The Senate has passed two out of four major tax reform bills proposed by President Bola Tinubu.

However, the upper chamber rejected a proposal to increase the value-added tax (VAT) to 10 percent, opting to retain the current rate at 7.5 percent.

The bill allows VAT input claims on fixed assets, overhead costs and administrative services.

The two bills passed are the Nigeria Revenue Service Establishment bill, which repeals the Federal Inland Revenue Service, and the Joint Revenue Board Establishment bill, which seeks to harmonise tax collection.

Two bills which the senate has scheduled for consideration and passage on Thursday are the Nigeria Tax Administration bill and the Nigeria Tax bill.

The passage of two bills on Wednesday followed a clause-by-clause consideration of the bills in the committee of the whole and a third reading on the floor of the senate.

President Tinubu transmitted the bills to the senate as part of efforts to modernise and overhaul the country’s tax framework.

Senate President Godswill Akpabio commended the progress and said the reforms would strengthen governance and improve revenue collection.

“These bills will add immense value to governance and transform how taxes are collected and shared in Nigeria,” Akpabio said.

He also said the senate is ready to extend its sitting to conclude work on the remaining bills.

“We are committed to concluding the outstanding bills tomorrow, even if we have to stay here until 10 pm,” he added.

Apart from the rejection of a proposal to increase VAT from 7.5 to 10 percent, Akpabio, who read the resolutions, said the senate also rejected the proposed phasing out of funding for some agencies.

The agencies include the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFUND), the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) and the National Agency for Science and Engineering Infrastructure (NASENI).

Instead, Akpabio said the red chamber introduced a 4 percent development levy to sustain funding for the agencies.

“These agencies of government are essential for human capital and overall economic development of the country,” he said.

“Phasing out their funding can lead to stagnation in education and the country losing out on technological evolutions and advancements.”

According to the bill, the development levy will be distributed as follows: TETFUND (50%), Nigerian Education Loan Fund (15%), NITDA (10%), NASENI (10%), National Cybersecurity Fund (5%) and Defence Security Fund (10%).

The company income tax rate is pegged at 30 percent.

Speaking during the plenary, Deputy Senate President Barau Jibrin praised the maturity displayed by lawmakers in resolving earlier disagreements.

“It is time to congratulate the entire senate and in particular, the committee on finance and the elders committee for the wisdom and leadership that have been shown in these bills,” he said.

“Initially, there were disagreements and there were rancours here and there. But the senate, standing on its position as the highest assembly in the land, decided to establish this committee, a committee of elders, to look at all those areas of contention and hear the views of religious leaders, regional organisations and other stakeholders.

“Now, thank God, the committee also in its wisdom sat with all, had a very robust public hearing and got to where we are now. And thank God, all these areas have been resolved.”

The four bills have already been passed by the house of representatives.

The Cable

The Federal Government of Nigeria, in partnership with the United Nations, has unveiled a comprehensive $159 million plan aimed at tackling severe food insecurity affecting millions of people in the conflict-affected states of Borno, Adamawa, and Yobe.

Minister of Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Reduction, Nentawe Yilwatda, announced that the government will spearhead a coordinated multisectoral response to address the food crisis in these northeastern states. The announcement came during Tuesday's launch of the 2025 Lean Season Food Security and Nutrition Crisis Multisector Plan at the UN House in Abuja.

According to the UN's Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), approximately 4.6 million people across the three states face the risk of severe hunger, while 630,000 children under five years are threatened by acute malnutrition during the upcoming lean season.

The six-month operational response targets two million vulnerable people and brings together key UN agencies including UNICEF, the World Food Programme, and the Food and Agriculture Organization, alongside international and local NGOs and state governments.

However, Mohamed Fall, UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator in Nigeria, expressed concern about dwindling resources for humanitarian operations. "A lot of capacity has disappeared, and we are now only focusing on lifesaving activities. The gains we have made in preventing malnutrition and increasing our joint capacity to treat malnourished children are being wiped out," Fall stated.

Yilwatda acknowledged that the crisis poses a significant challenge to President Bola Tinubu's "Renewed Hope Agenda" and tests the government's capacity for timely intervention. He praised OCHA's multisector approach that integrates food assistance, nutrition, health, water and sanitation, protection, agriculture, and early recovery initiatives.

