Heritage Bank hailed for supporting Ibadan Golf Club
Heritage Bank Plc has been commended for its continued supports to Nigeria’s sports’ sector, especially backing the Ibadan Golf Club’s 30th anniversary event.
The event that attracted dignitaries and stakeholders from various parastatals also had the presence of the Governor of Oyo State, Engr. Oluseyi Makinde and over 150 golfers who participated in the tournament during the weeklong celebration.
In a speech during the grand finale of the 30th anniversary of the club, the Captain of the Ibadan Golf Club, Oladiran Ibironke commended one of Nigeria’s most vibrant financial institutions, Heritage Bank and others for providing financial support to ensure the success of the event.
“Special thanks to Heritage Bank Plc., the anniversary’s major sponsor for enlarging our coast financially in order to make the anniversary elaborate and eventful. You will forever be remembered in the history of Ibadan Golf Club,” he stated.
Ibironke also praised the efforts of the founding fathers of the club while tracing the history of how the sporting club has continued to blossom.
He stated that tremendous transformations had occurred within the club since inception 30 years ago.
“We are celebrating 30 years today because some great minds came together and established what we are celebrating today.
“From the history that we heard, they started from Ibadan Recreation Club before moving over to where we are today in 1990,” Ibironke said.
Speaking on the 30th anniversary, the Ag. Group Head, Corporate Communications, Heritage Bank, Ozena Utulu noted that the Bank is delighted to be the lead sponsor and to be associated with Ibadan Golf Club, stating that the sponsorship is hinged on its brand’s passion to support sports, especially golf in promoting health, wellbeing, and nation building.
She stated that Heritage Bank, as the sponsor of Ibadan Golf Club’s 30th anniversary, is working assiduously towards achieving its vision of becoming a bank known for promoting healthy lifestyles and the general wellbeing of the society at large.
“Heritage Bank believes in development. We have the tenacity to develop and sport is a way of developing Nigerians both young and old. We want to encourage the golfers; I believe that this type of games is capable of helping them to keep healthy and fit,” Utulu stated.
Market formation framework, driver to optimally develop solid mineral sector- Sekibo
Sekibo
MD/CEO of Heritage Bank Plc, Ifie Sekibo has said that market formation framework is the key to optimally exploit Nigeria’s precious metal and solid minerals endowments.
He disclosed this during a webinar organised by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in collaboration with the Federal Ministry of Mines and Steel Development with the theme, “Financing the Solid Minerals Sector through the Capital Market and the Critical Role of Commodity Exchanges.”
Sekibo explained that a fully established market formation process that would lead to having a Corporation as an integrated solid mineral institution like NNPC which allows the collateralisation of assets those banks can rely on for alternative funding options.
According to him, this will guarantee other creative ways of raising funds for financing commercial activities relating to solid minerals and viable projects along its value chain.
Sekibo who was represented by the Divisional Head, Strategy and Business Solutions, of the Bank, Olusegun Akanji, said for the sector to be viable, it requires lots of converged government interventions because for any development focused sector to kick-off around the world, it needs government intervention to lay the foundation for the private sector and funders to step-in and pool their resources.
“Once, we can collateralise these assets, whether they are under the ground or being determined, you use different instruments to bring liquidity into them. Then investors will follow up once we have established there is enough they can explore.” the MD stated.
He further suggested that finance sector regulators need to expand its Prudential Guidelines to accommodate the instruments such that precious metal backed or solid minerals backed assets could qualify as part of the computation of liquidity ratios.
“Once banks start injecting their resources, customers would certainly follow that trend. You can start arranging for sophisticated solutions like bonds, bullion backed assets and pension notes. Again, banks will have to be poised to hold the funding that comes from this sector; that way, they can open new transactional frontiers either locally or internationally.
“At the base of this, are the issues of pricing and integrity of the market. Once banks play in that sector and we have a government institution like the NNPC type to hold all these documentations, it would be very easy to establish price discovery on an ongoing basis. This will in turn attract international funders, hedge funds and retail investors. Today, we have retail bonds in the same way; we can have gold backed or any of the solid mineral assets where retail investors can put in the funds,” Sekibo explained.
