The Nation Newspaper

Tag: commit

  • Standard Bank, ICBC commit $8.5b to Africa projects

    The Standard Bank Group and Industrial and Commercial Bank of China Limited (ICBC) have provided $8.5 billion financing support for 35 projects in Africa, Standard Bank Group said yesterday.

    According to a report provided at the ongoing Standard Bank Group trans-regional conference in Lagos, the deal, which involves Chinese companies,  is a product of five-year strategic alliance between both lenders.

    Standard Bank has also called for increasing general trade between African countries and reassured on its commitment to connecting clients to opportunities in Africa.

    The bank is escalating its highly successful trans-regional trade and business conferences into a broadly inclusive pan-African initiative aimed at driving collective growth across the continent.

    Standard Bank has hosted two previous conferences in 2016: in Accra focusing on West Africa, and in Nairobi focusing on East Africa. These separate gatherings brought together clients, trade experts and client relationship managers from the countries in each of these regions.

    “Our previous conferences showed us the scale of the opportunity for growing intra-African trade, especially the potential for cross-border trade, to change the growth trajectory of the continent,” Chief Executive Personal and Business Banking at Standard Bank, Zweli Manyathi said.

    In addition to providing critical insight into how best to help clients leverage Africa’s full cross-border potential, “we also realised that increasing trade was a pan-African, and not just a regional opportunity, for the continent,” he added.

    On average, regional trade accounts for about 50 per cent of most regions’ trade flows. In Asia – the world’s fastest growing region – regional trade accounts for up to 70 per cent of some countries’ trade flows.

    Since intra-regional trade in Africa currently accounts for only 12 per cent of trade flows, Standard Bank has identified the rapid promotion of continental trade as a key priority in achieving the kind of growth that will transform the lives of ordinary Africans.

    “If the continent can increase trade between African countries to the global average – that is from 12 per cent to 50 per cent – the continent will be far less reliant on global trade and investment for its own growth. This will also mean that, for the first time in history Africa will be able to set and drive its own investment and growth agenda – independently”.

  • Baba wan commit suicide!

    Baba wan commit suicide!

    Have you heard?

    Heard what?

    Baba wants to commit suicide!

    Which Baba?

    There are no two Babas now!  The Ebora Owu!

    Whaaaat!  But why?

    He says for him it’s self-guillotine, anytime he feels Nigeria is hopeless.

    O, that!

    Is that all you’ll say — o that?

    What else?  That’s a very safe threat now!

    But how?

    Well, who gauges what is hopeful and what is hopeless?

    Seriously?  Are you real right now?  You don’t expect Baba to put his neck on the block and not have a say as to when the time is ripe?

    Exactly!  It’s a very safe threat — or if you want to be politic — pledge.  It’s like that rogue prophet, Brother Jero, prophesying someone would live for 80 years.  If it comes to pass, fine.  If it doesn’t, who cares?

    Naaaaa!  It’s not quite the same thing.  Baba says anytime he feels Nigeria is hopeless, he goes kaput!

    Meaning?

    Meaning exactly that — kaput!  You should at least praise him for love of country

    About time too!  But how about praising country, for love of Baba?  Nigeria has given Baba too many lollies.

    What do you mean, lollies?

    Exactly that, lollies.  What does OFN mean, do you know?

    Operation Feed the Nation.

    To me, it is Obasanjo Farms Nigeria.  But to others, it could also be Operation Fool the Nation!

    Haba! Nobody fooled anyone now!  Now, you’re getting too creative for your own good!  That is just a mere coincidence!

    Exactly!  No one has fooled anyone.  But it also shows Nigeria’s abiding munificence  for Baba.  Operation Feed the Nation, you must remember, led to the Land Use Decree, which made the other OFN, Obasanjo Farms Nigeria, possible!

    Mere coincidence!  Conspiracy theory!

    True.  Maybe you’re right.  But what of the Presidential Library?

    What about it?

    Would Baba have had it if he wasn’t president, or had OFN, if he wasn’t military head of state, even if he didn’t stage any coup?

    Hen-hen?

    Even NOUN!

    Are we talking parts of speech now?

    No, NOUN as in National Open University of Nigeria, not as noun, adjective, or adverb.

