The Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) – the coming together of physical, digital and biological spheres – promises to revolutionise fields such as manufacturing and engineering, but one sector of the economy has some catching up to do on adoption of new technologies. For the records, this contribution focuses on the Oil and Gas Downstream Sector, particularly the Refineries.

Importantly, it identifies key drivers that will spur the growth of the refining sector in Nigeria. The article also highlights refining asset economics and structural commercial considerations for investors and identifies the modular refinery, an off-the-shelf solution, as the cost effective supply option for investors especially when diesel is the lightest yield.

For example, Premium Motor Spirit (PMS): Nigeria consumes over 17 billion litres of PMS annually. Transportation and power are the major drivers of demand for PMS in the country. Imports currently account for over 90% of PMS supplied in the country and this is likely to continue in the future.

Furthermore, the Nigeria’s downstream sector has grown considerably since the country opened its first 38,000-bpd refining plant in 1965. The country has become the fourth-largest refiner in Africa. However, issues with poor governance, operational failures and inconsistent supply of feedstock have the country’s refineries working at utilisation rates below 20% with a heavy reliance on imports. To get Africa’s largest oil producer back on track, the country is racing to revamp and expand the humbled sector.

For the purposes of clarity, as a game-changer projects from paper sketches to bricks and mortars. Lagos/Ogun States has evinced enough zeal and panache, in reeling in the needed private sector capital and expertise to build yet another seaport —a Lagos Lekki Sea Port opened shop just last year —in the far flung eastern flank of the state. Bringing the number to 4 seaports in the state, namely; Apapa, Tincan, Lekki Deep seaport —the deepest in West Africa —and now Badagry Seaport, shovels and boots billed to touch ground early next year, 2024. It signposts, indeed confirms, the beginning of the private sector era particularly the refinery projects.

It may interest one to know that the experience of the Nigerian project, particularly as the country is presently configured, has proven ever so clearly to every discerning minds that Governments at any of the levels can’t possibly be efficient handlers of anything which has to do with the management of profit-oriented businesses.

It just wouldn’t ever work and several examples abound of the various attempts of Government to dabble into businesses; Nigerian National Shipping Line, Aluminum Smelting Plants, Ajaokuta Steel Rolling Mills, Nigeria Airways, NITEL, NNPC Refineries and even NEPA just to mention few.

These are all testimonies of grand failures of the Federal Government in business.

The prime responsibility of Government shouldn’t be in the time-wasting effort of managing business but in providing adequate infrastructure and suitable climate for privately-owned businesses to strive.

Nowhere is the failure of the Government better displayed than in the Oil sectors of our economy which happens to be the life wire to which our collective existence as a country is tie

By all reasonable balance of probability the Refineries of Nigeria collapsed under the weight of management inefficiency occasioned by cancerous corruption and bureaucracies commonly found in uncontrollable proportions in Government structures.

We can’t afford to treat such a critical sector like Energy and its uses in the manner we carry on in Nigeria.

This approach is exemplified by Dangote Refinery an oil refinery owned by Dangote Group that was inaugurated on the 22nd of May 2023, in Lekki, Nigeria. When in full operation, it is expected to have the capacity to process about 650,000 barrels per day of crude oil, making it the largest single-train refinery in the world.

Apart from the Dangote Refinery, another example of Nigeria’s modular revolution is an upcoming refinery and Petrol-Chemical plant is Gasoline Associates International Limited in Ipokia Ogun State with the capacity to produce 100,000 bpd and later up to 450,000 bpd when fully optimized, it will accelerate healthy competition in Nigeria’s oil sector, diversifying the economy by adding value to raw materials domestically and reducing the country’s vulnerability to external shocks.

Energy use and economic development are inseparable. Where there is energy poverty, there is poverty. And where energy availability rises, living standards rise as well. The human brain has a natural tendency to give weight to negative experiences or interactions more than positive ones. Psychologists refer to this as negativity bias, and it causes people to focus on one bad thing in a mountain of good things – such is prevalent in a country that gravitates towards negative side underpinning the essence of self-worth.

Put differently, in view of the rapid evolution of urbanization and industrialization, economic growth is increasingly dependent on the energy consumption, the development of the two is difficult to coordinate, and the internal contradictions are becoming increasingly serious, which hinders the sustainable development of economic growth. Incidentally, only Nigerians can save Nigeria and we have to be brutally honest to achieve it. Therefore, the need to key into the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) has become imperative.