Meanwhile, it would be recalled that Heritage Bank Plc has said its involvement in the private sector collaboration with Dukia Gold & Precious Metals Refining Co. Limited is set to unlock the over N344 trillion market worth of gold investible instruments in the solid minerals sector.
However, he reiterated that consistent packaged framework, which could only be held by an established government institution, as part of the layers of framework, would help to tackle major challenges in trying to support Dukia Gold’s clients.
“With consistent packaged framework, it will be easier for Dukia Gold and help in less spending. If Dukia Gold should speak of their challenges, they will speak about tonnes of tonnes of documents they have to produce. But with a unified source of documentation, it makes the process easier and improves cost management. These are some of the challenges we have experienced in trying to support a few clients we worked with,” Sekibo stated.
FirstBank Celebrates 2021 Corporate Responsibility and Sustainability Week, Calls for All to Adopt Kindness as a Way of Life
The best definition of kindness is not one provided by any of the world’s best dictionaries but one demonstrated by how we treat others on a daily basis. Kindness is a universal language that does not require any special knowledge, exposure, skills, training or background to understand and appreciate it as a beneficiary or observer of a kind act. Neither is any special knowledge or training required to show and extend it to others. Just as anyone and everyone can be shown acts of kindness, all persons without exception can and ought to show and extend acts of kindness to others. Kindness flows from deep within us, from the better angels of our nature. Hence, the common idiom “the milk of human kindness”.
This is probably the backdrop to the theme “Kindness…a Way of Life”, which FirstBank has chosen for commemoration of its 2021 Corporate Responsibility and Sustainability Week (CR&S Week). This year’s CR&S Week, scheduled to hold from 26th – 30th July 2021, will feature Kind Comments Days, visits to orphanages/less privilege homes, webinars focused on the kindness theme, SPARK school engagement among other activities – lined up for each of the days. The yearly CR&S Week is a dedicated week designed to offer FirstBank staff, customers and the public opportunities to demonstrate the milk of human kindness that flows in them and give their time and resources to defined causes. It seeks to amplify FirstBank’s innate culture of giving and volunteering as embodied in its Employee Giving and Volunteering programme.
The Corporate Responsibility and Sustainability Week was introduced in 2017 as part of the bank’s longstanding Employee Giving and Volunteering programme created to enable and encourage staff to give back to society through donations and volunteering. Specially designed to reignite acts of random kindness in the society with events that are tailored to reorient people towards the right values, it provides a veritable platform for encouraging the citizenry to intentionally create positive impact in their immediate environment. One of the main highlights of the first CR&S Week was the SPARK Initiative. S.P.A.R.K stands for Start Performing Acts of Random Kindness. But originally the “S” stood for “Staff”. It was changed to “Start” to broaden the initiative beyond just staff and encourage everyone else to be part of the kindness brigade. Also, “P” originally stood for “Promoting” but was changed to “Performing” to convey the sense that participants are equally involved in actually doing kind acts and not only promoting kindness.
Held between 25 – 29 September 2017 with “Promoting Kindness: Putting You First” as theme, the maiden CR&S Week was the first of its kind in Nigeria’s financial services industry. It highlighted the role FirstBank’s corporate citizenship interventions was playing in driving positive impact across various communities – all within one compact week. It was aimed at encouraging people everywhere to step out of their comfort zones, shift attention from themselves and their personal needs to others in society who have not been as fortunate as they have and perform a random act of kindness towards them. The first edition of the CR&S Week provided opportunity for FirstBank staff to give their time and resources to promote acts of random kindness within their communities and contribute to the welfare and well-being of others through giving and visits to orphanages/homes of the less fortunate and internally displaced people (IDPs). Within the same Week the bank held career counselling sessions with secondary school students across the six geo-political regions in Nigeria with FirstBank staff coordinating the impactful sessions that inculcated the values of financial literacy and inclusion in young students. Also, staff had the opportunity to nominate beneficiaries they believe are deserving of random of acts of kindness. Through this activity, Baby Ijeoma was nominated as one of the beneficiary that received corrective heart surgery in India which was in partnership with Vama Wave Foundation. The impact of the first edition went beyond Nigeria as FirstBank’s subsidiaries in sub-Saharan Africa and the UK also participated, benefitting people and at least 22 charities in six countries.
