US imposes sanctions on companies tied to Sudan forces as fighting rages

The United States on Thursday imposed sanctions on companies it accused of fuelling the conflict in Sudan, stepping up pressure on the army and a rival paramilitary force to stop fighting raging in Khartoum and other regions.

The U.S. Treasury Department said it targeted two companies linked to the army, including the country's largest defence enterprise, and two companies tied to the rival paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, including one involved in gold mining.

"We will not hesitate to take additional steps if the parties continue to destroy their country," a senior U.S. administration official, who briefed reporters on condition of anonymity, said.

"The targeting of the companies is far from symbolic," the official said, adding that the measures are intended to choke off the parties' access to weapons and resources that allow them to perpetuate the conflict.

Sudan's army and the RSF did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The conflict, which broke out on April 15, has killed hundreds, forced more than 1.6 million to flee and turned the three cities that make up the capital around the confluence of the Nile - Khartoum, Omdurman and Bahri - into a war zone.

Residents said heavy artillery fire could be heard in northern Omdurman and intermittent firing in southern Bahri, despite a deal for a ceasefire that is meant to run till Saturday evening.

"We are being terrorized by the sounds of heavy artillery around us. The house has been shaking," 49-year-old Nadir Ahmed said in the Thawra neighbourhood of Omdurman. "Where is this ceasefire we hear about?"

Clashes also continued near a market in southern Khartoum, where at least 19 people were killed and 106 wounded on Wednesday, according to a member of a local neighbourhood committee.

SANCTIONS, WARNINGS

The United States, alongside Saudi Arabia, has been leading efforts to try to secure an effective ceasefire at talks in Jeddah, though both sides have breached a string of truces.

Saudi Arabia and the U.S. said late on Thursday they were suspending the talks, a day after Sudan's army announced it was halting its participation.

The sanctions are the first punitive measures imposed under an executive ordersigned by U.S. President Joe Biden in May. They target Sudan's largest defence enterprise, Defence Industries System, which the Treasury said generates an estimated $2 billion in revenue and manufactures arms and other equipment for Sudan's army.

Arms company Giad, also known as Sudan Master Technology, was targeted as well.

On the RSF side, Washington imposed sanctions on Algunade, which it said was involved in gold mining and controlled by RSF Commander Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo and his brother, as well as Tradive General Trading L.L.C., which it said was a front company controlled by another brother and procured vehicles for the RSF.

The companies, all key to the business and procurement activities of both forces, could not immediately be reached for comment.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said visa restrictions were imposed on individuals in Sudan, including officials from both the army and the RSF and leaders from the government of Omar al-Bashir, who was ousted four years ago. Those hit with visa restrictions were not named.

'WARNING SHOT'

Outside Khartoum, clashes have flared in major cities in the western region of Darfur. A regional rights group said at least 50 people had been killed in the last week in the westernmost city of El Geneina, which has been cut off from communications for more than 10 days.

In another Darfur city, Zalingei, it said the hospital and university were looted and people were being killed "randomly".

Some government officials have relocated to the army-controlled Red Sea coast city Port Sudan, which has also become a base for the United Nations, aid groups, and diplomats.

However, a curfew was declared in the city this week as the army warned of "sleeper cells". Residents say buses have been stopped from entering the city, which is a key evacuation point.

In El Obeid, a regional hub southwest of Khartoum the U.N. World Food Programme reported food was being looted. "Food for 4.4 million people is at stake," agency chief Cindy McCain said.

Army and RSF leaders had held top positions on Sudan's ruling council after toppling Bashir in 2019. They fell out over the chain of command and military restructuring under a planned transition to civilian rule.

Cameron Hudson, a former U.S. official now at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, said the sanctions would have little impact on the parties' ability to continue to wage war and were unlikely to be enforced by Russia or the United Arab Emirates, which have ties to the RSF.

"It's hard to think this sanctions announcement is the thing that will dissuade entities already doing business with these corporations from continuing," Hudson said.

Advertisement · Scroll to continue

"This feels like more of a warning shot than a direct hit, which is odd given that we are long past the time when warning shots should be used."

Reuters

President Bola Tinubu is under fire for announcing that petrol subsidy is gone from day one. His inauguration address also touched on a unified currency exchange, high interest rate and power, among others.

Of all these, however, the one that got the headlines was petrol subsidy and the most frequently expressed concern, is why now? 

