The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has authorized telecommunications companies to implement their first tariff increase since 2013, though at a lower rate than requested. The approval caps the increase at 50%, falling short of the 100% hike sought by some operators.

In an announcement released Monday, NCC Director of Public Affairs Reuben Muoka explained that the decision was made under the commission's statutory authority to regulate telecommunications pricing. The adjustment aims to address the growing disparity between operational costs and existing tariffs while ensuring service quality remains uncompromised.

"This measured increase reflects our careful consideration of ongoing industry reforms and sustainability needs," the commission stated. The new rates will be implemented within the framework established by the 2013 NCC Cost Study and must comply with the recently introduced NCC Guidance on Tariff Simplification, 2024.

The decision follows mounting pressure from industry stakeholders. In December 2024, the Association of Licensed Telecommunications Operators of Nigeria (ALTON) warned of potential service disruptions if tariffs remained unchanged. The Association of Telecommunications Companies of Nigeria (ATCON) had also advocated for tariff revisions by early 2025, with MTN Nigeria's CEO Karl Toriola specifically calling for a 100% increase.

The NCC emphasized that the adjustment will enable telecommunications companies to invest in critical infrastructure and innovation, potentially leading to improved network quality, enhanced customer service, and expanded coverage. The commission arrived at this decision after extensive consultations with both public and private sector stakeholders, aiming to balance consumer protection with industry sustainability.

To protect consumer interests, the NCC has mandated that operators:

- Implement the new rates transparently and fairly

- Clearly communicate the tariff changes to customers

- Demonstrate concrete improvements in service delivery

The commission has pledged to maintain active engagement with all stakeholders to ensure the telecommunications sector continues to support Nigeria's digital economy while protecting consumer interests and sustaining the broader ecosystem that enables nationwide connectivity.

President Donald Trump delivered a 30-minute speech from the U.S. Capitol Rotunda, his second inaugural address to the American people. Here is a transcript:

Vice President Vance, Speaker Johnson, Senator Thune, Chief Justice Roberts, justices of the United States Supreme Court, President Clinton, President Bush, President Obama, President Biden, Vice President Harris and my fellow citizens:

The golden age of America begins right now. From this day forward, our country will flourish and be respected again all over the world. We will be the envy of every nation. And we will not allow ourselves to be taken advantage of any longer.

During every single day of the Trump administration, I will, very simply, put America first. Our sovereignty will be reclaimed. Our safety will be restored. The scales of justice will be rebalanced. The vicious, violent and unfair weaponization of the Justice Department and our government will end. And our top priority will be to create a nation that is proud and prosperous and free.

America will soon be greater, stronger, and far more exceptional than ever before. I return to the presidency confident and optimistic that we are at the start of a thrilling new era of national success. A tide of change is sweeping the country. Sunlight is pouring over the entire world, and America has the chance to seize this opportunity like never before.

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But first, we must be honest about the challenges we face. While they are plentiful, they will be annihilated by this great momentum that the world is now witnessing and the United States of America. As we gather today, our government confronts a crisis of trust. For many years, the radical and corrupt establishment has extracted power and wealth from our citizens. While the pillars of our society lay broken and seemingly in complete disrepair, we now have a government that cannot manage even a simple crisis at home while at the same time stumbling into a continuing catalog of catastrophic events abroad.

It fails to protect our magnificent, law-abiding American citizens but provides sanctuary and protection for dangerous criminals, many from prisons and mental institutions that have illegally entered our country from all over the world. We have a government that has given unlimited funding to the defense of foreign borders but refuses to defend American borders, or more importantly, its own people.

Our country can no longer deliver basic services in times of emergency, as recently shown by the wonderful people of North Carolina, who’ve been treated so badly. And other states who are still suffering from a hurricane that took place many months ago. Or more recently, Los Angeles, where we are watching fires still tragically burn from weeks ago without even a token of defense. They’re raging through the houses and communities, even affecting some of the wealthiest and most powerful individuals in our country, some of whom are sitting here right now. They don’t have a home any longer. That’s interesting.

But we can’t let this happen. Everyone is unable to do anything about it. That’s going to change. We have a public health system that does not deliver in times of disaster, yet more money is spent on it than any country anywhere in the world. And we have an education system that teaches our children to be ashamed of themselves, in many cases to hate our country despite the love that we try so desperately to provide to them. All of this will change starting today and will change very quickly.

