Author: Obayomi Abiola Benjamin

Nigeria is losing about $9bn annually to foreign shipowners because the country has no single vessel that is involved in international freight services, the Nigerian Shippers’ Council stated on Thursday. According to the council, Nigeria makes nothing from the billions of dollars spent by importers and exporters as freight fees to owners of vessels, as no Nigerian or Nigerian firm has a ship that moves cargo internationally. The Executive Secretary, NSC, Hassan Bello, who disclosed this at a one-day seminar for transport and aviation correspondents in Abuja, however, noted that the government was working hard to make Nigerian firms own…

The Federal Government of Nigeria has inaugurated the board of the Securities and Exchange Commission four years after it was dissolved. The SEC board was dissolved on July 16, 2015, and the apex capital market regulator had been without a board until this week. The Permanent Secretary, Federal Ministry of Finance, Mr Mahmoud Isa-Dutse, urged listed companies in the capital market to imbibe good corporate governance and accountability to accelerate the growth of the market and increase both domestic and foreign investor participation, a statement by SEC said on Monday. Isa-Dutse said the nation’s capital market was growing and evolving,…

If Facebook’s new cryptocurrency should resonate anywhere it should be India, where the social media giant has more than 300 million followers. Many Indians are shut out of banking and face punitive fees for simple transactions, like transferring money to their loved ones. But in India as elsewhere, the US company’s ambitions to remake global finance through its “Libra” currency will have to overcome regulatory mistrust, plus the existence of popular homegrown rivals in the market for digital payments. “If regulations were not a hurdle in India, Libra would instantaneously have a massive reach because of Facebook,” Anirudh Rastogi, the…

By Toyin Falola Below is an excerpt of the convocation lecture of Babcock University, by Prof. Toyin Falola, the Jacob and Frances Sanger Mossiker Chair in the Humanities at the University of Texas at Austin. My address has underscored the relevance of faith in the context of the related ideas of fact and fiction. In the process, it accepts faith as given. After all, faith and society have always been linked since the birth of human civilisation. Religion has made enormous contributions to the growth of civilisation. In Nigeria, we should tap into the advantages of faith and avoid inter-religious…

One of the fundamental problems facing many homes across the world today is the absence of a responsible father. There are millions of children growing up without a human figure they could point to as their father. Many women today have had to shoulder the responsibilities of being the father and the mother at the same time to their children. In fact, behavioural scientists have proven that children who grow up without a father figure in their lives are sometimes (if not most times) prone to violence, more likely to be aggressive, more likely to be depressed, more likely to…

It would be a great trap when we begin to think that we as humans, can function without God. God did not make man to function outside of Him. The day a man thinks in himself that he can function without God is the day such a man will begin to die. Why? Because man was never made to function outside of God. The original man was made to function in God and with God. This, we know to be true when God said “let us make man in our image and likeness.” The reason for this arrangement is so…

Over two thousand and eighteen years Jesus Christ came and walked physically on the face of the earth. Before this time, there were prophecies about the fact that a saviour was going to be born (Isaiah 7:14, 9:6, 11:1). In Matthew 1:18-23, the prophecies about Jesus’ birth was fulfilled. He was born, lived for thirty three and half years, fulfilling all that He came to do within that space of time. Now, we have read over and over again, on the pages of the Scriptures that Christ will return to the earth a second time. Acts 1:9-11 tells us “Now…

We live in a world where everything appears to be contending for one’s attention, and if care is not taken; one can lose focus and be distracted from the main thing. From marriage, to family, to work, even friends and many other things are all wanting a dose of one’s attention or the other. In fact, the Bible refers to some of these things as the cares of this world (Matthew 13:22). And because we want to at least give attention to everything, they end up choking the main thing that we are supposed to be focused on. There is…

In leadership, counterproductive elements are people or things or behaviours that are hindering the attainment of a desired goal, and in most times, it is manifested in people doing things that are inimical to the progress of an organization or even a nation, as the case may be. Now, in the example that we want to consider, we can see how Nehemiah stood his ground against certain rich folks who were taking advantage of the poor among them, by placing high usury on whatever they borrow from them. Now before this time, there had been record of victories for the…

Being referred to as a leader is demanding. It is both a job and a work. It is a job in the sense that it requires a very great effort. Why must you put in the effort it requires? The answer is simple. Because you have been made a leader, you cannot simply afford to fail. The reason you are chosen or selected among many is because everyone believes there is something you have to offer, and so; you were chosen or elected or even selected as the case may be. Most leaders who fail to achieve so much while…