"The federal government will lead from the front—not just in coordinating this response but in ensuring alignment with national policy, clarity of roles, and accountability of outcomes," Yilwatda affirmed. "We are leveraging the national social register with geotag capabilities for real-time vulnerability mapping and integrating digital targeting to reach displaced persons and host communities more efficiently."

The minister emphasized the importance of local leadership and ownership at state and local government levels while urging international and local partners to align their responses with national systems and state authorities.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

Economist and political activist, Pat Utomi has assumed a formal opposition role with the formation of a “shadow government” to serve as critique of the President Bola Tinubu’s administration.

The move is coming weeks after the opposition coalition announced by former Vice President and 2023 presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Atiku Abubakar.

The top economist-turned politician described the new coalition as a “national emergency response” launched virtually under the banner of the Big Tent Coalition Shadow Government.

Peopled by individuals across opposition parties, the don said the new movement would serve as a credible opposition to the APC-led administration.

According to him, the decision became inevitable to save Nigeria’s democracy following the gale of defections that has hit opposition drifting the country into a one-party state.

He said the new group will leverage on their experiences, expertise and learnings to regularly scrutinise government actions, identify policy failures, and propose alternative solutions in key areas.

The initiative, he noted, would focus on the country’s economy, education, healthcare, infrastructure, law and order, and constitutional reforms of the present government.

According to Utomi, human rights lawyer, Dele Farotimi, will lead the Ombudsman and Good Governance portfolio while the Policy Delivery Unit, will have Oghene Momoh, Cheta Nwanze, Daniel Ikuonobe, Halima Ahmed, David Okonkwo, and Obi Ajuga.

Other experts and professionals that will form the shadow cabinet include Mani Ahmad, Peter Oyewole, Omano Edigheji, Adefolusade Adebayo, Peter Agadah and Sadiq Gombe,

The list also has Chibuzor Nwachukwu, Salvation Alibor, Bilkisu Magoro, Victor Tubo, Charles Odibo, Otive Igbuzor, Eunice Atuejide, Gbenga Ajayi, Mani Ahmad, Peter Oyewole, and Omano Edigheji.

Sidi Ali, Ibrahim Abdukarim, Adenike Oriola, Promise Adewusi, Ukachukwu Awuzie, Ambrose Obimma, Rwang Pam, Kingsley Anedo, Auwal Aliyu, Ghazali Ado, Nana Kazaure, Aisha Yesufu, Charles Gilbert, and Olujimi Akiboh also made the list.

The group is expected to meet weekly to analyse public policy and recommend reforms with emphasis on integrity and transparency, which he said are lacking under the current administration.

He said, “The recent spate of defections to the APC provides further evidence that all is not well with democracy in Nigeria.

“The imperative is that if a genuine opposition does not courageously identify the performance failures of incumbents, offer options, and influence culture in a counter direction, it will be complicit in subverting the will of the people.”

“This shadow team must also address issues of ethics, transparency, and integrity, which continue to challenge this government at every turn.

“Nothing is more urgent than tackling the rising poverty across the country. Multinationals are shutting down, and millions are unemployed. The exit of two companies recently illustrate how poorly thought-out policies have tanked the economy.”

He further accused the government of using broad consensus among politicians as a cover for poor planning.

“Making propaganda of most leaders being in agreement on removing the petroleum subsidy was to cover up policy errors of how to remove it without further structural damage to the economy”, he stated.

On the issue of security reform, Utomi advocated for decentralised policing and argued that communities should be empowered to maintain their own security infrastructure through a layered approach involving local forces, state police, and a Federal National Guard.

“Policing for me is a local function. We will travel further if we get the communities to have their own armed and well-trained police forces, which will be layered with state police and the Federal National Guard,” he said, adding that corruption and centralisation have contributed to the resistance against such reforms.

Speaking on its membership, Utomi noted that it includes a range of professionals and public figures drawn from across the opposition. He said the team would operate not only as a think tank but also as a policy watchdog, offering credible alternatives to government decisions.

