MTN Nigeria Communications Plc went public on the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) last week, and that came with a historic miracle that saw equities traded on the NSE jump by ₦1.9 billion on a single day.

The NSE, which has been on the downward spiral since the elections ended, rose to a milestone of 12.52 trillion naira. That was fuelled by the listing of MTN’s 20.35 billion shares, worth ₦1.83 trillion, and the frenzy it brought to the stock market.

The telecommunication firm came in with an unequalled streak that could see it top the nation’s list of most valuable brands in a very short while. One fact is the huge capitalisation it started with, then its performance in less than a week of going public has remained promising, exceeding expectations on all ends.

Read full story here: https://qwenu.com/2019/05/20/mtns-listing-shakes-the-tables-at-the-nigerian-stock-exchange-the-company-could-become-the-most-valuable-brand-in-nigeria/

The fears that the 2019 Nigerian general elections, especially the presidential polls, might have been compromised have just gotten messier. A United States-based research firm revealed that an Israeli firm (Archimedes) actively used Facebook to dent the reputation of the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Atiku Abubakar, possibly in favour of the ruling PDP.

The discovery got to a head when Facebook closed some accounts allegedly set up by the Tel Aviv-based firm named Archimedes, which publicised information against Atiku while boosting the campaign of President Muhammadu Buhari. There are fresh indications that the APC might have been behind this.

Read full story here: https://qwenu.com/2019/05/20/the-2019-nigerian-elections-facebook-apc-and-pdp-the-archimedes-controversy/

Bilikiss Adebiyi-Abiola, the founder and Chief Executive Officer of Wecyclers has created a new narrative in Nigeria’s recycling industry. The social enterprise came with a long-needed model for waste collection, enabling it to record massive growth and impact within a very short while.

Perturbed by the huge heaps of waste that envelope Lagos communities, Adebiyi-Abiola, who holds an MBA from MIT Sloan and a few other qualifications, put a team together to establish a waste recycling company in 2012. She funded Wecyclers from scratch until it received $55,000 support from the Steve Case Foundation in 2015.

Read full story here: https://qwenu.com/2019/05/17/qwenus-top-companies-changing-africa-wecyclers-disrupting-waste-recycling-in-nigeria/

The Fulani cattle breeders group, Miyetti Allah Kautal Hore, seems to have grown so many wings and Nigerians are beginning to think that the group is getting out of control by making demands that are simply impossible to meet.

Over the past few years, the group has continued to place a demand on the government, even going as far as defending activities of killer herdsmen, claiming that the killings are ignited by the refusal of farmers to allow cows graze on their cultivated lands. Insolence couldn’t have been higher!

Now again, Miyetti Allah wants Nigeria to cough out ₦100billion for them, as part of the needs to make peace happen, and stop the crimes being perpetrated by members of the group.

Read full story here: https://qwenu.com/2019/05/17/₦100-billion-really-why-nigerians-think-that-miyetti-allah-is-getting-out-of-control/

Despite various debates on gender balance in Nigerian politics, the number of women in elective positions has remained considerably low. The political scene has been a game for the men, and the terms of play are, in most cases, too stringent for an average Nigerian woman.

In a recent figure released by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), a total of 2,970 contested for different political offices in the 2019 general elections, but out of all these, only 62 actually got elected.

Read full story here: https://qwenu.com/2019/05/16/women-in-nigerian-politics-is-gender-balance-still-achievable/

Oil importation has been a major source of revenue for Nigeria. The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) became the sole importer of petroleum products to the country at the outset of President Buhari’s administration in 2015. The rationale behind this has remained vague, but the government has insisted on removing private sector participation in the importation process.

Before now, the NNPC was responsible for importing 60 per cent of petroleum product, while private importers take care of the 40% left. But since the downstream sector regulator took over the monopoly, local shipping companies have become crippled.

Read full article here: https://qwenu.com/2019/05/16/oil-importation-how-nnpc-is-frustrating-shipping-businesses-in-nigeria/

Medical tourism has been practised by Nigerian politicians for decades, Recently, there have been calls from stakeholders across Nigeria requesting regulations that ban public officials from leaving the country for medical treatment. The argument was further fuelled by repeated medical trips taken by President Buhari during his early days in office.

Both the presidency and federal lawmakers have kept mum about this, until recently when a bill to stop ‘medical tourism’ was introduced at the House of Representatives. As expected, the lawmakers condemned and reject the bill in unison. Though the bill already scaled second reading last year, when it came up again on Tuesday, it was voted down.

