Quarter
2023: INEC reassures on continuous voters registration
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) says it plans to resume Continuous Voters Registration (CVR) across the country in the second quarter of 2021. Mrs Wunmi Balogun, INEC Head of ICT, Ibadan, said this at the training of electoral officers and assistants electoral officers on access to Polling Units (PUs) in Ibadan on Monday. Balogun added that the commission would be using INEC Voters Enrolment Devices for the CVR instead of the Direct Data Capturing Machine. Mr Mutiu Agboke, the state INEC Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC) said the training was to address the challenges being faced by voters on access to polling units during elections. Newsmen report that the workshop was specifically held for INEC’s head of departments, electoral officers and assistants electoral of...
WHO: End to pandemic not likely in 2021
The World Health Organisation (WHO) believes it is unlikely the Coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19）will come to an end by the end of 2021. “I think it will be very premature and unrealistic to think that we are going to finish with this virus by the end of the year,” Michael Ryan, director of the WHO’s health emergencies programme, said at a briefing on Tuesday. “What we can, if we are smart, finish with is the hospitalisations and the deaths and the tragedy associated with this pandemic,” Ryan added. The WHO’s focus at present was to keep transmissions as low as possible and vaccinate more and more people. The situation regarding the delivery of vaccine doses had already improved compared to 10 weeks ago, Ryan said, although there were “huge challenges” in distributing them and the virus stil...
South Africa signs J&J vaccine deal, eases restrictions
South Africa has signed an agreement with Johnson & Johnson to secure 11 million COVID-19 vaccine doses and will ease restrictions due to a decline in new cases, President Cyril Ramaphosa said on Sunday. South Africa has been the hardest-hit on the continent by the pandemic, recording almost half of the COVID-19 deaths and more than a third of reported infections. But daily cases have fallen below 2,000, from a peak above 20,000 last month during a second wave of infections. Ramaphosa said in a televised address that 2.8 million of the J&J doses would be delivered in the second quarter, with the rest spread throughout the year. South Africa started administering the single-dose J&J vaccine this month in a research study targeting healthcare workers but has not yet rolled out sh...
INEC intensifies consultation on new polling units
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has intensified consultations with stakeholders on the creation of new Polling Units (Pus), across the country. The Chairman of INEC, Prof. Mahmoud Yakubu, who held a meeting with the media in Abuja, yesterday, said that existing 119, 973 PUs, created 25 years ago had become grossly inadequate, leading to crisis situations during elections. He said, “Nigeria has a critical problem of voter access to Polling Units. The country currently has 119,973 Polling Units established a quarter of a Century ago in 1996 by the defunct National Electoral Commission of Nigeria (NECON). At that time, the voter population was projected at 50 million. “The voters’ register increased to 84,004,084 by 2019. We envisage that by the next General Election in 2...
NESG: Nigerian economy to beat IMF growth forecast in 2021
The Nigerian Economic Summit Group has predicted a growth rate of 2.9 per cent for the Nigerian economy in 2021, higher than the 1.5 per cent growth rate suggested by the International Monetary Fund. The NESG identified eight key policies and events that will help shape the outlook of Nigerian economy in 2021. This is contained in the group’s 2021 Macroeconomic Outlook Report titled, “Four Priorities for the Nigerian Economy in 2021 and Beyond,” launched virtually on Tuesday. According to the report, for Nigeria’s economy to get back on track, the economy needs a high, robust and sustained economic growth that will deliver a significant reduction in unemployment and poverty. The report said the government’s most important agenda in 2021 must be to address these problems as a foundation for...
Timi Frank: Sack, appointment of service chiefs late
Silverbird Television Former Deputy National Publicity Secretary of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Comrade Timi Frank, on Tuesday, attributed the rising spate of insecurity in the country to the retention, for far too long, of Service Chiefs who were no longer delivering as expected by President Muhammadu Buhari. Frank who was reacting to what he described as the earlier reluctance and eventual sack of the Service Chiefs, as well as appointment of new ones in a statement in Abuja, lamented that despite a whooping one term and a quarter of Buhari’s administration (about six years), that the administration “has not achieved any decisive victory against Boko Haram, murderous herdsmen, bandits and kidnappers.” “It became apparent early in the life of this regime that the set of Security ...