The Chief of Defence Staff (CDS), General Christopher Musa, has disclosed that the Armed Forces of Nigeria (AFN) has recorded 27.9 percent female participation in peacekeeping operations.

This is against the 17 percent benchmark stipulated by the United Nations for gender mainstreaming.

General Musa stated this in his welcome address at the Defence Headquarters Gender Mainstreaming Conference 2023 with the theme “Building capacity through gender mainstreaming to meet security challenges.”

Details later…

[Leadership]

Excellence needs no hype, makeover, or agitprop. Good work manifests itself in palpable reality. The security bent of the Tinubu administration is an exercise of deliberate, coordinated, meticulous and prescient deployment of strategies and actions to secure Nigeria. It is securing Nigeria pluck by pluck — with inexorable courage, purpose, and urgency.

A large part of success in security operations lies in ICC – interagency cooperation and coordination. What more demonstrates this plank than the synergised effort between the Department of State Services and the army in precluding what could have been a devastating blow, with a sludge of casualties in Kano?

On November 3, the symbiotic effort of the Nigerian Army and the DSS led to the successful foiling of an attack on Kano by insurgents. The insurgents had been machinating a marquee attack, that could, perhaps, dampen citizens’ confidence, on the State. A detachment of soldiers and DSS operatives swooped on the sanctuary of the subversives in a dawn blitz in Gezawa Local Government Area of Kano State, arresting the henchmen.

The joint team recovered five AK-47 rifles, five AK-47 rifle magazines, one rocket-propelled gun (RPG), five RPG bombs, six hand grenades, five pairs of desert camouflage uniforms, 10 pairs of magazine pouches and some improvised-explosive device (IED) making materials.

Obviously, the success of this operation is implicit in the cooperation and coordination between the army and the DSS, as well as in the actioning of intelligence. What imperils security anywhere in the world is, partly, interagency rivalry and the absence of coordination — when intelligence is available, but actioning is a challenge owing to some contentions.

On November 2, the allied effort of the army and the police resulted in the rescuing of two corps members. Bandits had kidnapped the corps members who were transiting from Edo State in Yargoje community, Kankara Local Government Area of Katsina State. But the purposive and united endeavour of the security agencies led to the safe return of the hostages.

Interagency cooperation and coordination (ICC) is pivotal for securing Nigeria. It is elemental for achieving the priority objective of the administration, which is strengthening national security for peace and security.

Since July 2023, the security forces have chalked up reasonable gains against subversives without a noising of the winnings. There is a fillip in security operations across the country. Since the past week, for instance, there has been intensive air strikes against the troublers of our nation.

In the north-west, the air component of Operation Hadarin Daji on November 1, conducted a slew of successful air strikes in Kankara Local Government Area (LGA) of Katsina State, targeting the hermitage of a terrorist kingpin, who is responsible for a chain of terrorist acts and banditry across Kankara and adjacent LGAs in the state.

The air strikes removed clusters of refuge used as hideaways by the kingpin and his gang, effectively dismantling their base of operation. Only Very few survivors escaped the furry of the Nigeria Air force.

In the north-east, precision air strikes by the air component of Operation Hadin Kai (OPHK) on November 3, led to the elimination of several terrorists at their rendezvous, near Degbawa in Goza Local Government Area of Borno State. The terrorists were responsible for the recent attack on some locals in Geidam on October 31, and had planned to meet to review the attack as well as the next line of onslaught on innocent Nigerians and other vulnerable targets.

In the south-east, security agencies have sustained incisive operations, rooting out units of IPOB/ESN terrorists from the area. Peace and normalcy are returning, just as citizens’ confidence is witnessing a reinforcement. For instance, On October 5, troops of Operation UDO KA II conducted raids on the haven of the terrorists around Ihiom-Ihittenansa in Orsu Local Government Area and Okigwe-Umulolo in Okigwe Local Government Area of Imo State.

The operational base and shrines of the subversives were erased, two suspects arrested, and a cache of arms recovered. This includes ammunition, one PKT machine gun barrel, one locally made rocket-propelled launcher (Ogbunigwe) and IED making materials. In many other operations, imminent attacks had been thwarted, IPOB/ESN terrorists removed and arrested; criminal hermitages destroyed, hostages freed, and arms and ammunition recovered.

Further operations are in progress in the north-central, south-south, and south-west. Across these zones, criminal hideouts have been extirpated, threats neutralised, arms and ammunition recovered, suspects arrested, and kidnap victims rescued.