To say, in his first speech, that fuel subsidy was gone, that a unified exchange rate was vital, and that the current interest rate was anti-people and anti-business, was the economic equivalent of an earthquake. 

Of the four preceding presidential inauguration speeches since 1999 from Olusegun Obasanjo to Buhari, none that I reviewed was nearly as audacious and as provokingly clear as Tinubu’s position was on perhaps the most crucial economic decisions as he took office. 

Obasanjo, for example, talked about corruption, loss of confidence in government and the Niger Delta crisis. His three successors spoke about infrastructure, corruption and unemployment. But none was bang on the nail, as frontal and clear, as Tinubu’s was. We’re struggling because we’re used to being lied to.

Interestingly, in campaigns before the last general election, the other leading presidential candidates – Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and Peter Obi of Labour Party – said they would remove subsidy. Obi, in fact, called it an “organised crime” and he was right.

For a man who has his work cut out for him, Tinubu does not have the luxury of philosophy or poetry. Not when organised criminals trading on a yearly petrol subsidy of about N4.4trillion as of 2022, have left the country bleeding nearly to death. He had to make his own structural earthquake or risk uncontrolled seismic explosion. If not now, then when? 

Tinubu’s dilemma reminds me of the story of a number of leaders confronted with extremely difficult choices before they had time to settle in office. The first of them is the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, who told his story eloquently in his autobiography, “Bibi: My story.”

Israel might have had some important military successes before, but at the time Netanyahu became prime minister in 1996 the country was an economic basket case and inflation was in double digits.

Netanyahu ran for and won the premiership against his father’s advice, against principalities in his own Likud Party and against veterans in the ruling Labour Party. Winning was hard, but making his victory count was even harder. The press and the unions hated him and didn’t hide it.

As he rolled up his sleeves, he was shocked at what he found when he entered the cabinet room for his first meeting. The room was like a banquet hall, lined with omelets, cheese, assorted bread, tomatoes, cucumber, jam, cookies and so on.

“The cabinet ministers were already busy munching away,” he wrote, “passing dishes to one another. It reminded me of the Shabbat Breakfast Club in the synagogue in Hull, Massachusetts.”

It was the sort of executive indulgence that President Obasanjo also saw in Nigeria when he assumed office in 1999 and his response then, like Netanyahu’s on that day, was to scrap the nonsense immediately. 

But cabinet menu reform was the least problem on his plate. The real challenge was how to free the country from a semi-socialist nanny economy, state control, exposure to future global vulnerabilities, the dominance of monopolies, and union fat cats.

“By far the most important reform I enacted,” he said reflecting on that very difficult period, “was to liberate Israel’s rigid foreign currency controls. In 1998, Israel still resembled many third-world countries with regards to currency. Israelis could not take more than $7,000 out of the country without special authorisation from Israel’s central bank. Returning from abroad, they had to redeposit and register all foreign currency they held inside the country.” 

His finance minister and other bureaucrats opposed his decision to announce immediate currency reforms. They argued that such a drastic step would seriously devalue the country’s currency. He bit the bullet, and his finance minister resigned in anger.

By 2004, in spite of dire warnings of the disastrous consequences of his actions, Netanyahu had removed all foreign exchange restrictions. He transformed Israel’s economy from third to first world by following a simple rule: “Whenever possible, remove barriers to trade. Money, trade and investments generally flow to the freer economies away from the more controlled ones.”

Of course, to unleash innovation and creativity, he also tackled the archaic educational system. He told university administrators at one point that although he had the utmost respect for the study of humanities, if he had to share government shekel between Tibetan poetry and microelectronics, he would have no hesitation putting the money in the latter.

It wasn’t easy for China’s Deng Xiaoping either. In the face of very serious economic challenges, Xiaoping made painful decisions not very different from those of Netanyahu. He liberalised the economy, unleashed the energy of the private sector and the small businesses, and introduced one of the most controversial – yet most consequential social reforms: the one-child policy. 

Also, India remained a nearly-there economic success story until nine years ago when Prime Minister Narendra Modi took some of the most far-reaching economic reforms, restructuring the tax system and expanding financial literacy and inclusiveness to cover the so-called “untouchables.”

From Netanyahu to Modi, the lesson is clear: a leader who inherits a broken country and an underperforming economy must take tough decisions or risk failure. Of course, tough decisions do not necessarily guarantee success. But shying away from them guarantees failure.