Daily Trust

US, Israel discuss possible US-led administration for Gaza, sources say

The United States and Israel have discussed the possibility of Washington leading a temporary post-war administration of Gaza, according to five people familiar with the matter.

The "high-level" consultations have centered around a transitional government headed by a U.S. official that would oversee Gaza until it had been demilitarized and stabilized, and a viable Palestinian administration had emerged, the sources said.

According to the discussions, which remain preliminary, there would be no fixed timeline for how long such a U.S.-led administration would last, which would depend on the situation on the ground, the five sources said.

The sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity as they were not authorized to discuss the talks publicly, compared the proposal to the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq that Washington established in 2003, shortly after the U.S.-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein.

The authority was perceived by many Iraqis as an occupying force and it transferred power to an interim Iraqi government in 2004 after failing to contain a growing insurgency.

Other countries would be invited to take part in the U.S.-led authority in Gaza, the sources said, without identifying which ones. They said the administration would draw on Palestinian technocrats but would exclude Islamist group Hamas and the Palestinian Authority, which holds limited authority in the occupied West Bank.

Islamist group Hamas, which has ruled Gaza since 2007, sparked the current war when its militants stormed into southern Israeli communities on October 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and capturing another 251.

The sources said it remained unclear whether any agreement could be reached. Discussions had not progressed to the point of considering who might take on core roles, they said.

The sources did not specify which side had put forward the proposal nor provide further details of the talks.

In response to Reuters questions, a State Department spokesperson did not comment directly on whether there had been discussions with Israel about a U.S.-led provisional authority in Gaza, saying they could not speak to ongoing negotiations.

"We want peace, and the immediate release of the hostages," the spokesperson said, adding that: "The pillars of our approach remain resolute: stand with Israel, stand for peace."

The office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declined to comment.

In an April interview with Emirati-owned Sky News Arabia, Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said he believed there would be a "transitional period" after the conflict in which an international board of trustees, including "moderate Arab countries", would oversee Gaza with Palestinians operating under their guidance.

"We're not looking to control the civil life of the people in Gaza. Our sole interest in the Gaza Strip is security," he said, without naming which countries he believed would be involved. The foreign ministry did not respond to a request for further comment.

Ismail Al-Thawabta, director of the Hamas-run Gaza government media office, rejected the idea of an administration led by the United States or any foreign government, saying the Palestinian people of Gaza should choose their own rulers.

The Palestinian Authority did not respond to a request for comment.

RISKS

A U.S.-led provisional authority in Gaza would draw Washington deeper into the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and mark its biggest Middle East intervention since the Iraq invasion.

Such a move would carry significant risks of a backlash from both allies and adversaries in the Middle East, if Washington were perceived as an occupying power in Gaza, two of the sources said.

The United Arab Emirates - which established diplomatic relations with Israel in 2020 - has proposed to the United States and Israel that an international coalition oversee Gaza's post-war governance. Abu Dhabi conditioned its involvement on the inclusion of the Western-backed Palestinian Authority and a credible path toward Palestinian statehood.

The UAE foreign ministry did not respond to questions about whether it would support a U.S.-led administration that did not include the PA.

Israel's leadership, including Netanyahu, firmly rejects any role in Gaza for the Palestinian Authority, which it accuses of being anti-Israeli. Netanyahu also opposes Palestinian sovereignty.

Netanyahu said on Monday that Israel would expand its attacks in Gaza and that more Gazans would be moved "for their own safety". Israel is still seeking to recover 59 hostages being held in the enclave. Its offensive has so far killed more than 52,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza health ministry data.

Some members of Netanyahu's right-coalition have called publicly for what they describe as the "voluntary" mass migration of Palestinians from Gaza and for the reconstruction of Jewish settlements inside the coastal enclave.

But behind closed doors, some Israeli officials have also been weighing proposals over the future of Gaza that sources say assumes that there won't be a mass exodus of Palestinians from Gaza, such as the U.S.-led provisional administration.

Among those include restricting reconstruction to designated security zones, dividing the territory and establishing permanent military bases, said four sources, who include foreign diplomats and former Israeli officials briefed on the proposals.

