minister for Labour and Productivity, Dr Chris Ngige, had said the APC, in 2014, agreed on Rotational Presidency.
The Deputy Governor of Edo State, Comrade Philip Shaibu, has called for the arrest and interrogation of the sacked National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress, APC, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole.
Shaibu said he should be arrested for habouring a killer squad in Edo, a couple of whom sleep in his house.
The Deputy Governor made this call during an interview on AIT, on Monday.
While answering questions, he appealed to President Muhammadu Buhari to play both a presidential and a fatherly role in Edo, hinting that anything contrary to that, could spark a revolution that could start from Edo.
Edo people are warriors, he warned, and they have made up their minds to resist any violence thrown their way. They are just respecting the Oba, he added.
He gave an example with what happened last week, when gun totting thugs attacked Governor Godwin Obaseki’s Campaign train on his way to Etsako. He disclosed that only a couple of women ran away. Others stood, watching what would happen. He then asked: “How many can they kill?”
Acknowledging Oshiomhole as his Dad, Deputy Governor Shaibu said he was shocked at the new Oshiomhole, adding “I knew he had changed the moment he discarded khaki for safari suits.”
He alleged that Oshiomhole has brought a killer squad to Edo, and that Security personnel were aware of it.
Shaibu revealed that he had personally reported some of the members of the squad to the Police, and even provided their photographs when they had dressed up, and prepared for the job, but that the Security personnel refused to act.
Because he is Oshiomhole’s son, he advanced: all the boys around him “are my brothers. They tell me what is happening, the plans. They were the ones who supplied to me the photographs of members of the killer squad. But the Police have some nothing”.
Shaibu is Governor Godwin.Obaseki’s running mate in the September 19 Governorship election.
The sack of Coach Quique Setien was expected, after the 8-2 annihilation of Spanish top Club, Barcelona Football Club by Bayern Munich Football Club in the UEFA Champions League Quarter Finals.
Barcelona President, Josep Bartomeu, confirmed the sacking of Head Coach, Setien, following the club finishing the season without winning any major trophies.
With Lionel Messi reportedly threatening to quit the club, Setien was axed following a meeting of the Barcelona board.
Club President Bartomeu, met with Director of Football Eric Abidal and fellow Chief, Ramon Planes, late on Sunday night and confirmed to reporters afterwards Setien was ‘out’.
An official announcement is expected on Monday, with Barcelona scheduling a press conference in the afternoon.
Setien was only appointed in January to replace Ernesto Valverde, but fared little better than his sacked predecessor as Real Madrid beat Barcelona to the La Liga title.
However, Barcelona are considering their former striker, Thierry Henry, as a replacement for the outgoing Quique Setien.
The former striker is currently the coach of Major League Soccer side, Montreal Impact Football Club, which he has guided to just one victory in his six games in charge.
The Frenchman previously was Assistant Coach to Roberto Martinez at Belgium, before taking his first managerial job at Monaco, whom he tasted victory with just four times across 20 games, before being dismissed in January 2020.
Henry scored 49 goals for the Blaugrana across three seasons, and is now on their managerial shortlist, which is said to include former Barcelona defender Ronald Koeman, current coach of the Netherlands.
Massimiliano Allegri (formerly of Milan and Juventus) and Mauricio Pochettino are also said to be on the shortlist, but Xavi Hernandez is not, as he has no interest in taking on the role at present.
It is reported that Barcelona will initiate contacts with representatives of Henry, Pochettino, Allegri and Koeman this weekend, as they look to refine their shortlist.
Former Everton boss Koeman is thought to be the front-runner as a former Barcelona player and a manager with a lot of experience.
The news of Setien’s dismissal comes hot on the heels of reports Messi is ready to call time on his incredible career at Barcelona.
Messi has told the board he wants to leave unless there is significant changes made.
While Messi has demanded action, Barcelona have put almost the entirety of their squad up for sale following the defeat to Bayern.
The presidential elections are scheduled in 2021, but may be held this year amid calls for Bartomeu to step down.
The Human Rights Writers Association, HURIWA, has called on the President Muhammadu Buhari Government to investigate Mallam Nasir El-Rufai, the Governor of Kaduna State.
According to HURIWA, El-Rufai should be compelled to produce the killers of innocent Nigerians in Southern Kaduna since he has been able to identify them and their locations.