Since Tinubu said on Monday that petrol subsidy was gone, he has been criticised for a speech “lacking in empathy and philosophy.” If the current subsidy regime would officially end on June 30, why did he make an obviously unpopular decision on his first day on the job without first laying out how it was going to work?

For decades in this country, I have listened to empathetic and philosophical speeches about how subsidy only benefits the rich and how the country is being robbed to indulge them, yet nothing fundamental has been done to correct the situation. Government after government just kicks the can down the road.

I have heard union leaders, probably the greatest obstacles to a more transparent and efficient supply system, call for “greater stakeholder engagement”, when all they really want to do is exploit and milk public disaffection by holding the system hostage with threats of strikes, the sort of attitude that makes Margaret Thatcher’s handling of the unions in the UK look like redemption moment.

President Goodluck Jonathan came very close to scrapping subsidy in 2012. He was snagged, not by his good intention, but by the discovery that $6.8 billion collected to mitigate the impact of subsidy removal between 2009 and 2011 after petrol prices were raised from N65 to N120, had been cornered and stolen by his own government officials.

For eight years, President Muhammadu Buhari toyed with subsidy removal. In spite of strong support even by key members of his own party, however, he couldn’t quite overcome an approach-avoidance conflict, a catastrophic hallmark of his government.  

In 2020 the minister of finance said subsidy had been removed from the budget. Yet Buhari, the minister of Petroleum Resources who once said subsidy was a scam, turned a blind eye as subsidy returned in full force reaching an all-time high according to Reuters of N4.4trillion in 2022 alone. 

For lovers of philosophy and poetry, eight years of prevarication and temporising under Buhari was enough orchestra. One more day after would have unleashed the same forces that have held us hostage for this long. Not a luxury we can afford anymore.

The immediate fallout of Tinubu’s announcement would be messy, even ugly, with spikes in general price levels. Even though NNPC Limited has not issued import franchises in the last two weeks at least, which means the market had been hedging and anticipating Tinubu’s announcement, he had barely finished speaking when petrol queues surfaced all over the country and pump prices per litre tripled in some places.

That’s not new or unforeseen. Nor would the outcome have been significantly different even if Tinubu had waited another year before making the announcement or if NNPC had waited another six months before confirming the removal of pump price caps. 

My guess is that after the initial inevitable chaos, the market would gradually adjust and consumers, used to the easy road, would adapt. Prodigal states, faced with shrinking handouts from Abuja, would also have to examine their fiscal choices. 

There would be a need to reduce the impact on the weak and vulnerable, the bulk of who are outside the major cities and beyond the reach of the self-serving arguments of the city elite and the unions. But even intervention cannot start unless subsidy stops immediately to free funds.

Petrol subsidy is gone, means petrol subsidy is gone. Anything short of saying so on day one, would have amounted to kicking the can down the road, again. And that, we have seen, has been the graveyard of speeches in the last several decades full of economic philosophy and poetry but meaning nothing. Enough. 

** Ishiekwene is Editor-In-Chief of LEADERSHIP

In middle school, I played on a football team that lost every game. Our coaches tried to keep our spirits high by reciting the proverb once heard on fields and courts across the country: It’s not whether you win or lose, but how you play the game. When it comes to the state of our democracy, Americans would do well to heed those words.

That old saying may appear out of place in a democratic society obsessed with election outcomes and legislative victories. Too many politicians interpret a ballot box victory as a mandate to shove their party’s agenda down people’s throats. They believe that winning confers legitimacy on everything they want to do and the authority to do it. This, of course, is wrong. How democracy is exercised — how the game is played — is more important than who wins.

We’re either forgetting this or deciding that we no longer care. Partisans increasingly see the other side as immoral, stupid, unworthy or incapable of good-faith debates. Americans have lost confidence in government’s ability to manage the country, much less address its intractable problems. This erosion of respect feeds an anti-democratic backlash: More than a third of us support violations of democratic norms by the political leaders we favor.

The right has embraced antidemocratic tactics more readily and with more fervor. But the left is not immune to the pull of illiberalism, a word that essentially means the infringing of the political minority’s rights, and a disregard for constitutional order. Whereas democracy requires parties to accept losses, illiberalism is obsessed with winning elections, prevailing in policy disputes and hoarding power — to hell with democratic norms, rules and fairness.