Reuters

RUSSIAN PERSPECTIVE

Russia’s 72-hour ‘Victory Day’ truce begins

A 72-hour ceasefire proposed by Russian President Vladimir Putin has officially come into effect, with Russian forces halting offensive operations from midnight on Thursday, despite a surge in Ukrainian drone attacks in the hours before the truce.

The pause in fighting, set to last until midnight on May 10–11, is described as a humanitarian gesture marking the 80th anniversary of the Soviet victory over Nazi Germany. The Kremlin says the ceasefire also aims to create space for direct peace talks with Ukraine, without preconditions.

”Yes, this is an initiative by the Russian side, by President Putin. It remains in force,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov confirmed on Wednesday, stressing that Moscow is committed to honoring the truce despite Ukraine’s record-breaking drone assault ahead of its start.

Ukraine's Vladimir Zelensky has refused to back the ceasefire, denouncing it as an “attempt at manipulation” and accusing Russia of using humanitarian overtures for tactical advantage.

Instead of pausing hostilities, Kiev intensified its drone campaign, with high-ranking Russian diplomat Rodion Miroshnik stating that Ukrainian UAV strikes over the past week caused a record number of civilian casualties — 15 killed and 142 injured.

Earlier in the week, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova accused Zelensky of engaging in “classic terrorist behavior” by threatening civilians in Russia while soliciting additional funding from Western donors.

Peskov condemned the continued attacks, accusing the “Kiev regime” of revealing “its essence and inclination toward terrorist actions.” He noted that Russian special services and the military are taking all necessary measures to ensure Victory Day events proceed safely across the country.

Despite calls from some lawmakers for an “asymmetrical” response to the drone strikes, the Kremlin has reiterated its position: “All instructions have been given, there are no new elements here,” Peskov said when asked about potential retaliation during the ceasefire window.

Victory Day, celebrated on May 9, commemorates the defeat of Nazi Germany in 1945 and remains one of the most significant public holidays in Russia.

WESTERN PERSPECTIVE

China's Xi arrives in Moscow in show of support for Putin after Ukrainian drones target capital

Chinese President Xi Jinping flew into Moscow on Wednesday for talks with President Vladimir Putin and a pomp-filled visit that Kyiv has made clear it opposes after Ukrainian drones targeted Moscow shortly before he touched down.

Xi, whose country buys more Russian oil and gas than any other, and which has thrown Moscow an economic lifeline that has helped it navigate Western sanctions imposed over its war in Ukraine, landed at Moscow's Vnukovo-2 airport soon after Russian authorities said they had brought down another Ukrainian drone outside the capital.

It was the third day Ukraine has targeted Moscow with drones and one of Moscow's main airports was forced to temporarily suspend its activities less than three hours before Xi's arrival.

When asked during a news briefing about air attacks by both sides on each others' capitals, a spokesperson for the Chinese foreign ministry did not comment on Xi's trip, saying only that the "top priority" was to avoid an escalation in tensions.

The Kremlin said the attempted Ukrainian attacks on Moscow showed Kyiv's tendency to commit "acts of terrorism" and that Russia's intelligence services and military were doing everything necessary to ensure the security of upcoming World War Two commemorations which Xi is due to attend.

Ukrainian officials said on Wednesday that Russia had launched its own air attack on Kyiv overnight, killing a mother and her son. Russia says it only targets military objects.

Xi is the most powerful world leader expected at a military parade on Moscow's Red Square on Friday to mark the 80th anniversary of the victory of the Soviet Union and its allies over Nazi Germany.

His visit hands President Vladimir Putin an important diplomatic boost at a time when the Russian leader is keen to show his country is not isolated on the world stage. The Kremlin has touted Xi's presence, along with that of 28 other world leaders, as a sign of Russia's growing global authority.

But Ukraine's Foreign Ministry - in comments that seemed directed at China whose troops are due to march on Red Square - on Tuesday urged countries not to send their militaries to participate in the May 9 parade, saying such participation would go against some countries' declared neutrality in the war.

DRONES TARGETED MOSCOW

Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said that Russian air defence units had destroyed at least 14 Ukrainian drones headed for the Russian capital overnight. He later said at least two more had been brought down during the day.

