Contrary to the bearish sentiments in the secondary equities and bond market of the Nigerian Stock Exchange, NSE, the primary market segment has recorded its most bullish performance in five years, jumping 44.2 percent in the first 11 months of 2018, over 2017 full year performance.

Former President Goodluck Jonathan; former Head of State, General Ibrahim Babangida (retd); Mr Bose Mustapha, Secretary to the Government Federation; former governor of Benue State, Senator George Akume; Governor Simon Lalong of Plateau State and a member of House of Representatives, Umar Bago, have described President Muhammadu Buhari as a committed progressive concerned with the yearnings and aspirations of Nigerians.

Unity Bank Plc has won the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) 2018 sustainable banking award, clenching the award for ‘Sustainable Transaction of the Year in Agriculture’.

Residents of Molai, a village four kilometres off Maiduguri, Borno State capital, are currently on the run following a heavy gunfire between soldiers and Boko Haram fighters.

The insurance industry recorded 22 percent increase in gross premium income, year-on-year,   to N315 billion in the  third quarter (Q3’18) from  N258 billion recorded in the corresponding period of 2017 (Q3’17).

“Those Micro-finance banks that we have today, are not ‘giving’ loans at single-digit interest rates”; for example, “You borrow N50,000 for 90 days and they expect you to pay another N50,000 interest to them in another 90 days. That is outrageous and that is too exorbitant…” besides, “if you don’t pay the N50,000 interest, they seize your bicycle, or your car or your machine.” (CBN Governor, Godwin Emefiele-see story titled ‘Microfinance Banks Charging Outrageous Interest Rates on Loans”, Punch edition of December 10, 2018).

Nothing can be more detrimental and sabotaging to the economy. It is a monumental economic crime worse than smuggling, under-declaration and under-invoicing which they claim to be porters’ shops afighting on the highways and streets and even imnd homes.

Mrs. Toyin Sanni, Group Chief Executive of Emerging Market Limited has urged investors to take position in undervalued securities in the bearish market, just as she blamed the bear run on equities market on the current political uncertainties ahead of next year’s general elections.

Michael Larbie is the Chief Executive Officer of Rand Merchant Bank Nigeria, a subsidiary of the South Africa based FirstRand Group. In this interview, Labie speaks on the bank’s effort to distinguish itself in the intensely competitive Nigerian banking industry. He also spoke on the forthcoming general election and its impact on the economy.

THE  Nigerian elite leading the country to the February, 2019 general elections have reduced the contest essentially to personal squabbles and a contest of insults rather than ideas. This is not unexpected as in almost all cases, the colonialists created for us, zombies as elite.  An elite class incapable of basic reflection, one that accepts foreign dictation and is alienated from the people it leads. In turn, the people are alienated from the state; they do not have  the same attachment or loyalty they had  to  their pre-colonial societies. So a corrupted culture has developed in which people see the elite from their communities who loot the national treasury, as heroes bringing back their  share of the ‘national cake’. In many cases, the thieves are given chieftaincy titles, turbaned or knighted.