In their arguments, the legislators claimed that the legislation breaches the right of public officials.

Read full article on Qwenu: https://qwenu.com/2019/05/15/medical-tourism-is-it-right-for-nigeria-to-ban-public-officials-from-traveling-overseas-for-health-care-or-not/

Almajiri – a word which was originally used in Islam to describe people who leave their home in search of knowledge, now has a whole different meaning in northern Nigeria. In virtually every part of the north, you will find homeless children roaming the streets aimlessly, begging for food and doing all manner of child labour.

Looking at their numbers, one would wonder if they ever have parents, and surprisingly, many of them do. It’s the perfect description of the rot and poverty in the north, and definitely, the failure of Nigeria’s leaders to address this pressing need. Any erudite Nigerian knows for certain that Nigeria’s poverty index can be largely traced to the north.

Read full article here: https://qwenu.com/2019/05/15/neglect-of-almajiris-in-nigeria-are-northern-elites-breeding-the-next-generation-of-terrorists/

For those who don’t know the antecedents of Kaduna State governor, Nasir El-Rufai, he will appear to be a voice for the masses and a ranking politician in Nigeria. Of course, being a governor, he holds sway in the nation’s polity and even got himself re-elected in March. But one thing that can not be disconnected from El-Rufai is the reckless pursuit of his political ambition especially the recent issues with Bola Tinubu and godfatherism.

The governor is fond of stepping on toes of whomsoever, to get what he wants. His approach is to come in with humility, gather influence, and expel the homeowner. Perhaps many would have forgotten that El-Rufai once served under former president Olusegun Obasanjo as the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT). In fact, the modernisation of the nation’s capital has roots in his efforts.

Read full article here: https://qwenu.com/2019/05/14/el-rufai-vs-bola-tinubu-an-over-ambitious-politician-heading-to-his-own-fall/

What exactly are you to do if you get arrested by the Nigerian Police? Good question right.

In a move to promote cordial police-citizens relationship, the Nigeria Police Force (NPF) has released a new set of guidelines including tips for safe conduct rightful during an arrest. It’s no news that most of the allegations of police brutalities and misconduct are traced to the periods of an arrest.

The Nigerian Police note that if an arrest is not properly handled, it can portray the suspect as a hostile person or give the impression that he is resisting an arrest which on its own constitutes an offence.

Read full guide here: https://qwenu.com/2019/05/14/what-to-do-if-you-get-arrested-nigerian-police-tips-for-safe-conduct-during-an-arrest/

Many countries of the world, including Nigeria, depend on natural resources to thrive – grow the economy, maintain foreign exchange and build wealth. The depth at which a country can farm and utilise these resources particularly those specific to the mining sector could determine its level of wealth.

Nigeria boasts of talc, gypsum, iron ore, lead, bitumen, coal, rock salt, gold, gemstones, kaolin, and crude oil, all in abundance. But while we enjoy all these, we’ve allowed ourselves to be cornered into relying on oil alone.

Gold miners in the country raked ₦353 billion in income between 2016 and 2018, and that was only from the few fields they could mine, which are even illegal. So, this implies that a coordinated approach to mining and selling the nation’s mineral resources could transform our revenue generation, which is a dire need at this moment.

Read full article here: https://qwenu.com/2019/05/13/how-nigeria-can-make-the-mining-sector-the-new-oil/

The whole of Africa was left in frenzy to see Jumia Technologies, the leading pan-African e-commerce platform, list on the New York Stock Exchange. Codenamed NYSE: JMIA, the company started on an amazing opening price of $14.50, and it would go on to settle at $25.46 per share a the end of trading on April 12.

But barely a month after this sensational listing that saw its market capitalisation climb to $3.9 billion., Jumia was badly hit by a report credited to US-based Citron Research, which claimed the Initial Public Offering (IPO) is a fraud.

Read full story here: https://qwenu.com/2019/05/13/fraud-allegations-against-jumia-could-spell-doom-for-future-african-ipos/

The crisis in the North started as mere misunderstandings between herdsmen and farmers in Benue, Taraba and a handful of other states, but now, the whole of the North-West geopolitical zone has been plunged into unending bloody violence, banditry with food insecurity looming because most of the target communities are agrarian, and as such, farmers are at the receiving end of the continued onslaught.