Our recent election is a mandate to completely and totally reverse a horrible betrayal, and all of these many betrayals that have taken place, and to give the people back their faith, their wealth, their democracy and indeed their freedom. From this moment on, America’s decline is over.

Our liberties and our nation’s glorious destiny will no longer be denied and we will immediately restore the integrity, competency and loyalty of America’s government. Over the past eight years, I have been tested and challenged more than any president in our 250-year history, and I’ve learned a lot along the way. The journey to reclaim our Republic has not been an easy one, that I can tell you. Those who wish to stop our cause have tried to take my freedom and indeed to take my life. Just a few months ago, in a beautiful Pennsylvania field, an assassin’s bullet ripped through my ear. But I felt then, and believe even more so now, that my life was saved for a reason. I was saved by God to make America great again.

That is why each day under our administration of American patriots, we will be working to meet every crisis with dignity and power and strength. We will move with purpose and speed to bring back hope, prosperity, safety and peace for citizens of every race, religion, color and creed. For American citizens, Jan. 20, 2025, is Liberation Day.

It is my hope that our recent presidential election will be remembered as the greatest and most consequential election in the history of our country. As our victory showed, the entire nation is rapidly unifying behind our agenda with dramatic increases in support from virtually every element of our society. Young and old, men and women, African Americans, Hispanic Americans, Asian Americans, urban, suburban and rural. And, very importantly, we had a powerful win in all seven swing states and the popular vote. We won by millions of people.

To the Black and Hispanic communities, I want to thank you for the tremendous outpouring of love and trust that you have shown me with your vote. We set records, and I will not forget it. I’ve heard your voices in the campaign, and I look forward to working with you in the years to come.

Today is Martin Luther King Day and his honor — this will be a great honor — but in his honor, we will strive together to make his dream a reality. We will make his dream come true.

National unity is now returning to America and confidence and pride is soaring like never before. In everything we do my administration will be inspired by a strong pursuit of excellence and unrelenting success. We will not forget our country. We will not forget our Constitution. And we will not forget our God.

Today, I will sign a series of historic executive orders. With these actions, we will begin the complete restoration of America and the revolution of common sense. It’s all about common sense. First, I will declare a national emergency at our southern border. All illegal entry will immediately be halted. And we will begin the process of returning millions and millions of criminal aliens back to the places from which they came. We will reinstate my remain in Mexico policy. I will end the practice of catch and release. And I will send troops to the southern border to repel the disastrous invasion of our country. Under the orders I sign today we will also be designating the cartels as foreign terrorist organizations. And by invoking the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, I will direct our government to use the full and immense power of federal and state law enforcement to eliminate the presence of all foreign gangs and criminal networks bringing devastating crime to U.S. soil, including our cities and inner cities.

As commander in chief, I have no higher responsibility than to defend our country from threats and invasions. And that is exactly what I am going to do. We will do it at a level that nobody has ever seen before. Next, I will direct all members of my cabinet to marshal the vast powers at their disposal to defeat what was record inflation and rapidly bring down costs and prices. The inflation crisis was caused by massive overspending and escalating energy prices. And that is why today I will also declare a national energy emergency. We will drill, baby, drill.

America will be a manufacturing nation once again, and we have something that no other manufacturing nation will ever have: the largest amount of oil and gas of any country on Earth. And we are going to use it. We will bring prices down, fill our strategic reserves up again, right to the top, and export American energy all over the world. We will be a rich nation again. And it is that liquid gold under our feet that will help to do it.

With my actions today, we will end the Green New Deal and we will revoke the electric vehicle mandate, saving our auto industry and keeping my sacred pledge to our great American autoworkers. In other words, you’ll be able to buy the car of your choice. We will build automobiles in America again at a rate that nobody could have dreamt possible just a few years ago. And thank you to the auto workers of our nation for your inspiring vote of confidence. We did tremendously with their vote.

I will immediately begin the overhaul of our trade system to protect American workers and families. Instead of taxing our citizens to enrich other countries, we will tariff and tax foreign countries to enrich our citizens. For this purpose, we are establishing the External Revenue Service to collect all tariffs, duties and revenues. It will be massive amounts of money pouring into our treasury coming from foreign sources.