These sustained efforts, successes, cooperation, and coordination among the security agencies clearly say there is a responsible, and strategic national security leadership. There is purpose, there is direction; there is commitment, there is the will and the way, and there is a sense of urgency.

Securing Nigeria is a principal objective of the Renewed Hope charter. The Tinubu administration has exercised responsibility with significant gains in the sphere of security since assumption of office. Although there is more to be done and will be done, the administration is wholly committed to removing security threats and securing law-abiding Nigerians anywhere in the country.

Fredrick Nwabufo is the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Public Engagement

The Christian Association of Nigeria has said it paid N250 million ransom to bandits before they released the 121 students of Bethel Baptist High School, Kaduna, who were kidnapped in July 2021.

The State Chairman of CAN, Rev. John Joseph Hayab, made the revelation during a visit to Governor Uba Sani.

Hayab, who led the parents and family of Treasure Ayuba, the last Bethel student who escaped from captivity about a week ago, on a courtesy visit to Governor Sani, said there is the need to clear the air on the erroneous information being circulated that it was the student that opted to remain with the bandits.

He said: “There was nothing like that as the boy does not look like someone who would take such a decision.”

He said the bandits took several measures for Ayuba not to be released. including twice snatching those that took ransom money to them.

Hayab told Sani: “A total sum of N250 million was paid as ransom to rescue the 121 students. 

“Today, we gather here with a mix of feelings: relief, joy, and gratitude. 

“We are here to welcome back Treasure Ayuba, the last of the kidnapped students of Bethel Baptist High School, Kaduna, marched out while in their sleep in the school hostel and kidnapped on the night of 5th July, 2021 by bandits.

“To the knowledge of CAN, over N250 million was paid as ransom to get the 121 kidnapped children out from their captors, but for Treasure, his story became a heartbreaking one, further made worse by distorting the truth that the boy did not want to leave the den of the kidnappers.

“For the avoidance of doubts, CAN is aware of the firm efforts made by the boy’s family, relations and well-wishers to get him back home. 

“To add salt to injury, on more than one occasion, the kidnappers abducted the persons sent with the ransom to get Treasure out of their hands, making his stay become an infinite time of agonising pain until God intervened.

“Accordingly, on Thursday, 2nd November, 2023, I received a call from Treasure’s parents that the boy returned home safely after being in the hands of his captors for 28 months.

“Treasure’s miraculous return is a moment of triumph, not just for Treasure and his family, Bethel Baptist High School Kaduna, the Baptist family, Kaduna State, and Nigeria, but for all humanity in general.

“Treasure’s abduction, along with his fellow schoolchildren, remains a painful reminder of the challenges we face as a nation. 

“The kidnapping of school children and students from a school facility is a stark harsh reality of the threats to our educational institutions and the safety of our young ones.

“The abduction shook us to our core, leaving us with a profound sense of urgency to bring an end to the atrocities perpetrated against the citizenry, the state, the nation at large and humanity in general. 

“Today, as we stand here, welcoming Treasure back into the loving arms of his family, the church, people of goodwill and the government of Kaduna State, we are reminded of the resilience and determination that defines us as a people irrespective of religious affiliations or ethnic origin.”

Governor Uba said: “We are going to support him (Ayuba) in every way to ensure his reintegration into the society. 

“I will speak with the Commissioner for Women Affairs and Social Development to provide him with psychosocial treatment to try and erase the impact of the two years he spent with the bandits.

“We have taken steps to safeguard our schools and ensure that our schoolchildren have their education in a conducive atmosphere. 

“We will set up a security committee in all schools, ensure the deployment of KADVIS (Kaduna Vigilance Service) to all our schools, secure our schools by building fences round the school among other measures.”

[EagleOnline]

“We sit here stranded, though we’re all doin’ our best to deny it.” I do not know under what condition Bob Dylan wrote that song line. All I know is that it serves my purpose as I sit here at the bank of Nigeria searching for the right metaphor for what the country has become. For those not privileged to have a seat in Abuja, this is the ultimate end-time. Japa used to be an option for the stranded, but that option is dead now; they’ve killed it. Yet, speaking out has become a big risk, especially in Yorubaland. A cackle of attention seekers is on the prowl looking for poets to pummel and drummers to drub. Because they desperately seek Bola Tinubu’s face of mercy, they say the pounder’s pestle should stop pounding; the grinder’s stone must be still. All because the president is Yoruba. If you are Yoruba and you maintain a newspaper column or you write simple opinion articles that bemoan the state of the nation, the aspiring phlegm eaters have a name for you – ‘Akótilétà’ – the one who auctions his inheritance. But the asset sellers they seek are right there in the mirror – if they look properly. The inheritance we have is a culture of loud resistance to and rejection of what is bad. Is it hunger for position, and privilege, and luxury that drives this unhired army’s expedition? They can learn from this snake- monamona – a beautiful snake that is forever hungry because it hunts the wrong way”.

