Eighteen months after the introduction of the cashless policy, cash is still used to settle 83 per cent of retail transactions across the country. Meanwhile, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has continued its enlightenment campaign on the policy with an interactive session with stakeholders in Awka, Anambra State.

ABUJA—Former Chairman of Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, and presidential candidate of Action Congress of Nigeria in 2011 general elections, Malam Nuhu Ribadu, Sunday, said Nigeria could only survive when the citizens and leadership of the country uphold the virtue of honesty and patriotism.

ILORIN—The pioneer Chairman of the Independent Corrupt Practices and other related offences Commission, ICPC, Justice Mustapha Akanbi, has warned that nobody should drag him into politics.

Nigerians’ taste for foreign goods has been the bane of the economy. Many prefer goods and services made abroad to locally produced goods even when such goods are of lower quality. This has had a serious effect on the nation’s reserve. The continued depletion of the external reserves of the nation and the ever growing army of unemployed youths is as a result of this trend that has bedeviled our economy.

In recent times, one of the causes of malfunctions in the Nigerian financial system is the paradox of substantial government deposits in Deposit Money Banks (DMBs) and high government borrowings from the deposit money banks; as at June 13, 2013, the three tiers of government had N2.384tn in the DMBs out of which about 90% are in zero interest-bearing Current Accounts. To mop up the liquidity at 14% will cost N301.33bn, which is more than the annual budgets of most states….

ABUJA—Retired Foreign Service veteran, Ambassador Dahiru Suleiman, Sunday, lamented undue politicization of Nigeria Foreign service. The diplomat said political appointees constituted more than 60 percent of envoys.

Micro entrepreneurs have bemoaned the neglect of the sector, especially in the area of funding and machinery, calling on government to create an enabling environment to boost production.

The Debt Management Office, DMO, has dismissed allegations that the Federal Government was crowding out private sector from the bond market.

BHP Billiton said weekend that U.S. authorities have laid out grounds for possible enforcement action against the top global miner for corrupt practices, stepping up a four-year probe linked partly to its 2008 Olympics sponsorship. In another recent settlement, Parker Drilling agreed for a $15.85 million charge to settle allegations by the SEC and Justice Department that it bribed officials in Nigeria and Kazakhsta.

The family of Pa Benedict Odiase, the composer of the national anthem, who passed on at Lagos University Teaching Hospital, LUTH on June 11, 2013, has cried out that governments and individuals were not doing enough to immortalise Odiase.