The American Dream will soon be back and thriving like never before. To restore confidence and effectiveness to our federal government, my administration will establish the brand new Department of Government Efficiency.

After years and years of illegal and unconstitutional federal efforts to restrict free expression, I will also sign an executive order to immediately stop all government censorship and bring back free speech to America. Never again will the immense power of the state be weaponized to persecute political opponents. Something I know something about. We will not allow that to happen. It will not happen again. Under my leadership, we will restore fair, equal and impartial justice under the Constitution and the rule of law. And we are going to bring law and order back to our cities.

This week, I will also end the government policy of trying to socially engineer race and gender into every aspect of public and private life. We will forge a society that is colorblind and merit based. As of today, it will henceforth be the official policy of the United States government that there are only two genders, male and female. This week I will reinstate any service members who were unjustly expelled from the military for objecting to the Covid vaccine mandate with full back pay. And I will sign an order to stop our warriors from being subjected to radical political theories and social experiments while on duty. It’s going to end immediately. Our armed forces will be free to focus on their sole mission—defeating America’s enemies. Like in 2017, we will again build the strongest military the world has ever seen.

We will measure our success not only by the battles we win but also by the wars that we end. And, perhaps most importantly, the wars we never get into. My proudest legacy will be that of a peacemaker and unifier. That’s what I want to be. A peacemaker and a unifier. I’m pleased to say that, as of yesterday, one day before I assumed office, the hostages in the Middle East are coming back home to their families.

America will reclaim its rightful place as the greatest, most powerful, most respected nation on earth, inspiring the awe and admiration of the entire world. A short time from now, we are going to be changing the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America. And we will restore the name of the great President William McKinley to Mount McKinley, where it should be and where it belongs. President McKinley made our country very rich through tariffs and through talent.

He was a natural businessman and gave Teddy Roosevelt the money for many of the great things he did, including the Panama Canal, which has foolishly been given to the country of Panama after the United States — the United States, I mean, think of this, spent more money than ever spent on a project before and lost 38,000 lives in the building of the Panama Canal. We have been treated very badly from this foolish gift that should have never been made. And Panama’s promise to us has been broken. The purpose of our deal and the spirit of our treaty has been totally violated. American ships are being severely overcharged and not treated fairly in any way, shape or form, and that includes the United States Navy. And above all, China is operating the Panama Canal. And we didn’t give it to China, we gave it to Panama, and we’re taking it back.

Above all, my message to Americans today is that it is time for us to once again act with courage, vigor and the vitality of history’s greatest civilization. So as we liberate our nation, we will lead it to new heights of victory and success. We will not be deterred. Together, we will end the chronic disease epidemic and keep our children safe, healthy and disease free. The United States will once again consider itself a growing nation, one that increases our wealth, expands our territory, builds our cities, raises our expectations and carries our flag into new and beautiful horizons. And we will pursue our manifest destiny into the stars, launching American astronauts to plant the Stars and Stripes on the planet Mars.

And it’s the lifeblood of a great nation. And, right now, our nation is more ambitious than any other. There’s no nation like our nation. Americans are explorers, builders, innovators, entrepreneurs and pioneers. The spirit of the frontier is written into our hearts. The call of the next great adventure resounds from within our souls. Our American ancestors turned a small group of colonies on the edge of a vast continent into a mighty republic of the most extraordinary citizens on Earth. No one comes close. Americans pushed thousands of miles through a rugged land of untamed wilderness. They crossed deserts, scaled mountains, braved untold dangers, won the Wild West, ended slavery, rescued millions from tyranny, lifted millions from poverty, harnessed electricity, split the atom, launched mankind into the heavens and put the universe of human knowledge into the palm of the human hand. If we work together, there is nothing we cannot do and no dream we cannot achieve.

Many people thought it was impossible for me to stage such a historic political comeback. But as you see today, here I am. The American people have spoken. I stand before you now as proof that you should never believe that something is impossible to do. In America, the impossible is what we do best. From New York to Los Angeles, from Philadelphia to Phoenix, from Chicago to Miami, from Houston to right here in Washington, D.C., our country was forged and built by the generations of patriots who gave everything they had for our rights and for our freedom. They were farmers and soldiers, cowboys and factory workers, steel workers and coal miners, police officers and pioneers who pushed onward, marched forward and let no obstacle defeat their spirit or their pride. Together they laid down the railroads, raised up the skyscrapers, built great highways, won two world wars, defeated fascism and communism, and triumphed over every single challenge that they faced.