Illiberal impulses arise from different origins on the right and the left. Right-wing illiberalism has roots in the idea that the nation has always been exceptional, but that its destiny is now threatened by faithless or incompatible groups of others: progressives, racial and ethnic minorities, internationalists and so on. Former president Donald Trump’s rhetoric and actions put the impulse front and center. Running on the motto “Make American Great Again,” he repeatedly professed his obsession with winning, attacked the free press and made too many disparaging remarks about people of color to list. The impulse is visible in right-wing support for the “independent state legislature” theory, which empowers state-level majorities to ignore the courts and the public will; in book bans and whitewashed history classes; and in the violence of Jan. 6, 2021.

In the far reaches of the left wing, illiberalism springs from an unwillingness to recognize and praise those aspects of the United States that should be conserved, preferring instead to portray a nation corrupt from the start, beyond repair and in need of a teardown. The illiberal left chills the speech of ideological opponents, hijacks legitimate protest movements to serve undemocratic ends and supports coercive means to achieve policy goals. Although not equivalent to the excesses of right-wing illiberalism, the left repudiates democracy nonetheless.

The two sides are equally obsessed with imaginary utopias — for the right, a pining to return to an America that never existed; for the left, attempting to forge an America that cannot be built.

Given what they have in common, their stark opposition has an odor of hypocrisy. Consider presidential emergency powers. Democrats cried foul when Trump used emergency powers to redirect federal money to build a wall on the southern border. Republicans had a conniption over the idea that President Biden could use executive authority to make abortion available or forgive student loans. Victory, not democracy, is the goal. The blunt exercise of power is excused by the winners as long as they get their way.

Lots of attention has been devoted to the right’s illiberalism, and rightly so. But the mirror tendency on the left — in no small part a response to congressional intransigence during the Obama administration and the ongoing antidemocratic agenda in red states — is perhaps more worrisome. The left’s illiberalism grants a monopoly on national pride, and our symbols of unity, to the right: the flag, the anthem, the very concept of patriotism. It’s as if the two sides ask Americans to choose between a nation that behaves as if it doesn’t need to respect its people and a people who act as though they don’t need to respect the nation.

Nations have identities, cultures, narratives and customs that are needed to provide stability. Such symbols, along with a shared history, connect the people of this large, diverse — and still young —country. Ceding the symbols and stories to the illiberal right wing will leave too many Americans alienated from the nation they hope to improve. Why struggle to build up a country that is not worthy of love?

We know how to deal with undemocratic conservatives. The whole of the civil rights movement took aim at their reactionary illiberalism. The Jim Crow era they sought to enforce was put to bed by folks who offered a better and more optimistic version of the nation’s future.

We need to learn how to oppose the illiberalism of the left, the impulse to give up on the national story, to lose the thread of it, to declare the American experiment dead. “We must not be enemies,” Abraham Lincoln urged; instead, we must all practice a conservatism that preserves the institutions and beliefs undergirding the shared liberal ideals of human freedom and equality. When the political game is played between these lines and by these rules, everyone wins.

Washington Post

Gmail has so many useful features that some of them go unnoticed. Here’s a handful that you’ll wish you’d known about ages ago.

Most of us have been using Gmail for so long that we never really bother to explore new features that have been added over the years.

But if you use Gmail to get actual work done, there are a handful of really helpful goodies that aren’t quite so obvious unless you look for them. Here are five of these time-savers that you may have overlooked—until now.

Add a recipient in the body of a message

This one’s about as straightforward as it gets, but you’d be forgiven for not knowing it existed, given that there’s nothing in the Gmail interface to spotlight it.

You’ll get a dropdown with a selection of your contacts: Click the person’s name and they’ll be added as a recipient.

Open your calendar in a sidebar

If you live inside Gmail, you probably spend a fair amount of time with Google Calendar as well.

Kill two birds with one stone by keeping your calendar open on the right-hand side of Gmail at all times.

In the upper corner to the right of your inbox, you’ll notice icons for Calendar, Keep, Tasks, and Contacts. Click the Calendar icon and you’re good to go.

You’ll see your entire day at a glance and you’ll be able to create new meetings with a couple of clicks. I actually prefer the simplicity to the full-blown Google Calendar interface.

Explore add-ons galore

You may already be using Chrome extensions for Gmail, but Gmail itself makes it easy to find a heaping helping of add-ons that work across several browsers, not just Chrome.

In the same right-hand column where you click the Google Calendar icon to open it in the sidebar, there’s a nondescript plus-sign icon.

