A heavyweight Nigerian gospel music artist and song composer, Frank Edwards, comes through with a sizzling track called “Agidigba God.”
Moreover, the intriguing gospel rendition mentioned above serves as a sequel to “My Year By Grace,” his previously uncovered gospel track.
In the end, this unique composition is a blockbuster that you should add to your playlist if you enjoy decent music.
Listen and share your thoughts below!
Heartbroken lady, Constance, has stepped forward to share her story of being scammed out of N100 million by her boyfriend.
Constance, who hails from South Africa, disclosed how her boyfriend, residing in Rwanda, deceived her into sending him sum of 100 million Francs, equivalent to $100,000, under the pretense of investing in their future together.
The couple had reportedly been in a relationship for some time and had plans of tying the knot.
They had also ventured into joint investments, with Constance entrusting her partner with substantial sums of money to secure properties, including land and houses, for their future together.
However, as time passed, Constance grew increasingly suspicious as her boyfriend failed to provide any evidence of the promised investments.
Despite her inquiries, he evaded her questions, causing her initial concerns to escalate.
The situation took a drastic turn when, just a month before their planned wedding, her boyfriend began exhibiting strange behavior and eventually ceased communication altogether.
Speaking to Afrimax, Constance recounted her harrowing experience, expressing her initial trust and naivety in believing her boyfriend’s assurances.
In her words;
“I used to live in south Africa where i owned a thriving business for 3years i was in love with a man who was also my business partner … I sent him a large amount of money and he pretended that he was actually investing properties as we had discussed when the time came for me to return home to my country, I was looking forward to our wedding, we visited both of our families but whenever i asked him about the progress and what he had accomplished with the money, he resisted showing me.
“Since in trusted him, i was so naive and didn’t worry too much at the time, however one month before our planned wedding h started acting strangely.”
“He then texted me on Facebook saying he was imprisoned, I looked into it deeply and realized it was just a hoax, he was never actually taken to prison it made no sense to me, All i could do was to inform our families that my partner had disappeared though it isn’t clear… After around 2 months, the man texted me again and said he was in ivory coast i couldn’t believe what was going on and i just responded “Okay”
“It’s been extremely difficult to bear but i will never give up, I’m still working hard and striving to be self reliant, i had known him for a very long time even before we fell in love and in our culture, i felt marrying someone familiar would be ideal but that dream never became reality, he used to show me pictures of cows, farms, houses and fancy cars just to deceive me into sending him more money but that will never stop me from continuing to work hard and achieve my goals.”
Nollywood actor and gospel minister, Yul Edochie advises Nigerians to resort to seeking answers from their villages if their prayers are not answered.
On his Instagram page, the preacher stated that although prayers are good, the answer to some problems lies in the village.
He pointed out that persistent prayers haven’t made a difference for some families for whom death has been a recurring event.
Yul Edochie counseled Nigerians to seek guidance and consultation in their villages, as numerous answers can be found there.
He wrote: “Prayer is good. But sometimes the answer to your problems lies in your village. Go home & ask questions. For some families, death has become a reoccurring thing. They have prayed for so long yet nothing changed. Go to your village & ask questions. Do some consultations. Many answers lie there.”
See some reactions below:
frankydee2021 said: “He is saying the truth but hatred on this man will never allow them to accept the truth”
_michael_og said: “Pastor wey no d far frm de gods👏👏👏👏”
sabiigirlfashion stated: “I have to agree with him on this…..💯💯”
josephemman said: “The day u called Urself I first no say u will go far, Weldon underrated pastor 🔥”
totalcure said: “Have you gone to the Village to ask the role of Judy and Mr Obasi in your life?”
SEE POST:
The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has instituted a further crackdown on currency speculators and cryptocurrency platforms manipulating the naira, Sunday PUNCH has learnt.
Impeccable sources within the commission said the EFCC was not only going after Binance but every cryptocurrency platform and others involved in the manipulation of the Nigerian foreign exchange market.
A source said, “The EFCC is going after all currency speculators to stabilise Nigerian forex.”
Another source noted, “The commission is not only going after Binance but other cryptocurrency compliance and exchanges, this has been helping in stabilising the market.”