After all we have been through together, we stand on the verge of the four greatest years in American history. With your help, we will restore an American promise and we will rebuild the nation that we love. And we love it so much. We are one people, one family and one glorious nation under God. So to every parent who dreams for their child and every child to dreams for their future: I am with you, I will fight for you and I will win for you. And we’re going to win like never before.

In recent years, our nation has suffered greatly. But we are going to bring it back and make it great again. Greater than ever before. We will be a nation like no other. Full of compassion, courage and exceptionalism. Our power will stop all wars and bring a new spirit of unity to a world that has been angry, violent, and totally unpredictable.

America will be respected again and admired again, including by people of religion, faith and goodwill. We will be prosperous. We will be proud. We will be strong and we will win like never before. We will not be conquered. We will not be intimidated. We will not be broken. And we will not fail.

From this day on, the United States of America will be a free, sovereign and independent nation. We will stand bravely. We will live proudly. We will dream boldly, and nothing will stand in our way. Because we are Americans. The future is ours. And our golden age has just begun.

Thank you. God bless America. Thank you all. Thank you.

AP

The death toll from a fuel truck explosion in Nigeria has climbed to 98 after additional bodies were recovered on Monday, according to the Niger state emergency agency. The blast occurred on Saturday in Dikko, Niger State, after a petrol truck overturned and ignited while people were gathering fuel from the wreckage.

Abdullahi Baba-Ara, Director-General of the Niger State Emergency Management Agency, confirmed that 80 victims were buried in a mass grave near a health center in Dikko over the weekend. “After clearing the wreckage of the Dikko tanker, we discovered 12 more bodies today, raising the death toll to 98,” Baba-Ara told Reuters.

The explosion also left 69 people hospitalized with injuries.

This tragedy is the deadliest fuel truck explosion since October, when a similar incident in Jigawa State claimed 147 lives. Such accidents have become frequent in Nigeria, Africa’s largest oil producer, as the country struggles with a severe cost-of-living crisis.

Fuel prices have soared since President Bola Tinubu removed a petrol subsidy in 2023, further straining the population and contributing to the desperation that often leads people to risk their lives collecting fuel from tanker accidents.

WESTERN PERSPECTIVE

Ukraine detains two generals accused of negligence in defending against Russian offensive

Ukraine's State Investigation Bureau (DBR) said on Monday it had detained two generals and a colonel suspected of negligence in failing to adequately defend against a Russian offensive in the Kharkiv region last year.

The DBR said in a statement on Telegram the detained officers were the former chief commander of the Kharkiv frontline, a former commander of a brigade and a former commander of an infantry battalion. It did not give their names.

Russia launched an assault across the border in May 2024 into Ukraine's northern region of Kharkiv, advancing by several kilometres in the first few days.

The attack alarmed Ukraine, causing President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to cancel scheduled foreign trips and fire several military commanders as he dealt with the unfolding crisis.

Ukraine's military was eventually able to halt the Russian advance about 25 kilometres away from the edge of Kharkiv, Ukraine's second largest city, which Russia had unsuccessfully attempted to capture at the start of its invasion in 2022 before pulling back.

The DBR said it had co-operated with Ukraine's domestic intelligence service in the case, and had been assisted by the defence ministry and the military command.

RUSSIAN PERSPECTIVE

Russian troops liberate two communities in Donbass region over past day — top brass

Russian troops liberated two communities in the Donbass region over the past day in the special military operation in Ukraine, Russia’s Defense Ministry reported on Monday.

"Battlegroup West units liberated the settlement of Novoyegorovka in the Lugansk People’s Republic as a result of active combat operations… Battlegroup Center units kept moving deep into the enemy’s defenses and liberated the settlement of Shevchenko in the Donetsk People’s Republic," the ministry said in a statement.

Reuters/Tass

Some prominent economists argue that the revolution in artificial intelligence – particularly the rapid development of generative AI – will have only moderate effects on productivity growth but unambiguously negative effects on employment, owing to the automation of many tasks and jobs. We disagree on both counts.