The second edition of the CR&S Week held from 19 – 23 June 2018. Themed “Touching Lives: You First”, the 2018 Week was intended to demonstrate FirstBank brand promise to always put stakeholders first. It focused mainly on five key initiatives/activities. First was the launch of a partnership with VisionSpring to advance social impact by providing vision screening and affordable eyeglasses for 10,000 low-income earners. This aligned with the bank’s financial inclusion and financial literacy approach of promoting accessible and affordable financial products and services to disadvantaged groups with the goal of bringing these marginalised populations into the mainstream economy, improving their chances for resilient livelihoods and financial stability. Second were giving and visits to orphanages/less privilege homes. This was the biggest platform for employee engagement during the week. It followed a needs assessment of the orphanages to be visited to enable employees donate appropriate items, and employees responded generously, donating at a scale that had never been done before. In all, eight countries witnessed this initiative while more than 26 charities participated.
Celebration of the UN International Widows’ Day on 23rd June 2018, which coincided with the last day of the CR&S Week, was the third activity. Driven by the International Women’s Society (IWS) in Lagos with whom the bank partnered to organise an empowerment outreach for 500 widows in Lagos, it provided start-up capital and capacity building required to successfully run start-ups and small businesses, to the widows. Fourth was a Career Counselling Day for over 10,000 senior secondary school students, as part of the broader FutureFirst programme of the bank aimed at ensuring the youth are empowered to be financially independent through fulfilling careers and the right financial knowledge. Fifth and final was the SPARK (Start Performing Acts of Random Kindness) initiative, which included a SPARK Day set aside in the bank for people to act within their individual spheres of influence to promote kindness. The initiative also saw the bank receiving about 200 internal and external nominations of people deserving of kindness, out of which 24 beneficiaries were to emerge. The 2018 Week was marked across Nigeria’s six geopolitical zones with two states from each zone, totalling 12 states in all. It was also commemorated in the six countries/markets outside Nigeria where FirstBank already had subsidiaries – UK, Ghana, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Guinea, Sierra Leone and Senegal.
In 2019, the CR&S Week held from 1 – 6 July 2019 with the theme “Ripples of Kindness: Putting You First”. The theme was informed by the bank’s belief that every act of kindness (regardless of how little or in whatever form) ignites a ripple effect that goes on without end. The year’s CR&S Week focused mainly on the SPARK initiative, which had gained so much traction since its humble beginnings in 2017. A Kindness Manifesto for both internal stakeholders and external stakeholders was introduced. There were other new activities or initiatives. A Nice Comments Day was introduced for the first time and scheduled to hold on the first day of the CR&S Week. The basis for it, according to the bank’s committee that oversaw the planning and implementation of the 2019 CRS Week, is the important place of words in the “kindness ecosystem”. The committee underlined this point when it noted as follows: “One of the truest reflections of how kind we are is our choice of words. That’s why we have created Nice Comments Day to help build a kinder world [through kind words].”
Another new initiative introduced in 2019 was the SPARK School Engagement, which involved launching the SPARK initiative in schools to promote the 3Cs projected as the pillars of kindness – Compassion, Civility and Charity. The schools – secondary schools across Nigeria – were to be visited to educate students on acts of kindness, encouraging them to make kindness a lifestyle. A crowd-funding initiative was also added in 2019 to enable both employees and external stakeholders donate to defined humanitarian causes, such as supporting widows, sending children (from indigent homes) to school and providing health care for the physically challenged and the old. As at August 2019, nearly N7 million had been raised through the crowd-funding initiative.