Reacting to the development when contacted, the spokesperson for the EFCC, Dele Oyewale, said the commission was doing everything lawful to ensure sanity within the country’s forex market.
“The commission is doing everything within the ambit of the law to ensure that there’s sanity in Nigerian the foreign exchange market,” he said.
Meanwhile, some foreign exchange market analysts have stated that the dollar rose slightly against the naira between Wednesday and Friday due to interbank moves of the commercial banks.
A money market analyst, Agba Akin, had on Friday posted a snapshot of the P2P trading platform on X, saying, “Since Wednesday, the dollar has started increasing again at BDC, here is why. The emergency lovers of Binance are back speculating on other P2P apps.
“They’ll keep adding N50 every day until they take it back to 2,500 which was their initial plan, and recoup their loss. CBN, act now.”
Reacting, a BDC operator identified as Yasir Arafat Jubril@oil_shaeikh said, “The problem with speculative manipulation is even if CBN keeps bidding dollars to BDC at a low rate, the prevailing speculated rate will lord over the market and you’ll be forced to sell at that price to keep afloat. CBN must crack down on all speculative platforms.
“They don’t know anything; if we talk, they’ll say we are aboki BDC behind Nigeria’s problem. Over 40 years that BDC has been operating, we never manipulated the naira by adding 50 to N100 a day till P2P ojukokoro boys came with their lack of fear of God.”
Speaking with Sunday PUNCH, the Adhoc Committee Chairman of the Association of Bureaux De Change Operators of Nigeria, Almustapha Muhammed, said while it was true that the dollar gained during the week, the BDCs were not behind the currency gaining as it resulted from certain moves of the commercial banks.
He said, “Some people just want to put it at the BDCs. Actually what happened was that the dollar rose from the interbank rates and not from the BDCs. BDCs are parallel markets, while the banks are connected with the Federal Government’s official rate.
“CBN is giving us dollars at N1,101, but some commercial banks are doing interbank conversions. They convert from their accounts – domiciliary accounts and naira accounts. But the parallel markets are doing lower than the Federal Government.”
Speaking further, he said, “Last week, the CBN gave the dollar at N1,101, but the parallel market sold at N950. That was what even made some BDCs not bid for a collection of dollars at CBN, because when you collect that dollar from CBN, automatically you run at a loss because we sell at N950. Unfortunately for the dollar, banks are now doing their interbank.
“That was what made people rush into the parallel market and buy it (the currency) at the lower rate and then deposit it in the commercial banks, automatically making N20, N40, N60 gains, because when you deposit your dollar into your domiciliary account and ask for its conversion into naira, automatically, you are making that difference. That is exactly what happened.”
In his reaction, an economist identified as Opeoluwa on X said, “On this issue, I reached out to a source in the relevant security agency on this matter. I was reliably informed that it has been flagged as ‘imminent danger’ and it’s being looked into.
“I am told that they (the security agency) may have to extend their hands to them, just like they did to Binance.”
When our correspondent contacted the Head of Strategic Communication at the Office of the National Security Adviser, Zakari Mijinyawa, he did not pick up calls.
Famous rapper, Victor Ncha Odu better known as Vic O sparks mixed reactions as he announces his retirement from music because Nigerians don’t deserve him.
He took to social media to make the news which has received different reactions from various quarters of the internet.
According to him, he has decided to take a bow and quit music because of the lack of support that he has received from fans.
He stated that he deserves better from his fans and lamented over the low patronage he is getting from show organizers who are not approaching him for events.
Vic O has noted that Nigerians don’t deserve him, and therefore has chosen to quit from the music industry.
However, Skales and some fans have begged him not to quit music/
“No pls don’t quit you’re my hero,” Skales pleaded.
mayorsoj said: “How can you retire even before starting your career ?”
a.m.e.e.n.a.h__ pleaded: “Please don’t quit, the industry needs you 🙏🏾😂”
mo_lawani commented: “Oh no and he is really my fav 😢💔”
kalesxy remarked: “Is this guy serious about this music stuff”
thick_thighsgirl said: “You are better than Brymo bro don’t quit”
Nigerian Man recounts an experience with a female driver who badly bashed his car and burst into tears before he could confront her.