In their scramble to be counted among servile inmates of privilege castles, they say we hate the president. Madam Efunroye Tinubu, the first Iyalode of Egba, was an aggressive money-maker who would “rather drown her twenty slaves than sell them at a discount” (Oladipo Yemitan, (1987:77). Slaves are worth nothing more than a push into the ocean depths; still, some people are working very hard to be admitted into slavery. But President Tinubu does not know them; they do not exist. Or they are mere chattels of his politics. Yet they fight the wind to announce their presence. I watched a belching guest on Arise TV last week describing his host as a “badly brought up little boy.” The anchor’s offence was that he asked an uncomfortable question on the state of the economy and the mass suffering in the land. I sat up and sat back, sad as the ‘boy’ smiled the insult away. Some of us get variants of such insults daily, weekly. It got pretty bad this last month. Should we all just keep quiet and tell Comrade Napoleon, Father of All Animals, that he is doing well?

We all perish if we all sleep with all our heads on a straight column. Conformity, acquiescence and a surrender to today’s creepy spiral of silence is certain death to the republic and all who value good life. The Nigerian Tribune which I write for hates no one. It will be 74 years old in the next ten days. It has not lasted this long by sleeping on duty or giving applause to regimes of pain. Four years ago when the newspaper turned 70, the current president of Nigeria, Bola Tinubu, in a letter to the organization described the Nigerian Tribune as “the home of independent, fearless journalism” which had “throughout its illustrious history, continued to shine the light of truth into every corner of the Nigerian public space.” That was Tinubu’s verdict four years ago. Nothing has changed. If anything has changed since then it is that Tribune journalists have added more energy to their commitment to the founding philosophy which Tinubu rightly described as lighting “the truth into every corner” of the human space. Indeed, “service to justice, fair play, and public morality in the life of our great republic” is the charge we got from our founder, Chief Obafemi Awolowo. On 16 November, 1970, Chief Awolowo wrote in celebration of the newspaper’s 21st anniversary: “The Nigerian Tribune was founded with one and only one aim in view: to champion fearlessly the cause of justice and fairplay in every sphere of our public life.” Papa looked at the emerging Nigeria and said with so much concern that in Nigeria “democratic practices are in a state of suspended animation” and “immorality enjoys so much favour and approval in high places that it now has the audacity to threaten mass conformity.” If a pushback is noticed in our operations, it is a resistance to what Awo aptly described as immorality’s “audacity to threaten mass conformity.” On 16 November, 1949, when the Tribune journey began, Chief Awolowo promised that the paper, its journalism and journalists would forge “a frank tongue and a pungent pen. A tongue and a pen that will be careless of what the opponents might say or how they might feel, and will have enough courage to call hypocrisy, humbug and tyranny by their names. Such a tongue, such a pen, will mortify the proud and provoke despotism to repent its ways.” That is the goodly heritage we have and which we will, God willing, pass to the next generation.

The media and the government are said to be partners in national development. True. They should be without one acting slave to the other. Today at sundown, look up at the sky. There is a bright star following the moon up and down. Astronomers say it is the planet, Venus. Growing up in the village, we called that star Ajá Òsùpá (the moon’s dog). But knowledgeable elders were always quick to tell us that we were wrong; the two are just companions, the star is no dog of the moon (Àgùàlà nbá Òsùpá rìn ni, wón sebí ajso a rè nííse; àgùàlà kìí se ajá Òsùpá). The relationship between Venus and our moon is the relationship between the media and the government of Nigeria. Their paths cross by design as part of the cosmic roles assigned them. Neither is the dog of the other. They work as co-travellers on a journey of fate. But ‘friends’ of the government and ‘brothers’ of the president do not think so. They say the writer is an enemy of the president; the columnist is driven by hatred for ‘his brother’. They throw bones of bigotry at the dog; they say it must keep quiet or be taught how to be silent.