The North accounts for the largest percentage of foods the 201-million Nigerians live on. So, attacks on farmers could only mean that our major source of food security is being threatened.

Thousands have been forced to abandon their farms in order to escape these criminals. Many others who took the courage to stay back are made to live in hell, if not killed by the bandits.

Read full article here: https://qwenu.com/2019/05/10/rise-in-banditry-food-insecurity-looms-in-nigeria/

Nigeria’s anti-corruption agency, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), grew horns and became highly efficient at the outset of President Buhari’s administration. In less than four years, the success recorded outshines its total victories since its establishment, and that could be traced to the unwavering anti-corruption stance of the president.

But the EFCC has failed to free itself from nepotism and undue bias, thus putting its efficacy to question. While politicians from the opposition like Alison-Diezani Madueke, Joshua Dariye and many others have been convicted of stealing public funds, others within the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) have been shielded. The grass-cutting scandal of Babachir Lawal, the ‘gandollar’ scandal of Kano governor, Abdullahi Ganduje have all been swept under the carpet.

Read full story here: https://qwenu.com/2019/05/10/efcc-leaving-ganduje-to-chase-after-nyesom-wike-is-the-peak-of-bias/

The political woes of Imo state governor, Rochas Okorocha have reached the peak where he openly declared his regret for being a member of the All Progressives Congress (APC). He is frustrated that both his party and the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) refuse to recognise him as the senator-elect for Imo West Senatorial District.

He cried out that he had been afflicted with the ‘greatest devilish political machinations’ against his person 10 times more than what he would have been inflicted with if he were to be a member of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).

Read full story here: https://qwenu.com/2019/05/09/rochas-okorocha-orchestrated-his-own-political-downfall/

When the Minister of Labour and Employment, Dr Chris Ngige, claimed Nigeria has too many doctors to be worried about the thousands leaving for developed nations each year, Nigerians slammed him for being delusional about plights of the nation’s health sector. We had thought his only problem was his loss of touch with realities of the country, but on Wednesday, he proved us wrong that he has no regard for human rights and the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC).

Leaders of the NLC and the National Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas (NUPENG) were at Ngige’s residence to protest his failure to inaugurate the board of National Social Insurance Trust Fund (NSITF) with Frank Kokori as chairman. But the minister greeted them with thugs.

Read full story here: https://qwenu.com/2019/05/09/chris-ngige-vs-nigeria-labour-congress-how-nepotism-led-to-the-violent-clash-that-injured-many/

In less than two months after he was re-elected as Kano state governor, Abdullahi Ganduje has resumed his oppression and despotic style of leadership, starting with alleged moves to remove Muhammad Sanusi II as the Emir of Kano over trumped-up charges.

Earlier this week, the Kano State Public Complaints and Anti-corruption Commission reopened an investigation into the expenditure of the state emirate council under Sanusi II.

Ganduje has been on Sanusi’s throats since 2017 when the Emir criticised his corrupt manner of awarding contracts to Chinese companies, and his insatiable penchant for foreign trips.

Read full story here: https://qwenu.com/2019/05/08/who-will-save-emir-sanusi-from-abdullahi-ganduje-the-despotic-kano-governor/

The need to reach rural dwellers with medical care spurred a world-acclaimed innovation in China. Its adoption of internet hospitals has revolutionised the global health sector and set a precedent for all-inclusive healthcare delivery.

The acute respiratory syndrome epidemic of 2003 left an indelible and painful memory in China, which fuelled an aggressive drive to invest in primary health-care institutions. While these local facilities are fast increasing, there’s still a huge gap to be filled, to cater to the country’s 1.4-billion population. That’s where internet hospitals come in.

Read full article here: https://qwenu.com/2019/05/08/a-sneak-peek-at-chinas-internet-hospitals/

Since the local government reforms of 1976, state governors have become lords over the councils within their domain. They call the shots, from influencing the choice of leaders to controlling their finances as they please. This is made easy with the joint account for allocations shared by each state and the local government areas under it.

This overbearing role has stalled the growth of rural areas, thus fueling the call for local government autonomy. But, as one would have expected, most governors stood against it. That the autonomy was delayed until now could be traced to the stance of these state governors.

However, the federal government has taken the first leap to break this influence by blocking states from meddling in council allocations. Henceforth,...