The man @clayandpotters said that the female driver had done his car dirty by bashing it.
A photo he shared showed that his back bumper and the rear light cover was broken.
He said that when the answer occurred, before he could open his mouth to say anything, she burst into tears.
The man expressed his exasperation with the female gender.
“God bless all our female drivers. One just did me dirty….. I haven’t said she burst into tears. That gender!!!”
Read comments from netizens below:
@davidoghe said: “She won the case with even appearing in court
Her lawyer was her tears 🤣🤣🤣
1-0″
@ibehOEmmanuel said: “in Nigeria, if you dey make budget as a car owner dey make one for emergency repairs, because no matey hope careful you dey person go fit come jam you out of nowhere.
all my 3 to 4 encounter na men
always hitting my rear.
once e sup, next thing na ya akwuri.
on God”
Lexis578 said: “They have used the oldest trick in the book on you”
The Nigerian Customs Service, Kebbi State Area Command, has intercepted goods, including 212 50kg bags of foreign parboiled rice, worth over N126m.
The goods according to the Customs Area Comptroller, Iheanacho Ojike, included 10,025 litres of petrol worth over N2m.
Iheanacho said, “Barely two months since I took over, the command has intensified the fight against smuggling to curb its menace by engaging in intense patrols throughout the nooks and crannies of Kebbi. We make use of intelligence to enhance our operations, and we also engage in sensitising the host communities to the dangers of smuggling.”
He said smuggling was injurious to the economy as well as the well-being of the citizens, adding that measures taken to address the problem led to the seizure of the items.
He said the items also included “28 bags weighing 25kg each, 200 bales of second-hand clothing (jumbo size) and 50 bales of normal size and 10,025 litres of premium motor spirit”.
Others were “39 lumps of Indian hemp (cannabis sativa), 78 rolls of Diclofenac Sodium, 300 wraps of diazepam tablets 5mg each, 57 packs of sex enhancement drug (black diamond), 150 expired powdered milk, 50 pieces of used tyres and 20 pieces of rims, 20 cartons of foreign spaghetti, 20 bags of foreign sugar and 10 jerry cans of vegetable oils”.
“The combined duty paid value of the seized items is N126,278,959.60. The PMS value is not included in the DPV because it is given in our revenue generation section as receipts from auction sales. This remarkable achievement was a result of the resilience and courageous effort of our Operations teams, Intelligence Unit, Joint Border Patrol Team (JBPT) and collaboration with sister agencies,” he said.
Ojike said the Indian hemp would be handed over to the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency.
Speaking on revenue generation in the command, the comptroller said it was stalled in recent times due to the border closure between Nigeria, Benin Republic and Niger Republic.
“Even with this challenge, the command managed to generate N7,215,500 in the two months under review, which is a 125 per cent increase compared to the two previous months,” he added.
Two people were killed and six others wounded in a shooting at a block party on Saturday in the US city of Memphis, local police said.
Two people were found deceased at the scene, and one of the six wounded “remains in critical condition” at an area hospital, the Memphis Police Department wrote on social media platform X.
The shooting occurred at an unpermitted block party with about 200 to 300 people near Orange Mound Park in the southern state of Tennessee, the department said on X earlier.
Gun violence is common in the United States, a country where there are more firearms than people. Attempts to clamp down on gun rights are always met with stiff political resistance.
The United States has recorded 120 mass shootings this year, according to the Gun Violence Archive, a nongovernmental organization that defines a mass shooting as four or more people wounded or killed.
Last year ended with a total of 656 such shootings.
AFP
The Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Mr Yemi Cardoso, shares his vision on how he intends to shape Nigeria’s monetary policy, address FX issues, and tackle inflation in an interview with the International Monetary Fund African Department Director, Abebe Selassie, at the IMF/World Bank Spring Meetings in Washington DC, United States of America, held between April 11 and 20, 2024. GODFREY GEORGE brings excerpts
It has been a period of many challenges and huge important reforms in the monetary area in Nigeria. You inherited tightly managed and overvalued exchange rates and have made some really bold decisions to end the issue of multiple FX rates that you had. How did you approach the sequencing of reforms and what gave you much concern?