When unknown soldiers destroyed Fela’s Kalakuta Republic, the Afro beats king asked: “Wetin this Fela do…?” In the same vein, we ask what has the journalist done apart from asking questions? The country was progressively run down by its leaders. Young victims of the state quickly packed their little nothings, sold them and hurried out. The sad escape abroad they gave the psychedelic name, ‘jápa’ (bolt out). They thought what stunted their fathers must not also wreck them. They remembered the story of the old woman who broke her back gathering firewood in a forest. They also remembered the follow-up question to that tragedy: Should her daughter be found groping for ropes in the same jungle? (Igbó tí ìyá ti ṣẹ́ igi, kò yẹ kí ọmọ rè d’àgbà tán, k’ó tún wo inú igbó náà lọ já okùn). Where I come from, the philosophy of resilience is encased in the anecdote of the elder who repeatedly sets the bush on fire because the bush has refused to burn. The elder says he won’t stop striking his matches; he says one day he will achieve his purpose (Bí àgbà ńkùn’gbẹ́, tí ìgbẹ́ kọ̀ tí kò jóná, àgbà náà ò ní yé ìgbẹ́ ẹ́ kùn). There is always an end to cycles of injustice, it breaks at a point. Nigeria is work in progress; its good won’t be birthed by acquiescence.

Jápa was an escape option; now it is no more. On Monday, October 31, 2016 (seven years, seven days ago), I wrote a column with the title, ‘Creating scapegoats, spreading misery’. I warned in that piece that Nigeria could become like a broke and broken country called Venezuela unless we changed our ways. I could remember a private message sent to me on that piece by my late friend and brother, Yinka Odumakin. He said I was late with the warning; he said we were there already. What was my warning about that time? I wrote about a Nigeria where companies were running out and throwing their workers overboard; where governments couldn’t pay salaries; where lucky doctors and other well trained professionals were in queue to receive half pay. I wrote of a country where less fortunate workers were on the street looking for what to eat. It was about a nation where, sitting in every verandah in every village, town and city, was an army of well trained jobless young men and women. I said that in the idleness of their chatter, Nigeria would taste the bile of their anger at a system that was rigged against them. I wrote that the depths of misery and joblessness were filled up, bursting at the seams. It was the story of a nation of all possibilities; a country of poor market, rich palace. A rich nation controlled by poverty and misery. I warned that the country was tragically becoming unhinged. Now, see where the ship has anchored.

Yet, they say we should not ask questions. Some say the critical media is envious of the president. And you ask envious over what? Jerome Neu, an American author and professor of Humanities, once warned that legitimate resentment of injustice should never be called envy. Neu wrote many books and essays, the themes of some of them fit in this piece. They include ‘Jealous Thoughts’ (1980); ‘Sticks and Stones: The Philosophy of Insults’ (2009); ‘On Loving Our Enemies: Essays in Moral Psychology’ (2012); But I am interested more in his 1987 work: ‘A Tear is an Intellectual Thing.’ And that is because I see some people crying when no one is bereaved. “Why do we cry?”, Neu asks and gives an answer: “We cry because we are sad, or grieving, or ashamed, or otherwise upset.” I assume his thesis on tears and crying is correct. But why are some spectators in Nigeria crying when the jabbed says the injection is not painful? A former president of the Students Union of the Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile Ife, Adeola Soetan, has a name for the flies on the wall who applaud every bad move of the king and get distressed even when the palace feels no pain. He calls them Abóbakú (persons who die with the king). President Bola Tinubu told his ministers on Friday at the end of a retreat that the situation today in Nigeria is not about “just leave me alone, I am going home. You may not have a home.” He was right, there is no quitting. If we keep quiet because the president is our ‘brother’, he will fail and we won’t have a home and the outside will reject us. Our situation will be “Ilé ò gbàá, ònà ò gbàá” (rejected by home, rejected by road). With our fingers snapped over heads, we reject that portion; it is not ours.

No normal person praises failure. Leadership is like a game of tennis; if you don’t serve well, you can’t win and be applauded. I owe that sense to John Mason, author of ‘Why Ask Why: If you know the right questions you can find the right answers.’ No one here hates Tinubu and/or his presidency; no one wants him destroyed. We pray for his twig so that our birds can perch peacefully. But, see, amidst mass poverty and hunger, how do you keep quiet reading these headlines?: Tinubu seeks Senate’s approval for another $7.8 billion, €100 million loans; Nigeria set to acquire presidential yacht for N5 billion; Renovation of president’s official residence in Lagos to gulp N4 billion; Renovation of VP’s official residence in Lagos, N3 billion; Construction of office complex in Aso Rock, N4 billion; Cars for First Lady’s office – N1.5 billion…. All in a supplementary budget! And the year will expire next month! Everything looks like Tinubu and his government are being lied against. That is why I will ask someone to please tell us that these are lies. If they are lies, we will all rise in defence of our president.