Read full article here: https://qwenu.com/2019/05/07/nigeria-strips-states-of-their-overbearing-influence-on-local-government-administrations/

The penchant of the President Buhari administration for borrowing has now reached the level of impeding the growth of our economy. Following a report from the Debt Management Office (DMO), which puts Nigeria’s debt profile at ₦ 24.387 trillion (trn), analysts have expressed worries that this won’t end well for the economy.

In apparent fulfilment of that, foreign investors have started voicing their concerns about the cost of Nigeria’s debt and how the proceeds of bond sales are utilised. While many investors still perceive Nigeria as a lucrative market, the debt indices are specks of dirt on the government’s capacity to sustain the economy in the long run.

Read full article here: https://qwenu.com/2019/05/07/how-nigerias-debt-burden-is-hurting-foreign-investments/

The growth of payment technology and advanced banking systems are not without their downsides. The speedy growth we enjoy is being marred by heavy losses due to internet fraud. Customers, businesses and banks themselves are all becoming victims of fraudsters. But this could only mean that our cybersecurity infrastructure in Nigeria is too weak compared to our pace of adopting new technologies.

The Nigeria Electronic Fraud Forum (NeFF), under the leadership of Sam Okojere, disclosed that 63,895 bank customers lost N3.6bn to cyberfraud in two years, 2017 and 2018.

Read full article here: https://qwenu.com/2019/05/06/poor-cybersecurity-in-nigeria-leads-to-₦3-6-billion-loss-from-internet-frauds-in-two-years/

The Governor of Kaduna State, Mallam Nasir El-Rufai, on Saturday offered some tips on how godfathers could be tamed in Nigeria’s political space. He based his assertion on the feat he achieved in his state, where he claimed to have defeated and retired four political godfathers.

Having won the 2019 polls against the wish of many godfathers in his state, El-Rufai is confident that godfatherism could be defeated anywhere, including Lagos state.

Read about his method, and why it can't work in Lagos: https://qwenu.com/2019/05/06/the-indomitable-bola-tinubu-why-el-rufais-strategy-against-godfathers-cant-work-in-lagos/

Schools and children facilities have always been excluded in attacks during wars, and even, insurgents respect that boundary. But that’s not the case with criminals in Nigeria, who capitalise on the little security concentration in schools for the abduction of innocent school pupils. They take them away in large numbers and use them as bargaining tools with security forces, or simply reduce them to booties of war.

Now again, bandits in Zamfara are becoming another threat to the young girls seeking to be educated.

Some gunmen on Wednesday night invaded the Government Girls’ Secondary School, Moriki, Zurmi Local Government Area of Zamfara State, and abducted five persons including two caterers and three children.

Read full story here: https://qwenu.com/2019/05/03/before-the-abduction-of-chibok-and-dapchi-school-girls-repeats-itself-in-nigeria/

The fight against corruption in Nigeria has been more about government officials syphoning public funds, and that’s truly a huge mountain to climb on its own. With the volume of cases in the public sector, we have hardly had time to monitor the private sector in Nigeria.

The Western Metal Products Company (WEMPCO) produces enamelware, a key raw material for the production of iron sheets and similar metals in Nigeria. In a bid to localise the production of such products and reduce reliance on imports, the federal government had given WEMPCO the exclusive rights and waivers to help it manufacture the materials in the country.

The 40-year-old firm became the authorised sole distributor of cold-rolled iron sheet, used in the manufacturing of roofing sheets and annealed iron sheets. But the company allegedly went on to abuse these rights.

Read full story here: https://qwenu.com/2019/05/03/the-wempco-fiasco-nigerias-iron-sheet-industry-on-the-brink-of-collapse/

The fight against Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) has been at the centre of the global campaign for girl’s right for some time now. Cutting women’s Instruments at a young age is practiced in most African countries, and many rights groups have pushed for reforms that criminalise the act with little success.

41% of Nigerian women are already circumcised and millions more are at the risk of becoming victims of this inhuman tradition. While many states already have laws prohibiting FGM, the implementation is at an ignobly low level, allowing rural chiefs and traditionalists to continue the act.

This came to bear in a research conducted by an anti-FGM initiative, Value Re-Orientation for Community Enhancement, which touched on three southwestern states of Oyo, Osun and Ekiti.

Read full story here: https://qwenu.com/2019/05/02/southwest-communities-in-nigeria-where-refusing-female-genital-mutilation-has-become-a-criminal-offense/

No country of the world would quickly forget the geopolitical tension that shook the world during the half-century-long Cold War. The terrific show of might between the United States and the then Soviet Union almost ruined the peace that took two global wars to acquire. To an average historian, it would be reckless of any country of the world to want to return to that era.