HURIWA went down memory lane, recalling in December 2016, when Governor El-Rufai admitted to identifying and compensating those causing the crisis in Southern Kaduna, saying that they were people from the neighbouring countries of Niger, Cameroon, Chad, Mali and Senegal.
HURIWA, in a statement signed by its National Coordinator, Emmanuel Onwubiko, and made available to the media on Sunday, said it was much concerned that “what is going on in the southern part of the state is an ethno religious cleansing by vicious herdsmen in a way that was sickening and repulsive to civilisation.”
It said the “most pragmatic way to finding a solution and stopping the mass killers before they strike again is to fish out the armed Fulani Herdsmen doing the killings by investigating El-Rufai who allegedly and reportedly admitted paying off some identified killers.”
HURIWA further noted that the “utterances of El-Rufai in where he admitted paying off some killer herdsmen responsible for the violence and that compiling a list of people calling for self-defence in Southern Kaduna are very shocking
HURIWA wondered why the criminals were compensated instead of facing the law, adding that the Governor has not done anything to help the victims since he appeased the killers with money
“The continuous assault of the Southern Kaduna people has become highly suspicious and alarming. There is no doubt that the victims of these incessant assaults are indigenes of Kaduna State who are mostly Christians,” the group insisted.
In his first reaction to the barrage of criticisms from his friend of four decades, former governor of Ondo state, Dr Olusegun Mimiko has described Governor Rotimi Akeredolu’s administration as anti people.
Mr Akeredolu had berated his predecessor, last week, for abandoning several projects initiated by his predecessor for political reasons, thus compounding the problem of his administration.
Dr Mimiko, who maintained that the time to reply to various allegations levelled against him by Governor Akeredolu has not come, said he would know the stuff he was made of when campaigns for October 10 election take off proper.
Mimiko’s remarks came when he received Deputy Governor Agboola Ajayi at his residence in Ondo town after Ajayi had defected to the Zenith Labour Party (ZLP).
Mimiko pointed out that it was an insult to rank his administration with an unprogressive one that does not know what the people need at every particular time.
Governor Rotimi Akeredolu of Ondo State
According to him, any party or government that will not meet the need of the masses at the point of their yearnings is not a progressive one, adding that ZLP is the only party that loves the masses and assists them to achieve their dreams.
The former governor, who lauded the deputy governor, Agboola Ajayi, described him as a well groomed and seasoned politician saying Ajayi has no behaviour to hide again.
“All his good and bad sides, we know, we do not expect surprises.”
He, however said that the task ahead is challenging adding that nothing good comes easy and thanked everyone supporting the dreams of the incumbent deputy governor to oust his boss.
Earlier, Ajayi had said no progressive politician would go home and sleep when the state was experiencing mis- governance by the current government.
Describing the former governor as an achiever, Ajayi said there is no politician of repute either in the past or present and accros party divide, has not visited Mimiko for blessings.
The deputy governor said he had not joined the party to only contest the gubernatorial election, but to help change the narrative and get governance right in the polity of the state.
Also, the chairman of ZLP, Mr. Joseph Akinlaja said the incumbent government failed in various sectors that Mimiko had succeeded, urging the people to vote ZLP to alleviate their suffering.
Reacting to the former Governor’s remarks, the Commissioner for Information, Mr Donald Ojogo, described both Mimiko and Agboola Ajayi as treacherous
The Commissioner, who spoke on behalf of Governor Akeredolu declared that “we do not consider what the former Governor said as needful of any response. He must say something to calm down and indeed calm the nervousness of his unsuspecting victims.
“We can only sympathise with him because he has come out to remind the people of Ondo State and as well reactivate their consciousness of his almost forgotten past.
“No one without any treacherous content can market a treacherous person.”
In a swift reaction to the sack of the Governor of Bayelsa State Senator Douye Diri by the State’s Election Petition Tribunal, the immediate past Governor, His Excellency, Seriake Dickson, says there is no vacancy in the Government House.
He told Bayelsans that Diri remains the Governor until all Court processes are exhausted, all the way to the Supreme Court.
Urging the people not to worry at all, he admitted it was a temporary set-back, but nothing to lose sleep over, saying in law, the status quo remains.
In a statement signed on his behalf by his Media Adviser, Fidelis Soriwei, he said: ” I urge Bayelsans to remain calm. They shouldn’t misinterpret what took place at the Tribunal on Monday.