Click it, and a bountiful marketplace will pop up. It’s chock-full of handy integrations from the likes of Zoom, Webex, Docusign, and a ton of other providers large and small.

Hover to quickly sort your inbox

Here’s a feature that had been staring me in the face for a while before I actually realized how useful it was.

Clearing out the morning deluge of overnight messages is as easy as hovering over each one. When doing so, you’ll notice four icons on the right-most side of each subject line: archive, delete, mark unread, and snooze.

With a single click, you can send each message elsewhere. Blaze your way through your inbox in no time.

Create templates for repetitive messages

And last but not least, arguably the greatest Gmail time-saver of them all: templates. If you find yourself constantly tapping out the same messages over and over again, you absolutely must use this feature.

To do so, create a canned message. Once you’ve gotten it just how you like it, click the three-dot icon on the far-right of the bottom of your message, then Templates > Save draft as template > Save as new template.

Give it a name, and then the next time you need to use your templated message, click the same three-dot icon, then Templates, and then click on the name of the template you saved.

The contents of the canned message are automatically inserted into the body of the email: no typing required.

Fast Company

For employees, the CEO can seem like an elusive figure – too busy and too important to engage with on a day-to-day basis. However, leaders who take the time to build relationships with their team members can create a more connected and engaged workforce.

Being approachable is key, but it's not always easy to know where to start. To help, a group of entrepreneurs shared their tried-and-true strategies for creating an approachable, open work environment and building better relationships with their teams.

1. Break the ice

Employees may not be naturally inclined to initiate a conversation with the CEO. That's why Stephanie Wells, co-founder and CTO at Formidable Forms, recommends leaders make the first move.

"Being a CEO isn't easy, as there are a lot of responsibilities on your shoulders – but team coordination is equally important," notes Wells. "You won't be able to achieve your goal if your team thinks that you're unapproachable."

She suggests leaders hang out with their team members from time to time, whether it's inviting them over for a coffee or having dinner.

"It doesn't matter how you do it," Wells adds. "Just be the one to break the ice."

2. Implement an open-door policy

Josh Kohlbach, founder and CEO of Wholesale Suite, recommends CEOs create an open-door policy within their organization.

"This lets your employees walk in at any time with their ideas, thoughts and concerns without being afraid of being judged or reprimanded," Kohlbach explains. "This will also make them feel that the management is approachable and willing to listen to them."

3. Seek out feedback

One reason why employees may hesitate to approach their CEO is the perception that the CEO is unavailable or simply too busy. To combat this, eMerchantBrokerco-founder Blair Thomas suggests CEOs remove the "being sought-after" aspect by proactively seeking out feedback from team members.

"Create the opportunity for them to share problems and ideas by asking them if there's anything they'd like to discuss," Thomas suggests. "Just taking the time to ask someone about their day can have a massive impact on their perception of you."

4. Show appreciation

Another great way to build trust and connection with your team is to show your appreciation. Solomon Thimothy, president of OneIMS, emphasizes that small actions can make a significant impact in building relationships with your team.

"Giving someone a high five for a job well done or sharing kudos in the team's Slack channel can make all the difference," says Thimothy.

"Make sure each person in your organization feels appreciated and has excellent opportunities to grow and make a difference."

5. Engage in company conversations

According to MemberPress CEO Blair Williams, leaders can demonstrate their approachability by taking an active part in company conversations.

"This could mean sharing pictures in family channels, answering questions that pop up casually and so on," Williams explains.

Joining conversations – or even starting them – shows you're open to questions and ideas, which leads to improved communication and overall team relationships.

6. Create open forums

CEOs looking to become more approachable should strive to create a positive work culture where employees feel comfortable sharing their thoughts, opinions and concerns.

"This can be done by creating open forums where employees can submit their queries anonymously," advises Thomas Griffin, co-founder and president of OptinMonster. "You can also have a suggestion box for them to share ideas, which fosters trust and understanding."

7. Be physically present

Sometimes, just being physically present can make a significant difference in how your team perceives you.

"If you are bringing Mr. Burns from 'The Simpsons' energy to business and are always behind glass or doors, you are likely not developing deeper relationships across your company," says Alphametic CEO Matthew Capala.

"By being in front of and physically present for your teams, you become more approachable."

Capala recommends CEOs spend time "around the water cooler" and work in common areas to increase presence (and popularity) among their teams.