When it comes to productivity growth, AI’s impact can operate through two distinct channels: automating tasks in the production of goods and services, and automating tasks in the production of new ideas. When Erik Brynjolfssonand his co-authors recently examined the impact of generative AI on customer-service agents at a US software firm, they found that productivity among workers with access to an AI assistant increased by almost 14% in the first month of use, then stabilized at a level approximately 25% higher after three months. Another study finds similarly strong productivity gains among a diverse group of knowledge workers, with lower-productivity workers experiencing the strongest initial effects, thus reducing inequality within firms.

Moving from the micro to the macro level, in a 2024 paper, we (Aghion and Bunel) considered two alternatives for estimating the impact of AI on potential growth over the next decade. The first approach exploits the parallel between the AI revolution and past technological revolutions, while the second follows Daron Acemoglu’s task-based framework, which we consider in light of the available data from existing empirical studies.

Based on the first approach, we estimate that the AI revolution should increase aggregate productivity growth by 0.8-1.3 percentage points per year over the next decade. Similarly, using Acemoglu’s task-based formula, but with our own reading of the recent empirical literature, we estimate that AI should increase aggregate productivity growth by between 0.07 and 1.24 percentage points per year, with a median estimate of 0.68. In comparison, Acemoglu projects an increase of only 0.07 percentage points.

Moreover, our estimated median should be seen as a lower bound, because it does not account for AI’s potential to automate the production of ideas. On the other hand, our estimates do not account for potential obstacles to growth, notably the lack of competition in various segments of the AI value chain, which are already controlled by the digital revolution’s superstar firms.

What about AI’s implications for overall employment? In a new study of French firm-level data collected between 2018 and 2020, we show that AI adoption is positively associated with an increase in total firm-level employment and sales. This finding is consistent with most recent studies of the firm-level effects of automation on labor demand, and it supports the view that AI adoption induces productivity gains by helping firms expand the scope of their business.

This productivity effect appears to be stronger than AI’s potential displacement effects (whereby AI takes over tasks associated with certain types of jobs and workers, thus reducing labor demand). We find that the impact of AI on labor demand is positive even for occupations that are often classified as vulnerable to automation, such as accounting, telemarketing, and secretarial work. To be sure, while certain uses of AI (such as for digital security) lead to positive employment growth, other uses (administrative processes) do tend to have small negative effects. But these differences appear to stem from different uses of AI, rather than from inherent characteristics of the affected occupations.

All told, the main risk for workers is that they will be displaced by workers at other firms using AI, rather than by AI directly. Slowing down the pace of AI adoption would likely be self-defeating for domestic employment, because many firms will be competing internationally with AI adopters.

While our interpretation of the data shows that AI could drive both growth and employment, realizing this potential will require suitable policy reforms. For example, competition policy must ensure that the superstar firms that dominate the upper segments of the value chain do not stifle entry by new innovators. Our own study finds that AI adopters are predominantly much larger and more productive than non-adopters, suggesting that those already on top are positioned to be the biggest winners of the AI revolution.

To avoid increased market concentration and entrenched market power, we must encourage AI adoption by smaller firms, which can be achieved through a combination of competition policy and suitable industrial policy that improves access to data and computing power. To enhance the employment potential of AI and minimize its negative effects on workers, broad-based access to high-quality education, together with training programs and active labor-market policies, will be crucial.

The next technological revolution is already underway. The future of entire countries and economies will hinge on their willingness and ability to adapt to it.

Project Syndicate

Behold, the once-glowing beacon of governance in Abuja—the Presidential Villa—was plunged into darkness. Not metaphorically this time (although there’s an argument to be made), but literally. The theft of 40 meters of power cables supplying electricity to the nerve center of Nigeria’s political power left its occupants fumbling for flashlights and wondering what it felt like to live like the average Nigerian. Spoiler alert: it’s not fun.

How poetic that the very symbol of power became powerless, brought low not by international intrigue or high-level espionage, but by the humble efforts of vandals armed with wire cutters and a keen eye for scrap metal profits. The Presidential Villa shared a fate long familiar to Nigerians: a sudden, inexplicable blackout and a half-hearted assurance that someone, somewhere, was working to fix it.