The regular initiatives/activities were also retained in 2019. There were visits to orphanages/less privilege homes. Widows’ empowerment was organised in collaboration with International Women’s Society (IWS), Nigeria to empower a select number of widows across Nigeria. The implementation in Nigeria covered the six geopolitical zones with activities held in four states per zone, amounting to 24 states in all. Six subsidiaries of FirstBank also implemented the programme in their markets/countries – UK, Ghana, DRC, Guinea, Sierra Leone and Senegal. In all, 25 schools benefitted with 6,000 students participating in terms of the School Engagement; 50 charities and NGOs, including Leap Africa and IWS, were partnered. Over 20,000 orphans/less privilege people including widows were reached and impacted.
No CR&S Week could take place in 2020 because of the COVID-19 pandemic and its associated restrictions on public gatherings and visits. But FirstBank did not just fold its hand and sit idly. The bank did something absolutely amazing, demonstrating uncommon solidarity with a vulnerable segment of society – children. Realising that the harsh effects of the COVID-19 crisis were borne disproportionally by children, whose education and thus future were being endangered due to the lockdown and prolonged closure of schools, FirstBank embarked on a mission to do something about it. Working with partners, such as IBM, UNESCO, Robert & John, Curious Learning and the Lagos State Government, it launched the bold and ambitious e-Learning Initiative designed to move one million children onto safe online learning platform. The Initiative was to minimise the disruption to children’s education, ensuring that they remained fully engaged during the difficult period and are not left behind by their peers across the (developed) world. There are already over 150,000 students benefitting from the e-Learning initiative in the height of the COVID-19 crises. In addition, the Bank deployed communication material to create more awareness of the SPARK Initiative and to sensitize staff, customers and the public during the unprecedented times.
What greater demonstration of kindness could there have been in 2020 given the circumstances the whole world found itself, especially vulnerable children? So there may not have been a CR&S Week in 2020 but the same kindness narrative that has characterised all activities of the various CR&S Week since 2017 clearly shone through FirstBank’s COVID-19 response, especially its e-Learning Initiative. In future, people would probably easily be forgiven if they assumed the e-Learning Initiative represented FirstBank’s CR&S Week in 2020. FirstBank has demonstrated uncommon consistency over the years to its Corporate Responsibility and Sustainability Week and the ideals it seeks to project through the platform. This has earned the bank the right to make the bold call that is the theme of this year’s CR&S Week.
The question is whether we will heed the clarion call to adopt kindness as a way of life. Will we go out there and extend kindness to others in ways that will make them realise that kindness is not just a word taken from the dictionary but an act that should always be expressed to others? Will we embrace kindness as our new way of life? Will we commit to making our everyday a Kind Comments Day, thus giving others permission and the strength to do the same? Will we Start Performing Acts of Random Kindness towards all and make them feel obligated to start acting kindly towards other people as their new lifestyle?
Ecobank Celebrates Nigerians In The Diaspora; Announces Zero Fees for Transactions on Rapidtransfer
In commemoration of this year’s National Diaspora Day event, Ecobank Nigeria is joining the rest of the country to celebrate Nigerians in the diaspora by making transactions on its proprietary money transfer app, Rapidtransfer, free of charge.
The Federal Government has set aside July 25 of every year as the National Diaspora Dayin recognition of the contributions of Nigerians living outside the country towards the development of their homeland.
In a commemorative message, Managing Director, Ecobank Nigeria, Patrick Akinwuntan stated that Nigerians in the diaspora contribute significantly to the socio-economic development of the country. Mr. Akinwuntan lauded the decision of the Federal Government to set aside a special day every year as the National Diaspora Day, adding that the recent launch of the National Diaspora Policy (NDP) by the government would further promote and harness the resources and capacity of Nigerians in the diaspora towards national development.
“As a pan-African institution positioned to foster the economic growth and integration of our continent, we are particularly pleased to work closely with NiDCOM, ably led by the Chairman/CEO, Hon Abike Dabiri-Erewa towards the engagement of Nigerians in the diaspora on policies, projects and other initiatives geared at developing the nation. From our constant engagement with Nigerians in the Diaspora, we understand their peculiar needs and have created tailor-made solutions to serve them effectively.” He noted further that Ecobank has partnered NiDCOM on webinars, diaspora quarterly lecture series and will continue to seek other collaboration opportunities to deepen engagement with the diaspora community.