President Bola Ahmed Tinubu on Thursday morning arrived in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, to attend Saudi-Africa Summit holding tomorrow,  Friday.

In the summit, President Tinubu will underscore Nigeria’s commitment to attracting more Foreign Direct Investment and expanding business partnerships, strongly reinforced by his administration’s ongoing domestic economic reforms.

Also, discussions at the first Saudi-Africa Summit will revolve around supporting joint actions, enhancing political coordination, addressing regional security threats, and facilitating economic transformation through research and the local development of new energy solutions, all while bolstering cross-sectoral investment cooperation.

The President was accompanied by the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Amb Yusuf Tuggar; Minister of Education, Prof Tahir Mamman; Coordinating Minister of the Economy and Minister of Finance, Mr Wale Edun; Minister of Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Alleviation, Dr Betta Edu and the Minister of Budget and Economic Planning, Sen. Abubakar Bagudu.

Others are the National Security Adviser (NSA), Mallam Nuhu Ribadu; the Director General of the National Intelligence Agency (NIA), Amb. Ahmed Rufai Abubakar; and the Chairman of the National Hajj Commission of Nigeria (NAHCON), Mallam Jalal Arabi.

[NaijaNews]

Bitcoin is at an 18-month high amid reports that the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has a six-day deadline to approve or deny ETFs starting today.

Bitcoin price briefly touched $36,700 during the London trading session on Thursday.  Bitcoin’s value has increased about 31% in the last month and 93% in the past year.

Other well-known digital assets are also in the green, with ether up 20% last month.

Data shows that about $50 million in liquidations occurred in a four-hour period during the early hours of trading in Asia, creating a “short squeeze” that sent prices higher.

Short selling is an unusual condition that causes a rapid increase in the price of any asset – A short squeeze occurs when the price suddenly increases and the short seller exits their position, leading to a flywheel of buying.

In contrast, Bitcoin struck in the following hours and skyrocketed to nearly $37K. After a brief rejection, the asset issued another price increase that took it to the same level late last night.

However, this time, the bulls were more persistent and pushed the crypto market valuation even further.

Buying pressure increases sharply as it is reported that the US Securities and Exchange Commission opened discussions with Grayscale Investments on the details of the company’s application to convert its GBTC into crypto sport ETF

The SEC’s approval of one or more ETF applications is highly anticipated by the crypto industry, which sees the moment as an important milestone that could ease everyday investors’ exposure to technical asset numbers.

Grayscale has been in contact with both the SEC’s Division of Trading and Markets and the Division of Corporate Finance since winning the case, said the person, who requested anonymity because the negotiations remain confidential.

Grayscale has long had a relationship with the SEC due to the existing Grayscale Bitcoin Trust, but when they sought to launch an ETF that would carry crypto assets directly, the agency refused.

A battle in US federal court ensued, ending with a panel of judges finding that the SEC had refused “arbitrarily and capriciously” and the court ordering the agency to remove his refusal

The court’s ruling was finalized last month, sending the application back to the regulator.

However, Bitcoin miners are smiling as Bitcoin transaction fees reach 5% per month.

According to data from the statistical resource BitinfoCharts, the average BTC transaction fee has reached nearly $6 since November 7.

The supply remains limited, with long-term holders continuing to accumulate Bitcoin with impressive speed.

Glassnode data also highlighted that the spending behavior of short-term holders suggests that a change in the character of the market has now occurred with prices above the $30,000 mark.

This isn’t really surprising as this is also considered a key level in my quarterly outlook.

[Nairametrics]

Former Deputy National Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Bode George, has criticised the National Working Committee (NWC) of the party for failing to secure victory in the 2023 presidential elections.

George made the statement while speaking to journalists in Lagos.

He faulted the NWC for deviating from the established procedures designed by the PDP’s founding fathers for conducting primary elections and congresses, stating that it is important to return to these established processes to improve the party’s chances in future elections.

“Having worked at the national secretariat for 10 years, the problem that resurfaces in every electoral period is very simple. It started during the period of Uche Secondus, and I wouldn’t like to undress my party publicly. It is a monumental crisis, but very simple to handle.