But let us hope that the bandits roaming the nation, who have already turned highways and villages into theaters of terror, don’t see this successful act of vandalism as a sign of weakness. What happens if they, emboldened by this small victory, decide to extend their reach into the very corridors of power? One shudders to imagine the day when the Presidential Villa’s occupants might find themselves negotiating not with world leaders, but with bandits demanding ransom.

Yet this moment should be a sobering experience for our rulers. For years, they have been insulated from the sufferings of the masses—epileptic power supply, insecurity, hunger, and roads more cratered than the moon. But now, as they sat in candlelit rooms, sweating in the heat and straining to hear the hum of a distant generator, perhaps they would understand that the dysfunction they created and which they so expertly ignore is no longer confined to the lives of ordinary Nigerians. It has reached their doorstep.

Alas, this is not the first instance of irony visiting Aso Rock. This is the same government that claims to be waging war on insecurity but cannot protect its own power cables. The same leaders who boast about the nation’s development while sending engineers scurrying to patch up basic infrastructure. If they cannot keep the lights on in the most fortified building in the country, what hope do the rest of us have?

So here we are: a country where the “giants of Africa” find themselves brought to their knees by petty thieves. The Presidential Villa may have regained its power, but the question remains: will its rulers regain their credibility? Or shall we continue to live in a nation where the greatest threat to power isn’t an opposition party, but a determined vandal with a toolbox and a dream?

While very few Nigerian children are still able to have tea and bread under the warm roof of their parents, many are now sourcing for their daily bread (scavenging) from refuse dumps.

Beginning from the new year, many of these children, between the ages of nine and 14, can be seen carrying sacks filled with various kinds of dirt, ranging from used cartons, empty drink cans and used plastic bottles and bowls.

Economy&Lifestyle’s encounter with Jacob Olorunfemi, a 10-year-old, revealed that the economy is dealing blows of hunger and difficulty on his parents and making him unable to attend lessons.

“I don’t go to lessons anymore because my parents said there is no money, after the Christmas celebration.
“I usually attend a lesson like school, where I pay N500 per week.

“My mother usually sweeps and wash clothes for customers.
“My father works at a bus park.

“I have a friend called Sule. He is twelve years old. He used to pick used plastics and condemned items and sell them.

“His mother beg for alms for a living.

“He advised me to join him in this scavenging routine and I have been able to save N2,000 since I started.”

Another encounter with Yekini Salam, an eleven year old, revealed that his father was late and had left him with his step mother who also had three children to take care of. This has led him to a scavenging routine for survival.

“I have not been in school for years. I dropped out when I lost my father. I don’t know who my mother is but I have a step mother and three step brothers.

“I usually hawk wares for my step mother. But last year she asked me to stop.

“Sometimes I help people run errands and they give me tokens in the form of food or cash for appreciation.

“Recently, I had to join some of my friends who are a little above my age in the scavenging routine.
“I move around places sourcing for plastics, cans and bottles.

“There are people who I sell it to. The materials are scaled and I am paid.

“I want to save enough money to learn aluminium window and door-frame construction skills.”

Commenting on the development, Amos Magbagbeola, a human rights activist said: “This is a very painful and worrisome situation presently in the country.

“You see children labouring day and night like adults just to feed.

“Such is an aftermath of the country’s present economic situation, which has degraded parents to struggling a hundred times more than they did years back to achieve the same or little outcome.

“Children are all over the streets begging for alms. These children are supposed to be in school.

“Even the public schools no longer give full free education. Children now buy their textbooks, and writing materials and even pay fees for some services rendered.

“The government needs to act fast, as this is becoming a menace in the country and doesn’t position us in a good light internationally.”

On her part, Juliana Obuh, a civil servant, said: “The situation is getting serious daily.
“Everywhere you see underage children begging alms for survival, doing all sorts of menial jobs and I wonder where their parents are.

“Even parents are living from hand to mouth now.

“The rate of poverty is now higher than before and the children are unfortunate to find themselves stuck in this predicament.

“How won’t they be used for perpetrating fraud and other evil deeds? Doing all these menial jobs harden their hearts and, because of their easy nature, they easily fall prey and remain targets of fraudsters to easily achieve their aims.

“The government needs to act fast because these children are the nation tomorrow.”

Vanguard