Also speaking, Korede Demola-Adeniyi, Head, Consumer Banking, Ecobank Nigeria said Ecobank will apply zero fees to all Rapidtransfer transactions from 1st July till the end of October, 2021, thereby enabling Nigerians living abroad to send money to their loved ones affordably. According to her, the decision to waive charges underscores the bank’s commitment to helping Nigerians abroad remit money home without placing an additional burden of charges on them, especially at this period of global economic downturn.
Rapidtransfer is Ecobank’s proprietary money transfer service which enables users send funds across borders, affordably and instantly. The Rapidtransfer app is available for use by Ecobank and non-Ecobank customers. Remittances can be received directly into the recipient’s account or as cash at any Ecobank branch. Beneficiaries who wish to receive funds into an account but do not have domiciliary accounts have the opportunity to open in Euro, GBP or USD instantly and enjoy all the benefits that come with Ecobank foreign currency accounts.
In addition, N5 is paid on every one dollar received as cash or direct to account in line with the Central Bank of Nigeria’s ongoing Naira for Dollar initiative.
How 6 Finalists Will Emerge from FirstBank’s Sponsored The Voice Nigeria Season 3 Second Live Show
By Israel Bolaji
Six finalists are expected to emerge through the viewers votes following the second live show of the FirstBank Sponsored The Voice Nigeria Season 3.
UN1TY Limited and Livespot360, producers of the global talents reality series, explained how to vote on the voice Nigeria season 3, sponsored by FirstBank, Baba Ijebu and Airtel.
To keep their favourite vocalists on the show, viewers have to dial *894*7*talent’s code#.
To know the voting code of your preferred contestant to save, visit the Bank’s official Instagram handle and get voting:
The International talents reality series designed to discover and harness music talents in Nigeria is in its third season in Nigeria. Scores of vocalists have performed on the highly competitive show but dropped out going through the Auditions, Blinds, Knockouts, Battles and Live Shows stages.
With an electrifying mix of pulsating musical performances, music training, glamorous fashion and life enriching entertainment, the The Voice Nigeria 3 continues to glitter to the very grand finale
Voting opens on Saturday at 9:00pm and closes at 11:59pm on Thursdays.
Lead show sponsor, FirstBank in a statement by its Group Head, Marketing and Corporate Communications, Folake Ani-Mumuney, reiterated that The Voice Nigeria 3 is a Reality TV show designed to discover and promote talented singers to actualise their dreams of becoming international stars which aligns with FirstBank’s commitment to providing a platform for nurturing and showcasing talents and driving social cohesion.
So what are you waiting for, get voting so your favourite is among the six victorious vocalists with the highest votes that would be expected to perform selected songs and keep hope alive for the grand finale as they face the third live show by the weekend.
HOW CUSTOMERS’ INCREASED TRUST IN FIRSTBANK’S *894# USSD BANKING CAN BOOST THE FINANCIAL INCLUSION DRIVE
The path to financial inclusion holds different marketplace barriers and opportunities in different countries, but the push continues because of proof that an increase in economic activities among the financially vulnerable can reawaken a comatose economy. For Nigeria, the last three years have seen significant growth of the financial inclusion rate from 56.8% in 2016 to 63.2% in 2018. FirstBank’s *894# USSD banking service is playing a key role in it.
FirstBank’s *894# USSD banking initiative is already averaging about 99 million transactions monthly, with a naira worth of (N’m) 370,543 on these transactions. This figure includes the undergraduate doing a mobile airtime recharge; the trader receiving a mobile payment from a customer; the IT person hurriedly buying a data bundle to keep business afloat; the anxious father paying his daughter’s hospital bills for treatment to commence, and the busy worker in Lagos transferring money to his parents in the village since he cannot get to a banking hall.
This is just a rough sampling of the financial transactions that amounted to over N3.6 trillion in transaction value on the *894# USSD banking service in 2020. There is practically no financial emergency that the USSD service does not come in.