Xi has called for talks to end the war in Ukraine and has accused the U.S. of stoking the war with weapons supplies to Kyiv. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has in the past urged him to try to persuade Putin to end the war.

Xi is due to hold talks with the Russian leader on Thursday and to join other world leaders for the parade on Friday.

His visit comes as U.S. President Donald Trumpis trying to push Moscow and Kyiv to find a way to end the war in Ukraine, with both sides blaming each other for a lack of progress.

Locked in a tariff war with the United States, Xi is expected to sign numerous agreements to deepen an already tight strategic partnership with Moscow, which has consistently seen China crowned Russia's biggest trading partner.

Despite recent efforts under Trump to reset U.S.-Russia ties, Putin is expected to present a united front with Xi against Washington, whose dominance and "exceptionalism" both countries have questioned, arguing for a more multipolar world.

POST-WAR INTERNATIONAL ORDER

In a signed article published by Russian media on Wednesday, Xi wrote that China and Russia must "firmly maintain the post-war international order."

"The two sides should jointly resist any attempt to disrupt and undermine China-Russia friendship and mutual trust," read the text of the article, Chinese state media reported.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova called the visit "one of the central events in Russian-Chinese relations this year."

"The World War Two focus is about the post-war international order and now the U.S. is dismantling or undermining it. So China and Russia will frame themselves as the defenders of the international order and the UN system, and oppose U.S. unilateralism and hegemony," said Yun Sun, a China politics analyst at the Stimson Center in Washington.

In their talks, Putin and Xi will discuss the "most sensitive" issues, including energy cooperation and the proposed but yet to be built Power of Siberia 2 gas pipeline to China, Yuri Ushakov, a top Kremlin aide, said.

RT/Reuters

Since the Nigerian presidency has devoted itself to responding to every criticism of the government and its administrative failings, it is unsurprising that media aide Bayo Onanuga faulted the recent claim by the outgoing President of the African Development Bank, Akinwumi Adesina, that Nigerians lived a better life in the 1960s going by the GDP per capita. Onanuga argued that Adesina should know that GDP per capita is not the only criterion used to determine whether people live better lives now than in the past. Indeed, it is a poor tool for assessing living standards. Its primary usefulness is in giving us the metrics to compare economic output in a country or between countries. Then he adds that today, as we await the NBS’s recalibration of our GDP, we can comfortably say without contradiction that it is at least 50 times, if not 100 times, more than it was at Independence.

What Onanuga has done here is to spill a lot of needless ink to arrive at the same spot where he started. If the GDP is not a reliable marker of economic growth and development, why still wait for a favourable NBS figure to contradict Adesina?

 In any case, the two truths that might be operating here might not be mutually contradictory. Statistics can show growth since 1960, while Nigerians qualitatively live far less than they did 60 years ago. On that score, Onanuga is right that numbers are not the only means of scaling a society’s achievements. Figures objectively calculate how an average person lives (or lived) but do not paint the full picture of the internal substance of such a life. If we want to get to the truth, we must also probe social experience. In this case, we can ask the people who lived in the 1960s what their lives were like and how their experience compares to the present.

Now this is where it gets tricky. If you line up one thousand Nigerians who have lived through the various seasons of the nation’s history and ask them if the country was better in the 1960s, I can bet that there will be far more who would agree that the country used to be better. Why is that so? First, because human memory is prone to recall the past with nostalgia, and that makes for pessimism about the conditions of the present. The human brain is wired to scan the arc of personal history and promote the positive recollections of the past over those of the immediate present. It is sometimes called the declinism bias, and it is not peculiar to Nigerians. You find the echoes of the “good old days” in the “Make America Great Again” politics where a section of United States citizens thinks the old times were better than now when by every parameter, they are a richer and stronger country.

But in the case of Nigeria, people know what they are saying when they look back wistfully at the past and declare that life used to be better. I have older friends in their 70s, 80s, and 90s. Their recollection of how life used to be in Nigeria sometimes feels like the vision of the Nigeria I would love to see. If they are of the formally educated class, these folks would fondly recall the Nigeria where they received a sound education at all levels. Public schools were not as dilapidated; nobody ever recalls where students sat on the floor in their roofless classrooms. Public education was so good that the children of the elites attended the same schools as everyone else. You could be a poor village boy from rural Igbomina and attend Government College with the children of the powerful. Education was not as cheapened through private schools.