8. Aim to lead, serve and motivate

A CEO's mindset and approach are just as important as their actions.

Joel Mathew, founder and CEO of Fortress Consulting, advises leaders to remember that they aren't just in charge of the business; they're also in charge of leading, serving and continually motivating their teams.

"While it's true that employees work for you, it's just as important to remember that they work with you," Mathew explains. "Once you establish that culture, you become much more approachable – and it strengthens the relationship in and out of work."

Inc

Nigeria’s state oil company almost tripled the pump price of gasoline after President Bola Tinubu said he’ll fulfill a pledge to scrap fuel subsidies that cost the government $10 billion last year.

The Nigerian National Petroleum Co. on Wednesday raised the cost to N488 ($1.05) a liter from N184 in Lagos, Nigeria’s commercial hub, according to a document seen by Bloomberg and confirmed by the company. In Abuja, the nation’s capital, prices will jump to N537 from 194 naira, it said.

Tinubu announced the end of the decades-long subsidy regime in his inauguration speech on May 29. Many filling stations across the country stopped selling fuel after the announcement to adjust their prices. Long queues have formed at outlets, while intra-city transport fares have increased.

The decision to abandon the policy triggered a rally in Nigerian dollar bonds on Tuesday. Africa’s largest crude producer would have had to spend  6 trillion ($12.9 billion) — about two-thirds of the revenue expected to be generated by oil and gas output — this year if the subsidies had continued. 

The surge in fuel prices may hamper the central bank’s effort to rein in inflation in Africa’s most-populous country, where about 40% of the population live in extreme poverty. The monetary policy committee has raised its benchmark interest rate by 700 basis points since May 2022 to a record 18.5%. Price-growth accelerated to a near 18-year high of 22.2% in April.

NNPC, which currently imports all of Nigeria’s gasoline needs, has been selling the fuel at a steep loss. The firm’s Chief Executive Officer Mele Kyari said on Tuesdaythe government is yet to reimburse the company for more than $6 billion that it’s spent on keeping gasoline cheap.

“We can’t continue to build this,” he said.

The meeting between the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), Trade Union Congress (TUC) and the federal government has ended without an agreement.

The meeting, at the instance of the federal government, was intended to reach an agreement with organised labour after President Bola Tinubu’s announcement that petrol subsidy would cease to be in place by the end of June.

Speaking after the meeting on Wednesday night, Dele Alake, a member of the government’s team, said the meeting was engaging but did not provide details.

“We have been deliberating on finding very amicable resolutions to the issue at hand —to the queues and all of that and the increase in pump price,” Alake said.

“We had a very robust engagement. We cross-fertilised ideas, ideas flew from all sides and there is one thing that is remarkable even from the labour side — and that is Nigeria. We are all looking at the peace, progress and stability of Nigeria. That is what is paramount.

“Of course the NNPCL GCEO, Kyari, is here, we cannot go into details now because the talks are still ongoing.

“We cannot finish everything at one sitting, so we have adjourned now, we are continuing the talks at a later date very shortly. But the point is that the talks are ongoing and it’s always better for all sides to keep talking with a view to arriving at a very amicable resolution that will be in the longer-term interest for all Nigerians. That is as much as we can say now.”

NO CONSENSUS REACHED

However, Joe Ajaero, president of NLC and his counterpart in Trade Union Congress (TUC), Festus Osifo, said no consensus was reached at the meeting.

The organised labour said the meeting would reconvene after they have met with their members at a date yet to be fixed.

Those who were in attendance on the federal government’s side were Folashade Yemi-Esan, head of the federal civil service; Mele Kyari, group chief executive officer of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPCL); Tijjani Umar, permanent secretary of the state house, among others.

The petrol subsidy removal has long plagued past administrations as they attempted, albeit unsuccessfully, to eliminate it.

In his inaugural address on Monday, Tinubu said the petrol subsidy “is gone” and that his administration would discontinue it. His statement was met with pushback from organised labour.

The Cable

Nigeria has revised its tax-to-GDP ratio for 2021 to 10.86% from 6% following an adjustment to include revenues collected by other government agencies, the tax office chief said on Wednesday.

Tax collection rates have hovered between 5%-6% of gross domestic product over the past 12 years, Federal Inland Revenue Service head Muhammad Nami said, adding that revenues collected by other agencies were previously left out of the calculation.

