The Nigerian Ministry of Agriculture has expressed the Federal Government’s willingness to soon overtake Ivory Coast and become Africa’s largest cocoa producer and exporter. According to the Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Audu Ogbeh (photo), the government’s drive to realize this ambition within a short time can be achievable. He said Nigeria, which has huge agricultural...

The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) has recommended some legal changes to the Deep Offshore and Inland Basin Production Sharing Contract (PSC) Act. This changes will enable the Federal Government improve the collection of royalties and other revenue from deep water oil production. According to NNPC Chief Operating Officer for Upstream activities, Malam Bello Rabiu, it is...

Mauritius wishes to make Ghana West Africa’s leading sugar producer and exporter, revealed Seetanah Lutchmeenaraidoo, Mauritius’ minister for Foreign Affairs, Regional Integration and International Trade, in an interview with Business & Financial Times. In this framework, “we plan to massively invest in Ghana’s sugar production sector to export the commodity to the rest of the world. We...

On court’s order, tens of residents of Soanierana, which is near Antananarivo, Madagascar, are being evicted since last Monday, with a 48 h warning only. “Bulldozers came and destroyed houses. The people resisted and were hurt by the police. We have been living here for the past 40 years! There are kids, women here! When we came in 1972, the land was the State’s. Yet, when we recently...

MTN might very well list on the Nigerian Stock Exchange this year, announced NSE Chief Executive Oscar Onyema. The official indicated that his teams were working with the mobile phone operator’s to this end. “The pressure on MTN has never been higher to list,” Onyema said. Despite Nigeria being a key market for MTN, it remais that the nation made 2016 a quite difficult year the operator as...

The World Bank has scheduled its upcoming annual Land and Poverty conference for March 20-24, 2017. Themed “Responsible Land Governance: towards an evidence-based approach”, the conference will be held in Washington DC, at the institution’s offices. The Bretton Woods institution on its website said: “The Land and Poverty conference will present the latest research and practice on the...

The World Health Organization (WHO) on Friday, commenced a two-week mass vaccination exercise at the Internally Displaced People (IDP)’s camps in conflict-affected Northeast states. This exercise is part of the campaign to protect 4,766,214 children against measles. It said the campaign is targeting all children between six months and 10 years in accessible areas in Borno, Yobe and Adamawa...

The Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) on Friday, urged the Federal Government to put the country’s four refineries and the Ajaokuta Steel complex up for sale, so as to improve their performances. According to the NSE’s Chief Executive Officer, Oscar Onyema (photo), the sale of these assets became necessary in order to stop them from exhausting the country’s resources. He said the Nigerian...

The Federal Ministry of Finance has said that the $1.3 billion Development Bank of Nigeria (DBN) will soon be launched, as the selection process of the executive management team of the financial institution has been completed. The Ministry in a statement said an operating licence from the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has also been applied for and is expected very soon. DBN is mutually...

China has announced plans to invest up to $40billion in Nigeria with the aim of deepening relations between the two countries. This declared by the Chinese Foreign Affairs Minister, Wang Yi, during a joint briefing with President Muhammadu Buhari in Abuja yesterday. According to the Minister, this investment is in addition to other contributions China had made to Nigeria in order to support...