“The judgement is a temporary set-back which does not have any effect on the status quo until all processes of appeal are exhausted”
The three-man member Tribunal cancelled the Bayelsa Governorship election based on a case filed by the Action Democratic Party, ADP, a relatively unknown party, that INEC omitted its name on the ballot.
Amid worries of sliding profit, the management of Sterling Bank Plc, last week disclosed that the Deposit Money Bank, DMB is experiencing cash squeeze due to the Cash Reserve Ratio, CRR imposed by the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN.
Recall that Fitch Ratings, a renowned global ratings agency, few days ago disclosed that the Cash Reserve policy has been having crippling effects on the operations of some commercial banks in the country.
“The Central Bank of Nigeria has been highly interventionist. Where peers like South Africa and Kenya followed the global trend of giving banks more room to lend, Nigeria hasn’t budged. Instead, it stuck with a cash reserve ratio that compels lenders to park 27.5% of their deposits with the central bank,’ Fitch said in its forecast.
Sterling Bank is not finding the situation easy at all, if the report it made available to the NSE, is anything to go by.
What is the problem?
“The liquidity problem, could affect cash on demand by customers thus compounding the reputation of the new generation bank,” according to Olamide Joseph, who insists that “the bank must do more to dispel rumours of vulnerability.”
According to the figures the bank released to the NSE, cumulative customers’ Deposit currently stands at N915.3billion while loans to customers is N615 billion; CRR N215.5 billion and CRR (debit) N93 billion.
“Looking at those figures critically, you can do the calculation to find out whether there’s already a problem or not,” Joseph said.
Suleiman: Laments Cash Problems Due To CRR
CSL, a popular stock broking firm in Lagos recently warned that the 2020 financial year would be one of the worst for the Abubakar Suleiman bank in terms of profit returns.
The prediction came on the crest of the bank’s struggles to impress global rating firms, the flip-flop of its share price at the Nigerian stock Exchange, NSE amidst ravaging COVID 19 which has badly hit the Nigerian financial sector and tumbled banks’ earnings this year, sector analysts say.
Sterling Bank’s share price was down to N120 per share at the close of trading on Friday, far below other tier-two banks in the country.
Fidelity Bank Plc share, for instance, was traded for N173 while FCMB share closed at N192 at the end of Monday trading at the NSE.
Crying out that that its operations have been highly hampered by CRR close watchers of the tier two bank say, has further exposed its vulnerability.
In its 2020 half-year interim results published on the website of the NSE, Sterling Bank said by withholding N215.5 billion in CRR from its coffers it will now struggle to meet customers’ cash demands.
What the CBN has withheld “represent mandatory reserve deposits and are not available for use in the bank’s day-to-day operations,” the management said.
The apex bank on January 23 this year increased its cash reserve requirement, CRR for banks to 27.5 per cent from 22.5 per cent at its new-year monetary policy committee meeting.
CRR is normally used by CBN to control inflation, sometimes applied to checkmate excess cash from being released into circulation.
Sterling Bank Plc is among DMBs that have been struggling to meet the CRR since the beginning of the year, and the CBN has followed up by coming down hard on erring banks, deducting directly from their cash reserves domiciled with the apex Regulator.
This year alone, the CBN has deducted over N93 billion from Sterling bank as penalty for violating the CRR.
“When you add N93 billion to N215 billion, the bank has been limited by over N300 billion in cash that it can make available to its customers. You need no soothsayer to tell you what will happen next: potential and existing customers will only interpret this to mean that the bank does not have enough cash back up and that something is wrong with the bank.
“How do you prove that you are strong if you cannot make cash available to customers on demand; and how can you grow profit when you cannot grant loan facilities to customers because of liquidity issues caused by cash call from CBN? In all of these, customers can begin to smell a rat.
“It’s really a cul-de-sac situation for Sterling Bank,” James Edwards, a business analyst told the magazine.
CSL, has meanwhile, predicted that the 2020 financial year may be worst for the bank as profit could be down as much as 15 per cent.
The lender struggled to earn N10.2 billion pre-tax profit, PBT in the 2019 financial year.
The firm stated that return on equity and assets, ROAE could plunge to at least seven per cent.
CSL said “We Project Pre-tax Profit of N9.0bn (down 15% y/y) and we estimate ROAE of 6.9% in 2020e (FY 2019; 9.8%).”
Also “We do not expect asset quality issues to crystallise in the short term, as we expect the bulk of the loans in the Oil and gas upstream/midstream (c.27% of gross loan) to be restructured,” the firm said.