The problems that the *894# USSD service from FirstBank of Nigeria Limited is solving is the only justification for the rapid traction it has gained since it was introduced in 2015. It is easy to see Nigerians trust and confidence in the USSD system, with the Bank rapidly growing from 9.5 million customers on the USSD feature to 12.26 million customers within the last year. Over 1.02 million of the figure, are customers who registered in the first 6 months of 2021.
The first and perhaps the most attractive feature of USSD banking has got to be that it can be done from any kind of phone and without any form of internet connectivity. Although smartphones are getting more common, there is still a high poverty rate and many financially vulnerable people who cannot access internet banking. The internet penetration in Nigeria is still below the ideal, so users have to deal with poor internet connections in some areas.
That is why this kind of banking service that can be accessed without internet connectivity is ideal for the financial inclusion drive. The *894# USSD feature can be used across the four major GSM network operators in the country, meaning there is no added demand on the users.
Getting started on the service is as easy as dialling *894*0#, and creating a pin. With that done, you can do airtime and data purchase for yourself and other parties, transfer funds to other accounts, make a BVN enquiry, check your account balance and get a mini statement.
For non-customers, this feature allows you to open a bank account in a couple of minutes without having to visit the banking hall. You can open a bank account, receive your account number immediately and start transactions on it right away. The claims of “instant banking, anytime, anywhere” can’t get more real than this.
There is even an added security step, requesting a second-factor authentication (2FA) for transfers above N20,000 as a way to secure customers from being ripped off their funds. There is a cumulative maximum daily transfer limit of N100,000 to both FirstBank and other banks accounts.
Onyeali-Ikpe’s Seven Point Agenda: Building A Future-Ready Fidelity Bank
John C. Maxwell, an American author and speaker, is a widely acknowledged thought leader. Maxwell asserts in one of his most famous quotes, which encapsulates the true essence of leadership, “The pessimist complains about the wind. The optimist expects it to change. The leader adjusts the sails”.
Fidelity Bank CEO, Mrs. Nneka Onyeali-Ikpe is leading the financial institution through a significant evolution of business culture with the primary objective of improving operational efficiency and expanding market share. Mrs. Onyeali-Ikpe is adjusting “the sails” to ensure that her colleagues at Fidelity Bank have the wind at their backs as they work toward common goals and individual successes.
Currently, Nneka Onyeali-Ikpe has her sights fixed on positioning the bank as one of Nigeria’s leading financial institutions, which leverages automation and robotics to replace manual and repetitive processes. The global lockdown caused by the Covid-19 pandemic was a messenger unlike any other, signaling that Nigeria’s traditional and over-the-counter banking systems are no longer viable.
Since assuming office in January 1 2021, the bank’s first female CEO and MD, has outlined a seven-point agenda to move the bank further in its quest to become a tier-1 bank that is well-positioned to outlive the competition and serve well into the future.
Overview and timeline
Fidelity Bank’s seven-point agenda focuses on brand architecture, brand building and refresh, talent development and transformation, product and service delivery, agility and performance discipline, digital transformation, and regulatory compliance.
In accordance with this, here are the bank’s strategies for ensuring that it attains its objectives:
1. The bank intends to embark on an Innovation Drive through the implementation of new processes, techniques. The bank is also executing fresh ideas to ensure continuous process improvement, reduce cost to serve, increase competitiveness, improve brand recognition and value, build new partnerships and relationships, drive turnover, and increase profitability.
2. Brand refresh with the aim to increase top-of-mind awareness of the Fidelity brand by external and internal stakeholders.
3. Workforce Transformation to create a future readily supported by a high performing and empowered workforce. This will be achieved by deepening the skills and competencies of staff across the bank, entrenching a culture of high performance, and embedding new ways of working in the bank. So far, the commencement of capacity building training for staff and senior management training are some of the initiatives implemented.
4. Service Excellence which is intended to build brand loyalty through personalized and seamless customer experience delivery. This is already underway with the award-winning virtual assistant IVY. This revolutionary chatbot handles simple tasks like account opening to complex tasks such as complaint resolution, bill payment, transferring users to a live agent, loans, fixed deposit applications, and answering random questions.