But unfortunately, the United States might have just ignited a fire capable of doing just that. US President Donald Trump had said his country would pull out of the global arms treaty that ended the cold war.

Read full story here: https://qwenu.com/2019/05/02/global-arms-control-the-impact-of-the-united-states-withdrawal-from-the-intermediate-range-nuclear-forces-treaty/

The spate of insecurity has continued to increase in the country, with the rate of most crimes now at a record high. Indiscriminate killings, kidnapping and armed robberies have continued to thrive in Nigeria, and unfortunately, our security forces and the federal government have also continued to fail Nigerians.

The acting Inspector-General of Police, Alhaji Mohammed Adamu, has just released the data for crime rates in the country for the first quarter of 2019, which states that 1,071 persons lost their lives during this period. These are the cases recorded by the police, which means actual numbers could be much higher.

Read full article here: https://qwenu.com/2019/05/01/the-most-dangerous-states-in-nigeria-crime-index-for-2019-q1-1071-deaths-212-armed-robberies/

Barely two years after the country recovered from a biting recession, the Nigeria Governors’ Forum (NGF), under the chairmanship of governor Abdulaziz Yari of Zamfara, has warned newly-elected governors to be prepared for another of recession in Nigeria.

Since the 2016 recession ended, most state governors have resorted to borrowing and bailout from the federal government to sustain themselves and their responsibilities. But now the attitude of solving economic problems with debt could reverse the growth of our economy.

Read full article here: https://qwenu.com/2019/05/01/looming-recession-in-nigeria-the-tasks-before-the-incoming-governors/

Political leaders in Nigeria are fond of trivialising violence, crimes and social disorders until it gets out of hand. It was how Boko Haram, which started out as an ordinary religious movement in 2001, translated into a dreaded terrorist organisation eight years later.

The operations of bandits in Zamfara and other Northwestern states was also taken for granted for months, with hundreds of people killed unjustifiably. It wasn’t until some communities were completely annihilated that the Federal Government deployed military force to restore peace in affected areas.

Now again, the killings, kidnappings, armed robberies and myriad of crimes happening on the express-road linking Abuja to Kaduna is again being treated with kid gloves, despite the frequency.

Read full story here: https://qwenu.com/2019/04/30/crimes-on-abuja-kaduna-expressway-how-many-people-will-become-victims-before-the-federal-government-acts/

For the past five years, Nigeria has been on the downward slope of poverty, with millions of citizens entering this unfortunate net year-on-year. As a direct result, crime rate has become record high, and depression is hitting hard on citizens. Only for the undaunting spirit of Nigerians, suicide rates would have become too high to count.

In its supposed masses-inclined mind, the administration of President Buhari thought the best thing to do is to find ways to distribute some money to people, so they could survive. It’s a quick-fix, which the government think could save our country from the damning poverty index.

But how long can this sustain us?

Read full article here: https://qwenu.com/2019/04/30/social-safety-nets-fgs-way-of-rationalising-extreme-poverty/

Just a couple of weeks back, I shared an article about the severance allowance for outgoing members of the National Assembly, which runs to over ₦1.3 trillion Naira. If we pay-off lawmakers with 15% of our annual budget, what is left for the whole country to live on?

While the debate about that is just fading, the members of the state house of assembly in Bayelsa have just passed a new bill demanding life pensions for themselves.

The bill, which is now awaiting assent from the state governor, Seriake Dickson, proposed ₦500,000 monthly pay for the Speaker; ₦200,000 for the Deputy Speaker, and ₦100,000 for each of the 24 other members of the House.

Read full story here: https://qwenu.com/2019/04/29/the-controversy-in-bayelsa-over-life-pension-for-state-legislatures/

Professor Usman Yusuf, the embattled Executive Secretary of the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS), is getting away with too many things not to have a mole within the presidency.

One thing was his instant reinstatement after he got suspended from office amidst a corruption scandal last year. Though he was later suspended and probed, the recommended punishment has not been acted upon by the Federal Government since December.


But the latest gross abuse of the rule of law is the fact that Usman Yusuf has been collecting salaries and allowances since his suspension from office.

Read full article here: https://qwenu.com/2019/04/29/nhis-corruption-scandal-usman-yusuf-must-have-a-mole-within-the-presidency/