That is quite a jam-packed question but I will try to unpack it as best as I can. I would say that with respect to Nigeria and the sequencing of events and reforms, I think in terms of context, it is clear, for those who don’t know, that I came in at a time of very very great difficulty for the Central Bank and monetary authorities. Of course, inflation was high and the exchange rate was under tremendous stress. There was a crisis of confidence. In such a situation, the biggest challenge, as far as I can see, was that of trust and deficit in trust. People simply had the impression that things were bad. There was fear and somehow they did not see any end in sight to what seemed like a gloomy situation. So, it was very important to understand that, and in terms of sequencing, do whatever was possible by taking the necessary steps to begin the process of building back trust, and that is not something that happens overnight. I recall that when I went for the Senate hearings in Nigeria, one of the things I said at the time was that I recognised that there was a huge backlog at the time of about $7bn in forward transactions that had not been met, and which seemed to provide a lot of apprehension to Nigerians. I made a commitment to take care of them. How I was going to do that, I didn’t know. But, I thought it was very important to make that commitment there to build back the trust deficit that one was going into. And also, I had to reach out to various stakeholders, particularly, international investors. The first day I started as governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, one of the first groups I dealt with was the international investors. They had been following activities and were very keen to know what was going on. I felt that there was a need to continue to have that kind of dialogue and use that as an opportunity to rebuild trust with people and various stakeholders.
Of course, the next thing in terms of sequencing was to make it abundantly clear that the era of interventions, which really hadn’t taken us anywhere, was over. I intended to go back to orthodox monetary policy. I think those were very important things to make very clear. I think that helped to set the stage for what came after. It was very important to continue to reemphasise those things in the process of building trust.
Communication was also very key, and it also has to be sequenced. I know that at the outset, there was concern that one was not saying enough. There was a strategy to that. I felt it was important to, at the outset, come out and say things you need to say when you need to say them. I remember that a particular forum – the Chartered Institute of Bankers – held yearly, I used that opportunity to communicate very strongly. That is a forum that the governors talk for around 15 minutes to 30 minutes. But, I took over an hour, but I made sure I got everything including giving forward guidance with respect to the banking sector and letting people know that we were going to have a recapitalisation exercise. This was in November and the guidelines didn’t come out until recently, so they had plenty of time to start thinking that through.
In terms of some of the issues that I was concerned about and how I approached them; there was a lot of worry with respect to excess money supply. One had to take bold measures with respect to mopping up liquidity and hiking interest rates. I know that at the first monetary policy committee meeting that we had, I did a 400 basis point increase, which was unprecedented, but we had to do it. We had to do it. We had no choice. We followed that up also with another 200 basis points. We had to do that also. We were convinced that we had to do whatever was necessary to ensure that prices and inflation were reduced. It is important to recognise that whatever policies we make that do not impact the man on the streets, we have not done anything.
How do you influence expectation – behaviour and price setting – to the man on the streets?
I think the answer to that is that one is also reasonable in expectation, knowing full well that all these things will not transform overnight. In actual fact, when we look at the situation of Nigeria, a lot of problems that have happened on the monetary side have taken place over a long period of time. I think continuous dialogue and communication are essential in letting people understand why we are doing certain things, and where we intend to get to, and continuously going back to reinforce what we have done. We have used the opportunity of the MPC to have a question and answer session which basically allows everyone to ask all the questions they want, and for us to reemphasise the certain measures we are taking and why we are doing that, and we would continue to do so. In actual fact, we will strengthen the communication mechanism that we have in place. We will certainly not take it for granted that people understand what we are doing and why we are doing them because it is quite a complex subject, to be honest, that even for those who are the most enlightened; they sometimes struggle. We can use different platforms to make sure we can reach out to as many as possible. I do think that what we have seen recently with regard to the exchange rate has given people hope. When I started, we had a situation where within a month or two, we were regarded as the worst-performing currency of any country. Six months later, we are judged to have the best-performing currency of any country. So, I think those things speak for themselves. A situation where in the recent past, the greatest amount of liquidity on a daily basis was in the region of $200m to $300m; in six months, we have traded over $1bn. FX liquidity has taken a centre stage in the activity of the monetary side, and I think people see that; they also see the exchange rate coming down and they understand that there is a lag. Ultimately, the objective is that we can moderate inflation.