5. Digital Transformation involves an end-to-end digitization across all facets of the business. In line with this, the bank has launched a novel digital service —Pay Yourself —which revolutionized payday for salary earners and SMEs.
6. Performance Discipline to ensure focus on strong fundamentals, asset quality, and strategic cost management. Initiatives already carried out in this regard include;
– The Policy Familiarization Program —a capacity-building project geared towards building a knowledgeable and versatile staff network/raising subject matter experts in all business areas that kicked off in March.
– The One Culture Project- which was initiated to reinforce enabling behaviours and value systems towards fulfilling the bank’s goals
– Project Alpha- aimed at helping the bank develop a robust and holistic learning and development framework for all staff.
7. Accelerated Growth which will drive aggressive market penetration and business diversification. This will be achieved through deeper penetration in key retail markets.
Other initiatives geared towards deepening growth include by the Onyeali-Ikpe led management includes; accelerated play in the SME segment, renewal of institutional banking, and drive for transaction-based propositions in corporate banking.
With this seven pronged agenda, Onyeali-Ikpe led Fidelity Bank is well on its way to leading the sector while revolutionizing Nigeria’s financial landscape.
Buhari govt crippling Nigeria, debt now N33trn from N12trn in 2015 – Moghalu
Former Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Deputy Governor, Kingsley Moghalu has expressed concern at the rate Nigeria’s public debt increased in the last six years under the President Muhammadu Buhari administration.
Moghalu raised the alarm that Nigeria is now a dangerous, debt-induced fiscal cliff and accused the federal government of mortgaging the future of the youth.
“We have to stop further borrowing and start to manage the current obligations in order to avoid a sovereign debt default or, at best, a costly restructuring. Further borrowing will lead to a disastrous debt bubble bust”, he warned in a statement.
The presidential candidate of the Young Progressives Party (YPP) in the 2019 election said from $10.31billion at the end of June 2015, the total external debt increased to $32.85billion as at March 2021.
The Professor complained the total outstanding public debt stock increased by 173 percent in the same period, from N12.11trillion to N33.10trillion.
Noting that on the average, over N3.6trillion is being added to the public debt annually, the expert observed infrastructure investment used to justify it have grossly under-performed.
The ex-CBN chief said under a coordinated economic policy by a competent government, the debt capital outlay would have catalyzed private sector investments and sizeable foreign direct investment (FDI) flows into the economy.
He insisted public-private partnerships should be the dominant approach to infrastructure development in Nigeria, not contract awards that, from information available on projects in Ghana and Ethiopia, are “overvalued”.
The economist regretted that in the real situation of the incompetence of the government since 2015, businesses have been groaning and FDI inflows have decreased.
Moghalu said instead of delivering economic growth, the economy has been twice in recession, and when out of it, growth has been underwhelming at 2 percent.
His statement lamented how the national unemployment rate increased to 33.1 percent while youth unemployment has reached 42.5 percent in a few years.
Moghalu urged the government to focus on increasing domestic revenue, by expanding the tax base – not by increasing rates as has been done with the value added tax (VAT) – and by introducing reforms for ease of paying taxes while abolishing multiple taxation.
Media entrepreneur and popular blogger Linda Ikeji , said she was motivated to partner with Ecobank on her “Selfmade Woman” initiative because of the bank’s various women friendly programmes, stressing that many individuals, especially women who own small businesses are supported by the bank to succeed. “When I conceive the idea of self-made women empowerment conference, Ecobank was the first bank I thought about because I love how much they are into women empowerment.
They have a lot of programmes, a lot of platforms internally to help women in business. They are really into helping women reach their full potentials. Fortunately, when I met with them and told them what I wanted to do, they immediately said yes to me, and they have been fully involved and here we are today. Ecobank today is my bank of choice”.
Linda Ikeji who spoke at the “2021 Selfmade Woman Conference”, her women empowerment initiative testified that Ecobank Nigeria as a female friendly is helping women achieve their dreams and full potentials. On why she initiate the Selfmade Women Conference Linda Ikeji said “I am very passionate about women succeeding and it was very important for me to put something together as a platform where successful women would meet and mentor those aspiring to be successful.
