ENYA'S GIST BLOG

The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), says it remitted N70 billon into the Federation Account in the last one year. “This is in addition to the N30 billion paid by MTN Nigeria as a part payment of the N330billion fine slammed on it by the commission. Yakubu Musa, Special Assistant on Media to the chief executive of the commission, made this known in a statement released in Abuja on Monday. It also said the NCC won the European Award for Best Practices 2016. “The ceremony, which held in Brussels, Belgium, was hosted by the European Society for Quality Research (ESQR), an affiliate of the European Union (EU). The statement added that no fewer than 63 countries participated in the award out of which the NCC won the European Award for Best Practices 2016. It said that the award, which was in the Gold category, was in recognition of its outstanding commitment, support and results in quality management strategies. It said Prof. Umar Danbatta, the Executive Vice-...

The Centre for World University Rankings (CWUR) has just released its 2016 ranking of universities across the world. Sadly, no university in Nigeria made the list of the world’s top 1,000. The ranking, released on Monday, placed Harvard University, United States, on top as the best higher institution in the world, followed by Stanford University, also in the U.S. Another school in the U.S, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, is the third best in the world. Two universities in the United Kingdom, University of Cambridge and the University of Oxford, are ranked fourth and fifth respectively. Five other American universities are also ranked within the top 10 – they are Columbia University, sixth position; University of California, Berkley, seventh; University of Chicago, eighth; Princeton University, ninth; and Yale University, 10th. The U.S has a total number of 224 universities among the top 1,000, followed by China, with 90. Japan has 74, while the United Ki...

What is the relationship between Nigeria and Canada like? I am coming to the end of my term; I have been in Nigeria for the past three years. It’s a very easy job because I found in Nigeria that I am well received, whether it is the politicians, the civil society, I find that Nigerians are very warm towards Canada and this makes my job very easy. Given that the relationship between our countries is very dynamic, there are lots of things happening, overwhelmingly positive, so it is exciting being part of building the relationship between the two countries. I have got about five specific areas of relationship between the two countries in the areas of trade and investment. I am excited to see areas of growth in investment by Canadian companies and people exploring opportunities in Nigeria. How many Canadian companies are in Nigeria and in which sectors are they active? We have around 70 companies that are active in various sectors of the Nigerian market. Nigeria is one of ou...

The novelty of the Global System for Mobile Communications has worn off in terms of voice and Short Messaging Services (SMS), while data is taking a premium edge in the country with many subscribers adopting data’s communication. The revenue from voice and SMSes are no longer encouraging and the GSM companies are no longer smiling to the banks as they used to do because disruptive technologies have overtaken the telecoms space. Today, these disruptive technologies like Watsapp, Skpe,Viber, Imo,Twitter, Snapchat,  instagram,Youtube,Pinterest, Facebook are generating huge revenue and driving data because subscribers have experienced these newest addition and have seen the cost effectiveness of these handles. According to a telecommunications subscriber, Ibrahim Dansol,I don’t remember when I sent a text message.  I use more of Watsapp, Skpe and Viber to pass across my message. “I am not paying more,I use the data on my phone and most Android phones can now use a ...

The Minister of Finance, Mrs Kemi Adeosun, Monday lamented the under-performance of the nation’s insurance sector was denying government an annual 1.5 per cent Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth. The Minister made the disclosure at the 2016 National Insurance Conference (NIC) with the theme “Expanding National Resources and Infrastructure in Challenging Times”, which kicked off  in Abuja, said the persistent under-performance of the sector was revealed during the 2014 Insurance Summit. Adeosun noted the need to immediately address the issues responsible for the under-performance “because a 0. 33 per cent increase in insurance penetration can result to a growth of 0.5 per cent in GDP and create over 70,000 jobs annually.” She argued that the industry was under-performing, compared to its pension and banking counterparts, having identified low awareness as one of the factors responsible for this poor-run, even as she pointed out that out of 57 insurance companies in t...