There is a fairly sizeable fiscal policy that the Federal Government runs and the financing of that deficit has been a major source of pressure for the monetary policy. How is it that you are calibrating policies with the Minister of Finance, Wale Edun? Are you coordinating better with Wale on how the FG would be able to fund itself on a sustainable basis?
This is a very good question and one that comes up quite regularly. Let me be up front to say that the monetary policy is just one side of it. With the whole inflation-targeting objective that you spoke about earlier, we cannot do it without successfully collaborating with the fiscal side; it will not work. It is clear to us that we need to have a very good handshake with the fiscal side and a handshake that takes us in the direction that we want to go. We understand, of course, that, again, breaking that down, food inflation – we can use that as a good example – is something that is not within the purview of the monetary side. But, we definitely work and rub minds together, and recently, we had some fertilisers which had come out of the previous administration. We have pushed that to the Ministry of Agriculture to help them going into the next planting season with respect to meeting their overall objectives.
In the MPC, we have the presence of very senior leadership from the fiscal side as members of the MPC in the person of the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Finance, who is here today, and we always have very good and open dialogue on issues so we are able to hear the different sides of the situation. Beyond that, we have set up different committees that work hand-in-hand with respect to ensuring that we are on the same page with respect to taming inflation.
It is also commendable that the Ministry of Finance has begun that process of securitising the outstanding Ways and Means, and I think that is extremely commendable. I think it is less of an issue now, and we can work better together, bearing in mind that as we move towards inflation targeting, there has to be a strong partnership for it to be successful.
It strikes me that you have achieved quite a bit in six months. Stepping back a bit, as a policy maker, what are one or two lessons that you take over from your first six months in office?
Hmmm… I cannot overemphasise the importance of trust. When I look back at it – irrespective of the courage, boldness to do certain things, and the understanding of issues that many may not understand by virtue of the fact that one has access to data and some other things – if the trust isn’t there, you would suboptimise. So, it is clear to me that trust is critical in successfully anchoring a major task like this. It is very very important.
In terms of lessons also, I think, it is a bit surprising, quite frankly, that perhaps, one had expected that there was a greater understanding of some of the issues. Complex, though they are, I expected a greater understanding. I also found out that communication is also very important in all this. The expectation from the Central Bank of Nigeria was that one could wave a wand and that would be the end of the problem. In fact, in many cases, many blamed me for the woes that I had nothing to do with other than the fact that I was there to try and find solutions. On one or two occasions, I had to remind people that I didn’t do this; I am part of the solution.
So, please, let’s roll up our sleeves and work together to show that we can surmount them (our problem).
Credibility and trust are important. How much of that was garnered during the new policies that you put in place? Or, was it your words that allowed you to build that confidence and trust?
I think consistency in saying certain things and doing them was very important. I think we had a situation today where Nigerians were very restless and they were getting impatient and wanted results very quickly, but you had to come out and explain why it could not happen overnight. Even in the policies where certain things had to be tweaked, we needed to have the humility to tweak them.
Most developing nations including Nigeria would use external savings to finance development which makes currency risk a dominant risk factor. What are your views on developing the currency risk market to tame the inflation and pressures that Nigeria is facing?
These things need to be sequenced as and when these things come into play. We will know where we are headed in that direction soon, and it is something we are looking at.
How much has been spent on defending the naira in the first quarter of this year? Where are these defenses from? Reserves or FPI inflows?
I know that the issue of defending the naira has become an elephant in some room. I want to try to make this as clear as possible. It is not our intention to defend the naira. It is not. Much as I have read in the recent few days, some opinions with respect to what is happening with our reserves. If you think back to what our overall policy and philosophy has been here, you can see that it is counter-intuitive. Basically, what we are encouraging is for the market to be a willing buyer, willing seller, and price-discover-led one. Ultimately, I perceive a future where the CBN may really not need to intervene except in very unusual circumstances.