My purpose for doing this is to hopefully encourage more women to believe in themselves, encourage more women to fight for their dreams, encourage more women to know that there is absolutely nothing that they can’t achieve. I want them to hear stories of women who have achieved great feats, women who have broken tables and know that it’s possible for them to break through all these barriers, believe in themselves, see people like myself, Tara Durotoye and other women who have done amazingly well. Getting a women friendly bank like Ecobank to partner me is heartwarming”.
Also speaking, Founder, House of Tara, Tara Fela-Durotoye, applauded Ecobank for supporting women initiatives. She observed that partnering with young women and young entrepreneurs would go a long way to empowering women to play greater role in families.” I appreciate Ecobank’s various empowerment initiatives to support women and we can see the results. My advice to the bank is to sustain the initiatives”. This was the view of several other speakers which included
In his keynote address, Managing Director, Ecobank Nigeria, Patrick Akinwuntan, said the decision to partner with Linda Ikeji Selfmade Woman Conferencealigns with the bank’s empowerment policy for women. He noted that Ecobank recognizes women as the bedrock of most families and entrepreneurship in the society, stating that to succeed as a nation, it is imperative to recognize women’s unique potentials and support them sufficiently.Akinwuntan who was represented by Head, Consumer Banking, Korede Demola-Adeniyi reiterated that Ecobank remains a women friendly bank and have been playing the role, stressing that, the bank has many initiatives and innovative products targeted at empowering female entrepreneurs in the country.
“We have many women centred empowerment programmes such as the Ecobank Female Entrepreneurs’ Initiative (EFEI) which is designed to empower, and support women owned small-scale businesses. Under this initiative, there is special loan package where prospective female entrepreneurs could easily access credit facility with interest rates as low as 1 per cent. Through EFEI, we have trained many female business owners on digital marketing skills in our state-of-the-art Academy and have also organized capacity building workshop for them. We also have another women empowerment programme “Ellevate” for women in Business; this will be publicly launched across the country in July. With Ellevate, we want to ensure we raise and recognize our women for the significant role they have always played to ensure a better society for us all.” He said.
Further, the Ecobank Nigeria Managing Director said examples of the bank’s support to women entrepreneur includes “our long-standing partnership with Tera Kulture, that is Bolanle Austen Peters who has come out with various movies such as ‘Bling Lagosians’, ‘Moremi The Musical’, ‘Fela and the Kalakuta Queens,’ ‘The Oluronbi Musical’ and others. Recently, we also supported ‘The Wait’, a movie inspired by the popular book from renowned lawyer and entrepreneur, Yewande Zaccheaus. We are currently working with the Ogun state government to promote the Adire industry which is also primarily women driven. In the agric industry, we have supported the Anchor borrowers programme of the CBN across the six regions of the country to reach out to farmers, especially the women folk to support them financially to increase their farm size and yield capacity through the introduction of new techniques.”
The 2021 Selfmade Women conference attracted over 3000 female participants both online and at a physical event. The Linda Ikeji Selfmade Woman Conference was borne out of passion to see women succeed. it is a platform for women who want to achieve success to meet those who have already achieved success. The all-female event attracted many speakers and wide audience including potential and established women entrepreneurs, businesswomen and students. The Linda Ikeji Self-Made Woman debuted in 2013, as an advocacy project with the sole aim to mentor and provide financial empowerment to young female entrepreneurs or aspiring ones. it is essentially to build stronger economies and improve the quality of life for women, men, families and communities.
Managing Director/CEO, Fidelity Bank PLC. Mrs. Nneka Onyeali-Ikpe was in Abuja on Thursday June 17, 2021 when Air Peace Airline took delivery of the first of 13 brand new E195-E2 directly from Embraer facility in São José dos Campos, Brazil. The new aircraft with registration number 5N-BYF, named Helen Ekwusi Onyema, touched down at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja at about 2.00 pm and was greeted with a water salute by men of the Fire service department of the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria, FAAN.