Those who made it to the university among them would recall receiving an education in the true sense of the word. Nobody needed to go to school abroad; Nigerian universities offered world-class education. They would recall a university system where the hostels were not crammed with students; the facilities worked, and undergraduates lived like actual human beings, unlike the appalling situation that subsists on most campuses. That was, of course, the generation that also had a quarter chicken for lunch on Sundays. People would also recall that fresh university graduates had jobs waiting for them after school, and you could buy a car with your salary. Whether they are educated or not, everyone can recall a time when the country was safe and secure, and one could travel through its length and breadth without fearing abduction by Fulani herdsmen. While the past might not be as picture-perfect as generally painted, there is enough substance in people’s recollections to demonstrate how much we have declined. The Nigeria some of us dream of living in has already been lived out by our forebears, imagine!

So yes, while the rebased GDP figures will expectedly look better, there is a lot of decline in the quality of our Nigerian life. Why do we even need to go as far as the 1960s to apprehend what has happened to our Nigerian lives? There are closer examples of a lack of progress. We are a country that once produced as much as 7,000MW of electricity in 2014. In 2025 and with multiple grid collapses, we struggle with 5,500MW. The Nigerian population has increased, and with it the demand for electricity, but the supply has only declined. Does anyone really need the GDP per capita to divine how a country that cannot sustain its modest gains would suffer socially and economically? An older relative once told me that the Energy Corporation of Nigeria—the company that supplied power in their youth—used to give an advance notification if there would be a power outage. Tell that to the generation of young Nigerians who have never lived in a world without the crazy hum of a generator bursting through their brains, and they would think you are lying.

Electricity is one aspect; the general state of public infrastructure is another. A generation has never witnessed a Nigeria where public utilities worked. Ask the young person living in Nigeria, where the GDP is supposedly 50 to 100 times better—a la Onanuga—if they know that we used to get water supply from a public water corporation, and they would perhaps be genuinely surprised. Look at places like our hospitals, especially the public ones, where people complement the paltry services they receive there with prayers and tell us how much better we have it. Even our leaders cannot entrust their lives to the public hospitals they fund. The slightest malady, and they are already on their way to France or the UK to receive proper healthcare.

In 2023, I visited the University College Hospital, Ibadan and what I saw there is a story best not told. Yes, the GDP must have multiplied about a hundred times since UCH was first founded in 1952, but nothing in that hospital currently reflects it. You can say the same for every aspect of our Nigerian lives. We have added many more zeroes to our national statistics, but our lives remain internally empty. Whereas countries like China and the UAE that lifted a huge percentage of their population out of poverty do not rely on media aides like Onanuga to sàlàyé progress on social media with spurious figures. Unlike our own situation, their results speak for themselves.

Punch

I worked at a financial magazine for much of my 20s, and for the most part I pulled down a very modest salary compared with many of my peers. 

I always tell people it was worth it, because I got an education. Writing and fact-checking that publication gave me access to a level of financial literacy I might never have found had I taken an internship at “Garden & Gun” or “US Weekly.” 

The people I worked with had spent decades in newsrooms and had forgotten more about personal finance than I’ll likely ever learn. They showed me how to write leads and headlines, as well as how to pick stocks and mutual funds. I owe my career — and my competitive salary — to those people. 

That’s likely why I found the career advice Warren Buffett gave at Saturday’s meeting of Berkshire Hathaway shareholders so heartening. “Don’t worry too much about starting salaries, and be very careful who you work for because you will take on the habits of the people around you,” the legendary investor said.

It’s advice he delivers regularly, and it seems to come from experience. Buffett didn’t know the salary he was agreeing to when he took a job with his mentor and value investing legend Benjamin Graham. “I found that out at the end of the month when I got my paycheck,” he told Gillian Zoe Segal for her book “Getting There: A Book of Mentors.”