“The way the founding fathers designed the handling of primaries and congresses, they altered it; I won’t say more than that,” Bode George stated.

“But that is the major issue plaguing the party. You know our party is not owned by an individual, but some people play and pretend as if they are working for the party. Those are the issues that we will discuss when we get back in the inner chambers of our party and we must change them. That was the methodology used when I was there and there was no crisis.

“A typical example is the primaries in Lagos either governorship; they will send people who don’t live here and who have no business here to come and conduct primaries. How can somebody from outside know your house more than you and by the time they land rather than allowing people to vote, they will be looking for the aspirants and they become their Automated Teller Machine, ATM.

“And once they finish, they will run back to the national organising department to affirm the person they supported. But I won’t expand more than that, and that is the major crisis which you see because, if you go to the bottom and do your primaries at the wards and local government levels and create division at that level, how can you fight the outsiders.”

George called for a reconciliation committee to address these issues and pave the way forward for the PDP. He stressed the importance of conducting a thorough review of the party’s experiences in each state during the 2023 elections.

“There should be no short approach; sweeping everything under the carpet is a foolish way to do it. We must set up a committee that will go around the country, move state by state, and make inquiries about their experiences, what happened to finances, and the political aspect. How were the primaries conducted in each state? Who did what?”

[DailyPost]

Who do we blame for the siege mentality of Igbo people at home and abroad but Igbo political and intellectual elite who label anyone critical of their politics an Igbo enemy in order to cover up their leadership failure?  Since Zik’s return to Lagos in 1934 to fill the vacuum of a spokesman greatly missed by urban immigrants in a strange land, every political misadventure by Igbo political elite has been blamed on others.

Thus, for resisting internal colonialism in 1952 by Igbo at a period when Zik, an Onitsha Igbo was not considered a full-fledged Igbo man, Yoruba must be tribalists. For not following suit to declare the Republic of Oduduwa with just 50 foot soldiers in the army when Ojukwu declared the Republic of Biafra with 16 riffles, Yoruba and Awo were traitors and of course how else could Obi the messiah of Nigerian social media youths have lost the 2023 election during which Tinubu was said to have been foisted on Nigeria by “a concert of despicable forces” if not because of intense hatred for Igbo by Fulani and their Yoruba stooges?

In my professional career and academic pursuit, I have been a great beneficiary of Igbo mentorship. But once one makes references to these historical facts that sometimes bring the past to pain, to some angry Ibo colleagues who hate the truth, you are an Igbo enemy.

Let us start with Obi Nwakanma, Vanguard newspaper columnist who after dismissing my piece titled “Between Zik and Obi: Lessons of History, (September 22, 2022), as “revanchist drivel”, wanted me ‘to go back and take elementary courses in Nigeria’s political history”, a course I taught at the University of Lagos when he was probably in secondary school.

Although he accepted there was a parallel between Obi’s 2023 ‘obidients’ and Zik’s 1940 supporters who believed in his infallibility, he however insisted that Zik,  who was the only non-Yoruba in the inaugural meeting of NCNC was the founder of NCNC and that  “it was not Igbo politicians who preferred the 1959 NCNC-NPC coalition”.

I am not sure because of his above mind-set and rage, he paid any attention to my argument that: “Perhaps we again need to return to history to remind our angry youths how we got here and how the seed of today’s mutual suspicion was sown by self-serving Igbo political leaders.”

“The trending videos of Obi’s angry supporters threatening expulsion of anyone who fails to vote for their principal from the east, mob action against Tinubu’s supporters in Alaba Market in Lagos added to shameless assault on the person of Asiwaju Tinubu through hate songs by Seadog confraternity, are all but sad reminder of the past when Lagos Igbo urban immigrants were mobilized to buy off all the cutlasses in Lagos market in readiness to battle their Yoruba hosts.

Both Obi and Zik built their political fortunes in Lagos as leader of Igbo urban immigrants that freely deployed rhetoric to confuse their largely uninformed Igbo youths and unquestioning Nigerians.

Like most young men of his generation, Awo used to follow Zik to his lecture venues until he discovered Zik was a fake god in spite of his rhetoric and endless railing against the imperialists.