Lagos chamber projects positive economic recovery by Q2
The Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI) has projected a return to positive growth path for the Nigerian economy in the second quarter of 2021. Mrs Toki Mabogunje, President, LCCI, addressing journalists at the first edition of the chamber’s quarterly news conference, said the projection was subject to the absence of major economic shocks. Mabogunje, however, said that the projected recovery was expected to be subdued within the region of one per cent. “Projections by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund put Nigeria’s annual average growth for year 2021 at 1.1 per cent and 1.5 per cent, respectively. “Expectation of slow growth momentum reflects the lingering effects of the pandemic on the Nigerian economy and prospects of stricter containment measures considering th...
Uber ‘lays off’ 185 former Postmates workers
Uber has laid off about 185 Postmates workers, and plans to further integrate Postmates’ infrastructure within its Uber Eats segment, The New York Times reported. Uber acquired Postmates in July for $2.65 billion, following a failed attempt to buy rival food delivery service Grubhub. Meal delivery has been one bright spot for Uber amid the pandemic, as bookings in its Uber Eats division rose 135 percent year-over-year in the third quarter while its ride-hailing segment dropped 50 percent over the same time period. It’s consolidated other parts of the company in a bid to become profitable by the end of 2021, selling its autonomous vehicles segment to Aurora Innovation in December, the same month it sold its Uber Elevate flying taxi division to Joby Aviation. The latest cuts will see Postmat...
Pfizer, BioNTech to limit delays of vaccine shipments to one week
Pfizer and BioNTech said Saturday they will limit the delays of their vaccine deliveries to just one week, after fears in Europe that shipments of the jabs could be slowed for up to a month. The US drugmaker and its German partner “have developed a plan that will allow the scale-up of manufacturing capacities in Europe and deliver significantly more doses in the second quarter,” they said in a joint statement. “As a result, our facility in Puurs, Belgium will experience a temporary reduction in the number of doses delivered in the upcoming week.” Pfizer and BioNTech pledged that deliveries would be back to the original schedule to the European Union from the week of January 25, with increased delivery from the week of February 15. “To accomplish this, certain modifications of production pr...
Coronavirus takes toll on federal roads’ construction in Lagos
The ravaging effect of Coronavirus (COVID-19) was, perhaps, the biggest challenge faced by stakeholders in the road sub sector of the construction industry in 2020. As the virus gained ground, several contractors soon abandoned work and shut their operations, consequently, many hitherto gainfully employed Nigerians were thrown into the labour market. Even when the government later introduced partial lockdown measures, the number of workers on site was scaled down by many contractors in line with COVID-19 protocols, which slowed down progress of work. Virtually all road projects in Lagos State suffered the effect of the pandemic, with every project having its own peculiar challenge. The reconstruction of 46km Agbara-Seme section of the Lagos-Badagry Expressway project awarded to CGC Nigeria...
2021: Banks to walk a tightrope amid low revenue environment
Nigeria’s deposit money banks (DMBs) must brace up for the challenge of 2021 that might tax their resolve to remain in business. Reason: the industry is faced with a tougher operating environment that could threaten the operators’ ability to meet their stakeholders’ needs and expectations yet perform meaningful corporate social responsibility roles. Their valuable customers such as high net-worth individuals, corporate bodies and other institutions are equally challenged. In his book, Business Stripped Bare, celebrated iconic entrepreneur and founder of the Virgin Group, Richard Branson, says, “without trustworthy banks, there can be no business, no employment, no money. According to Branson, “People have got to be able to go to bed at night secure in the knowledge that the money they depo...
Russian coronavirus vaccine trials begin in UAE as cases rise
Abu Dhabi has started Phase III clinical trials of Russia’s experimental COVID-19 vaccine, known as Sputnik V, amid a surge in infections in the United Arab Emirates, Abu Dhabi’s media office said on Thursday. The human trial, announced in October before the recent rise in cases, is initially seeking up to 500 volunteers to be vaccinated at a hospital in the emirate of Abu Dhabi. Two doses of the vaccine will be given, 20 days apart, to volunteers, the statement said. Participants will have to be 18 years or older, have not previously been infected with COVID-19 or participated in other COVID-19 vaccine trials, it said. The UAE is also conducting Phase III trials of a COVID-19 vaccine developed by China National Pharmaceutical Group (Sinopharm). The UAE has approved the vaccine and it is a...