As long as we have a vibrant currency market, why do we need to intervene? I can understand that, especially at the outset, we have experienced that we needed to get the Bureau de Change segment going. We had to release tiny amounts of money to catalyse those happenings. Individuals must have funds to send their kids abroad and do things that are important. It is important not to keep them out of the mainstay.
What we have seen with the shifts in our reserves are the shifts that you would find in any country’s reserve situation. When debts are due and payments need to be made, they are to be made, because that is also part of keeping your credibility intact.
In two days, we had about $600m that came into the reserves account. I wouldn’t want people to be too excited. We want a market that operates on its own – willing buyer, willing seller, price discovery. That is where we are going. The shifts that we are seeing in our discovery have little or nothing to do with defending the naira, and that is certainly not our objective.
The management of the Charterhouse, a newly established school in Lekki, Lagos has revealed why the school charged N42m as fee per annum.
This is coming on the heels of backlashes from the public who criticised the N42m school fees per annum for each primary school student and N2 million as a non-refundable registration fee.
They described the fee as outrageous and a waste of scarce resources for any parent to pay such a huge amount of money to sponsor just a primary school pupil in the current state of Nigeria’s economy.
A netizen on X who lamented the high fees, @Sire_sammie wrote, “I have always told parents that the quality of education your child is getting is directly proportional to the salary of the lowest-paid teacher in that school. If you are paying N42m/annum and the salary of the lowest paid teacher is N50k/month, that is the quality of education your child will get.
Another user, @SegunAK01, added, “How many people would come to earn naira from the best universities? I would rather keep that money and send my child to quality tertiary school with my savings and establish him later.”
@Ibidunnn, said, “This is a disgrace to the government and Nigeria. So the UK has to build a standard school that you can’t build for yourself and they will be teaching kids Queens English, nothing local, while other African countries are flushing out colonial mentality, una dey embrace am full time.”
Justifying the fee, the director of Communications, Admissions and Marketing of the school, Damilola Olatunbosun told the Nigerian Tribune that Charterhouse is a value-driven world-class educational institution.
Olatunbosun, “Charterhouse is not just like every other school anywhere globally but a prestigious and value-driven world-class educational institution that parents, who love quality and second to none education will always want their children to be.”
Despite the criticism, he stated that many parents have expressed interest in enrolling their children, adding that they are not surprised about our fees as it is within what they can afford.
“Some parents are here in Nigeria and some are based abroad. And they know the quality of education we will give to their children. It is about value and not whether the fees are high or not.
“They know it will cost them more if they are to send their children abroad and get the same quality and value we will give them here in Nigeria. The foreign exchange and the associated costs as well as nearness. ”
He added that there is no educational institution in the country with the facilities of Charterhouse, adding that the school would be of the same value as other high-profile UK-based schools.
“Even though we are yet to commence academic activities and we have not also done with our construction works, no school in Nigeria has the facilities we have already put in place.
“And it is not all about physical structures in Charterhouse, but also about quality, both academic and extra-curriculum, and value for our learners.
“Schooling in Charterhouse Lagos will be the same as in Charterhouse UK or any other high-profile UK-based school. The only difference is that the Chaterhouse here will be immersed in the Nigerian culture thereby giving our students the best of British education in a multicultural environment.
“So, we are not just any other school, and many prominent Nigerians, who are either products of Charterhouse or have any of their children or relations attended the school in the UK are very glad that Charterhouse is now here in Lagos Nigeria.
“Even here in Lagos, there are some schools, for example, that charge in millions of Naira per annum while some in hundreds of thousands and yet some others charge something lesser. So, it is now left for parents to decide which one to enrol their children based on the value they want and their purse.
“We are building on 70 hectares of land in Lekki and it will cost us over $150 million at completion and that is why we are very sure that by the time we are done, people will appreciate us better. So, those who want quality and are familiar with Charterhouse know why their children must come to our school.
Taking on the possibility of the school reducing its fees in response to the public criticism, “education is like somebody who is hungry and wants to take lunch and go to a restaurant where a plate of food is N5,000 and another go elsewhere to take the same size of food at just N2,000 and yet another go elsewhere where he or she will get it for N15,000 or more.
“Though the food may look alike, their value will never be the same. So, it is about providing value for money and that is what we do at Charterhouse.”