Unlike Awo, it was only after the formation of Egbe Omo Odudwa in 1948 which immediately came under Zik’s and his supporters’ vicious attack that the Yoruba aristocrats of the period saw Zik in his true colour, with the West African Pilot editorial September 8, 1948 declaring: “Henceforth, the cry must be one of battle against the Egbe Omo Oduduwa, its leaders at home and abroad, uphill and down dale.. There is no going back until the fascist organization of Sir Adeyemo Alakija has been dismembered”. This was followed by physical assault on the persons and the leaders of the Egbe and damage to houses and properties of some of them”. (Awo: The Autobiography of Obafemi Awolowo page 171].

Yoruba political elite were to later shift their support to Awo and his Action Group in 1952 thereby frustrating Zik’s attempt of becoming the premier of the West. 

Awolowo’s answer to the North’s ‘feudal system’ was for the West and the East with some support from Middle Belt taking over power. But greed-driven Igbo political elite preferred an NPC and NCNC coalition which offered nothing to ordinary Igbo on whose back they rode to power while Igbo elite secured all important appointments in Balewa’s government from finance, to external affairs, agriculture, control of University of Lagos, University of Ibadan, etc.

Commenting on my piece titled Ethnic leaders as scourge of Nigeria dated October 6, 2022 Steve Osuji wrote as follows: “My Oga in two great media establishments, The Guardian and The Nation, Dr. Oluwajuyitan by his writing, poured malice and hatred on the Igbo in a way never done by a supposedly enlightened mind. He told plain, blatant lies just to drag Igbo in the mud. He says Igbo campaigned for a unitary system for Nigeria. This is a historical fallacy”.

Again but for his mind-set, I cannot understand his anguish over the following facts that: As the battle for 2023 draws near, Igbo political leaders, the ever-flirtatious beautiful bride of Nigerian politics that often behave like “a wife with five husbands” and their chauvinistic shrewd Fulani suitors, have started to do what they do best-polluting the environment with toxic diatribes.

This warning followed a claim by Ohaneze’s Mazi Okechukwu Isuguzoro, that “the North is the bastion of ethnic and religious politics” with warning that “Nigeria will not be secured and united unless an Igbo president emerges” and Northern Elders Forum’s Dr. Hakeem Baba-Ahmed‘s response that ‘if any group is known to play ethnic and religion politics, it is the Igbo’.

I reminded the warring fair-weather couple that history finds both guilty. And the facts: In the December1954 Eastern Regional Election, NCNC won 72 out of 84 seats while their NPC suitors won 84 of 92 seats in their own northern stronghold. In the 1954 November election to federal House of Representatives, NCNC won 32 of the 42 Eastern seats. Similarly, ethnicity and religion determined the outcome of the 1959 election with east and the north winning their strongholds without opposition. The warring rivals are therefore not only tarred with the same brush, both see Nigeria only as a marketable commodity thinking only of what they can get out of Nigeria.

 Awolowo’s offence was that he provided alternative view on how Nigeria should be run having realized back in 1945, that “Nigeria is not a nation; but a mere geographical expression”, and was convinced “the best constitution for such a diverse people is a federal constitution”.

But Zik and his group wanted a unitary system which will sustain Igbo internal colonization of the minority Ijaw, Efik, Ibibio, Anang and other minority groups in the east. It will also allow Igbo citizens to freely carry their trading activities unhindered to any part of Nigeria. What Ahmadu Bello wanted was not different from what Zik wanted- a Nigeria the north can control. He therefore at the 1950 Ibadan conference insisted on 50% of member of the federal legislative house.

Because of their rivalry over identical worldview, the eastern leaders were believed to have lured the military into politics in January 1966 with General Ironsi’s Decree 34 of 1966 changing the country into a unitary state.

The north seized the initiative from their Igbo rival in July 1966 and by 1967 the bitter rivalry led to a civil war. Unfortunately, the battle for the soul of Nigeria by the two rivals only left northern and eastern states a scorched land.

Citizenship is not the answer to ‘Path to Nigerian Freedom”, in a country where an Igbo Bishop of universal Catholic Church from Anambra was rejected by Igbo people of Imo State.

Dear angry young colleagues, “the fault is not in our stars”. Reaffirming facts of our history does not make one an enemy of Igbo. “

Passengers at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport in Abuja are currently stranded and unable to continue their journeys due to an ongoing protest by labour unions.

The protesters are reportedly members of the Nigeria Labour Congress and the Trade Union Congress.

This is following the recent attack on the National President of the NLC, Joe Ajaero, in Imo State.

The PUNCH reports that aviation unions across the country jointly declared the suspension of all flights to Owerri, Imo State, from every airport in Nigeria.

More details to follow…

[Punch]