It helped, in Buffett’s case, that the people he admired were some of the sharpest financial minds of all time — and that he is, too. But no matter your passion, Buffett says, prioritizing people over profits should serve you well over your career. 

“Who you associate with is enormously important,” Buffett said. “Don’t expect that you’ll make every decision right on that, but you are going to have your life progress in the general direction of the people that you work with, that you admire, that become your friends.”

CNBC

The Nigerian stock market maintained its bullish momentum on Tuesday, with investors recording substantial gains of ₦1.045 trillion on the Nigerian Exchange Ltd.

Market capitalization increased by 1.56% to reach ₦68.105 trillion, up from Monday's close of ₦67.060 trillion. Similarly, the All-Share Index (ASI) climbed by 1,662.60 points or 1.56%, settling at 108,361.10 from the previous day's 106,698.50.

This upward trend was fueled by strong investor interest in medium and large-cap stocks, particularly in the financial sector, including Access Corporation, Guaranty Trust Holding Company, and United Bank for Africa.

The market showed positive breadth with 42 gainers outpacing 25 losers. Among top performers, Ecobank Transnational Corporation and Northern Nigeria Flour Mills both surged by 10%, closing at ₦25.85 and ₦82.50 per share respectively. Nestlé Nigeria also gained 10% to finish at ₦1,210, while Beta Glass rose 9.98% to ₦132.80 and Austinlaz increased by 9.94% to ₦1.88 per share.

On the declining side, Guinea Insurance led with an 8.70% drop to 63 kobo, followed by DAAR Communications which fell 6.78% to 55 kobo. VFD Group decreased by 6.59% to ₦17.00, while WAPIC Insurance and Regalins shed 6.07% and 4.69%, closing at ₦2.01 and 61 kobo respectively.

Trading volume stood at 475.46 million shares valued at ₦13.899 billion across 17,575 transactions, compared to Monday's 569.041 million shares worth ₦18.934 billion in 18,612 deals.

Access Corporation dominated trading activity with 103.92 million shares worth ₦2.2 billion, followed by Guaranty Trust Holding Company with 37.99 million shares valued at ₦2.422 billion. United Bank for Africa, Sterling Bank Nigeria, and Zenith Bank rounded out the top five most actively traded stocks with transactions worth ₦1.04 billion, ₦147.24 million, and ₦1.234 billion respectively.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

Nigeria has approved a $652-million China Exim Bank funding package for construction of a road to move goods from a sea port and petroleum refinery on the edge of its main city Lagos to its southern states, the public works minister said.

The financing was approved by the federal executive council chaired by President Bola Tinubu on Monday, David Umahi said in a statement.

The road will be an evacuation corridor from the Lekki Deep Sea Port, the Dangote Petroleum Refinery - Africa's biggest with refining capacity of 650,000 barrels per day - and its adjoining fertiliser plant to at least a dozen southern states.

China has been providing billions of dollars in funding for power, rail and road projects in Nigeria, the continent's most populous nation and Africa's biggest oil producer.

Nigeria's debt to China - its largest bilateral creditor - stands at over $5 billion, the most recent data from the country's Debt Management Office showed.

Reuters

No fewer than six persons were killed in renewed attacks in Marit and Gashish communities of Barkin Ladi Local Government Council of Plateau State on Monday by gunmen.

The gunmen stormed the communities and started shooting sporadically, leaving several persons injured.

The Chairman of Barkin Ladi Local Government Council, Stephen Pwajok Gyang, in a statement signed by Mercy Yop Chuwang, his Press Secretary, confirmed the news to journalists.

According to the statement, the Council boss condemned the attacks that resulted in the loss of six innocent lives in Marit village and Gashish district.

During a visit to those injured in the attack at the Barkin Ladi General Hospital, Pwajok expressed profound sadness and disappointment over the resurgence of violence in the area, especially when the local government administration is working tirelessly to promote peace and stability.

Pwajok acknowledged the efforts of vigilantes and security agencies in maintaining law and order, while urging them to be more proactive and vigilant in preventing further attacks.

He emphasized that the cycle of violence must be brought to an end and called on all relevant stakeholders, including security agencies, community leaders, and residents, to join hands in promoting peace and security in Barkin Ladi.

The Guardian