Africa's biggest economy has one of the lowest tax collection rates in the world, though tax receipts did rise by 56% in 2022 to a record 10 trillion naira ($22 billion).

Previous governments pledged to boost non-oil revenues since oil sales make up 90% of foreign exchange receipts, but raising more money from taxes has proved difficult in a country where many small business are not registered.

Nami said Nigeria's tax-to-GDP ratio could be higher if tax waivers and gaps in its fragmented tax system were plugged. He added that a 2014 GDP rebasing had worsened the tax ratio.

Nigeria has been struggling to raise revenues since recovering from a recession caused by previously low oil prices. The revenue situation worsened with the Covid-19 pandemic.

The government has said it will prioritise tax collection from its digital economy and focus on non-resident firms with significant economic presence that generate turnover in Nigeria.

($1 = 460.00 naira)

Presidential Election Petitions Court has admitted more documents in the petition by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) candidate, Atiku Abubakar challenging the February 25 election.

The five-member panel of justices on Wednesday admitted the C.T.C of form EC8 series from local governments of Bayelsa, Kaduna, and Kogi states submitted under the second schedule to the exhibits tendered by the PDP.

The panel also admitted BVAS accreditation and data reports of 33 states of the country.

However, counsel to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Kemi Pinheiro; counsel to Bola Tinubu, Emmanuel Ukala; and counsel to the All Progressives Congress (APC), Adeniyi Akintola all objected to the admissibility of the documents.

Counsel to the PDP, Eyitayo Jegede informed the court that they will remove Lagos, Kaduna, Kano, and Kogi states from the list of states to be tendered. 

But Pinheiro said the commission is opposed to the admissibility of exhibits for Kogi, Sokoto, and Rivers states.

Earlier, the panel adjourned the petition by the Labour Party (LP) and its presidential candidate, Peter Obi till Thursday after the party’s counsel; Awa Kalu informed the panel that they could not present their schedule of exhibits due to the ill-health of the staff in their secretariat.

Daily Trust

Iyaloja-general of Lagos State, Folasade Tinubu-Ojo, has updated her profile on the microblogging site, Twitter, reflecting the title ‘first daughter of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (FRN)’.

This is coming after her father, President Bola Tinubu, was sworn in as the President on Monday.

Tinubu-Ojo currently has over 21,000 followers on the popular microblogging site.

A check on her Twitter bio reads, “This is the Official Handle of the Iyaloja General of Nigeria. The First Daughter of the FRN.”

Also, in a series of tweets, Tinubu-Ojo said she had launched an initiative to support her father’s administration.

“Friends of Iyaloja Initiative (FoI) unveiled today. I can boldly say again that our youths, women and the vulnerable shall be attended to by this administration. I will fight for this cause and I believe that God Almighty shall crown our efforts with unprecedented success.

“I have decided to use my little wealth of experience, connections and human resources available to me to support my dad’s administration.

“FoI shall be focusing on: youth and women empowerment. Empowering people with special needs. Empowering the vulnerable and several other programs aimed at affecting the lives of Nigerians; especially, those in the grassroots.

“We shall be in partnership with other notable NGOs with track records of excellence in the key areas. We shall also seek collaborations with several governmental agencies, ministries and parastatals created to serve Nigerians in areas that pertain to our operational cycle.

“I can boldly say again that our youths, women and the vulnerable shall be attended to by this administration. I will fight for this cause and I believe that God Almighty shall crown our efforts with unprecedented success,” she wrote.

Meanwhile, reactions have continued to trail her updated Twitter bio, with users on the app alleging that there is an agenda behind the move.

A popular tweep, David Hundeyin, wrote, “Iyaloja General of Nigeria. These people legit have no greater ambition than to cut tickets every day for every Nigerian citizen. Even Buhari was more subtle.”

Another tweep, David Onyemaizu, wrote, “Iyaloja General of Nigeria/First Daughter of the FRN? This is just day two of your father being in power & you already think it’s a monarchy or a family business? Well, she’s actually free to use whatever titles she wants on her bio. Only becomes a problem if validated by.”

“The Iyaloja General of Nigeria. The First Daughter of the FRN. Thank God Nigeria has had Presidents before,” Karo commented.

Another tweep Ferejogi wrote, “For those who didn’t know, Folashade Tinubu-Ojo has always been the Iyaloja-General of Nigeria. This happened several years ago. If you don’t know something, just say you don’t know. Admit your ignorance.”

Punch