What this means, for instance, analysts insist, is that huge loans granted to the oil and gas sector are not expected be recovered because of the plunge in prices of crude oil in the international market.
Sterling recorded one of the highest exposures to the oil sector among DMBs in its category.
“This is a bad news for customers, shareholders and potential investors,” Edwards further stated.
CSL stated that the fact that the Suleiman-led bank only managed to pay a meager N864 million dividends to shareholders in 2019, after failing to do so in the 2018, should be of serious concerns to the management and shareholders.
But looking closely at the bank, analysts say, is the bottomline; the serious governance issues affecting the lender
Dapo Ibiyemi, a financial analyst in Lagos said “the bank’s 2019 financial report has opened up many posers on the prudential skills of those running the bank.”
He said the report indicates that the bank recorded a higher running cost in the year under review than those in its category.
“For every N10 made during the period” he said “Sterling Bank spent N8, an indication that 80 per cent of its earnings went into expenses, raising serious doubts about the management’s cost efficiency.”
Also, the bank spent N70.2 billion on Operating cost, according to the 2019 Full year report presented to the NSE.
The Report show that repairs and maintenance, for example, cost the bank N7.3 billion in 2019, when N7 billion has already been incurred in 2018.
Also admin and Office expenses which incurred N5.4 billion in the 2018 FY got another N4 billion in 2019.
Also admin and Office expenses which incurred N5.4 billion in the 2018 FY got another N4 billion in 2019.
Ibiyemi said ” You cannot be living large when your rooftop is leaking.”
Meanwhile, all efforts to get the bank’s response to the issue failed, as calls made to Adeola Adejokun, its spokesman, failed while text message sent to his telephone line was not replied.
Founder of Living Faith Church Worldwide, Popularly known as Winners Chapel, Bishop David Oyedepo, has kicked against the application of the Company and Allied Matters Acts, CAMA, in Churches.
Last week, August 7th, 2020, President Muhammadu Buhari signed CAMA into law. The action is being faulted by Bishop Oyedepo.
Under the law, Religious bodies and Charity organisations will be strictly regulated by the Registrar-General of Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC), and a supervising Minister.
CAMA provides that the Commission may, by order, suspend the Trustees of an association, or a religious body, and appoint an interim manager or managers to coordinate its affairs where it reasonably believes that there has been any misconduct or mismanagement, or where the affairs of the association are being run fraudulently or where it is necessary or desirable for the purpose of public interest.
While addressing members of his congregation on Sunday, Oyedepo said such laws were borne out of the government’s jealousy about the prosperity recorded by the Church.
Oyedepo questioned the rationality behind subjecting Churches to the same laws as companies, describing the Church as God’s heritage on earth.
“The Church is God’s heritage on earth. Molest the wife of somebody, and you will see the anger of that person. The Church is the bride of Christ. You know how a strong man is when you tamper with his wife. The Church is the body of Christ. We are under obligation to give warnings to wicked rulers so we could be free from their blood.
“The Church works on the pattern delivered by God not the pattern of man. Government has no power to appoint people over churches. This is a secular nation. The church is the greatest asset of God in this country. Please be warned. Judgment is coming. The Lord says I have been still but now I will arise. Anybody that is in this deal is taking poison. This will never work. I am waiting for a day when anybody will appoint a trustee over this church… You can’t gag anybody. We own this country together.
“It is only in Africa that people who are over 80 years still run around to become president. I know that it is the prosperity of the church that is making them jealous. But I am going to live to see an army of many winners soar greater. In this church shall emerge one of the largest concentration of giats on earth”, he said.
The Governor of Bayelsa State, Senator Douye Diri, will appeal his sack, from office, Monday afternoon, by the Bayelsa State Eletion Tribunal.
An unknown, “inconsequential” party, Action Democratic Party, ADP, had gone to the Tribunal, asking the three-man panel to cancel the Governorship election because the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, omitted its name on the ballot.
The Tribunal granted its request, and asked INEC to hold another election within 90 days.
For Diri and his Deputy, Senator Lawrence Ewhrudjakpo, it is like successfully swimming an ocean, and getting drowned in a stream.
The same Tribunal, had, three days ago, dismissed three cases against Diri’s election.
Earlier, the Governor had won all the election cases, all the way to the Supreme Court.
A source close to the Governor said the judgement took them by suprise, but said it would be appealed immediately.