    He did wrong by founding NOUN too?

    No.  I didn’t say that.  He did real good.

    So, what are you saying?

    He did good for all — and for himself too!  NOUN just awarded Baba a PhD in Theology — after his robust scholarly defence of course!

    And what’s wrong with that?

    Nothing.  It only proves the latest lolly Nigeria has thrown into Baba’s mouth.  So, if he wants to commit suicide for Nigeria, Nigeria has pumped him with enough — in fact, too much — goodies to earn it.

     

    You sef!  Poison dey your mouth!

    Not poison.  Just the truth.

  • To commit or not ?

    ONLY this morning I got a call from a guy who sent me a text the day before. He wanted me to help him find a lady to make him happy, one he could marry. This guy is only one of the many who keep asking me to ‘hook them up’, when I ask the men why they can’t marry the ladies they see around them, the response is the same ‘there are no marriageable ladies out there.’ To all the ladies out there who are actually looking for men to call their own, I ask what can the problem be.

    My research for my final year project opened my eyes to so many things about relations between men and women, and the effect of society’s marital institutions on the sexual lives of individuals in the society. For instance, in my grandmother’s day, single girls did not have sexual relationships; promiscuous women in town were usually divorcees or widows. When a man approached a young girl for a relationship, she would say “In my family we don’t have sex outside marriage, if you want me, you have to marry me”. If the man wanted her badly enough he would do so. This could be the reason many men of that generation had as many as five, six, seven or more wives. Wind back to the present day, men don’t have to get married to have sex, as long as he is able to give the lady something in return.

    The sexual revolution has not helped matters at all, I am sorry to sound like a broken record but what it has done has been to make an intrinsic part of marriage common-place. And given the impression that love is an emotion, when in actual fact it is a lifelong commitment, it goes beyond what you feel to how you live; rather than just paying lip service to the institution.

    The high divorce rate is another thing that has put so many singles off the institution, you can say that marriage is meant to last forever but when the reality is contrary to that, there isn’t much to encourage people to want to get or stay married. Many young people grew up in broken homes, or had friends, or relatives who did so they know that marriages don’t always last forever.

    Also, many ladies do not know how to choose right.  I am often amazed to find a lady of marriageable age dating a man who is not physically, emotionally and financially ready to settle down, he might not have a job or is still living in his father’s house, or still a man about town; totally unprepared to take the plunge.

    Some ladies even feel that they can convince the man to want to settle down. It doesn’t happen that way, marriage will happen only when the man is truly ready and able to take up the responsibility. A man has to have a means of livelihood, be emotionally prepared for the responsibility, and also be ready to commit to the relationship. Until all three are in place, a man won’t commit, begging and manipulating him won’t work, and when it does it is never a pleasant story.

  • BRICS to commit $100b on forex fund

    BRICS to commit $100b on forex fund

    The BRICS emerging economies will set up a $100 billion fund to steady currency markets, Russia’s Vladimir Putin said, but it looks unlikely to be in place soon enough to temper the effects of an expected pullback of U.S. monetary stimulus.

    Reuters said China, holder of the world’s largest foreign exchange reserves, will contribute the bulk of the currency pool. But officials said it would not be functional for some time yet.

    Cheap dollars that fueled a boom in Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa over the past decade have turned tail since Ben Bernanke, chairman of the Federal Reserve, warned in May of a ‘taper’ in the U.S. bond-buying scheme.

    “The initiative to establish a BRICS currency reserve pool is at its final stage,” president Putin said in opening remarks to a meeting of BRICS leaders during a Group of 20 summit in Russia’s second city, St. Petersburg. “Its capital volume has been agreed at $100 billion.”

    At the meeting of BRICS leaders, China committed $41 billion; Brazil, India and Russia $18 billion each; and South Africa $5 billion. One BRICS official said the technical details could be sorted out by the time the group meets in March 2014 but even after that, it will only become operational after ratification by each country’s parliament.

    Earlier, both Chinese Vice Finance Minister Zhu Guangyao and Russian Deputy Finance Minister Sergei Storchak said details still needed to be worked out.

    “We have asked not to create unnecessary expectations,” Storchak told Reuters. “Politically, the countries are ready, but technically they are not.”