Africa Business News

The presidency says President Muhammadu Buhari is not responsible for promotion in the Nigeria Police Force.
Presidential spokesman, Garba Shehu says this as former acting chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, Ibrahim Magu was declined promotion.
President Buhari’s media aide says promotion in the nation’s police structure is determined by the PSC, noting that his principal had no hand in the exercise.
The PSC could have given you the correct position on this if there was an effort to reach them.
Shehu’s reaction followed some rumours suggesting that President Buhari was pushing for the Magu’s promotion who has been under probe over allegations of misuse of his office.

Nigeria has confirmed the detection of the Delta COVID-19 variant in the West African country.
The Nigeria Centre for Disease Control has detected a confirmed case with the SARS-CoV-2 Delta variant, also known as lineage B.1.617.2.
The health agency in a statement says the variant was detected in a traveller to Nigeria, following the routine travel test required of all international travellers and genomic sequencing at the NCDC National Reference Laboratory, Abuja.
The NCDC, however, assured Nigerians that the federal government has put measures in place to combat the disease, asking them to adhere to the recommended safety protocols.

Saudi Arabia’s Deputy Defence Minister Khalid bin Salman is meeting with top Biden administration officials in the United States, just months after a US intelligence report linked his brother, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, to the killing of journalists Jamal Khashoggi.
White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki says Khalid bin Salman is expected to meet with Biden’s national security adviser Jake Sullivan, as well as with US State and Defense Department officials.
Psaki says they will discuss the longstanding partnership between the United States and Saudi Arabia, regional security and the US commitment to help Saudi Arabia defend its territory.

The World Health Organization has added lifesaving interleukin-6 receptor blockers to its list of treatments for COVID-19 as the pandemic continues to accelerate across the world.
The WHO says the medicines worked particularly well when used alongside corticosteroids, which were recommended by the WHO in September 2020.
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus in a statement says these drugs offer hope for patients and families who are suffering from the devastating impact of severe and critical COVID-19.
The WHO says the trials showed that in severely ill patients, administering the drugs resulted in 15 fewer deaths per 1,000 patients.

The Pentagon says it scrapped a massive $10 billion cloud computing contract, sidestepping a bitter dispute between Amazon and Microsoft over allegations of political bias that swayed the bidding.
A Defense Department statement says the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure contract was cancelled because it no longer meets current needs and that it would start a process for a new multi-cloud computing contract.
Officials say that instead of going forward with the deal in the face of litigation, the government would start over with the aim of getting the most up-to-date technology.
Defense Department spokesman John Sherman, says JEDI, conceived with noble intent, was developed at a time when the department’s needs were different.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken stressed the need for a negotiated ceasefire in Tigray in a call with Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed.
The US official called for the full withdrawal of Eritrean and regional Amhara forces from Tigray and for the authorities to ensure unhindered and safe humanitarian access to the people in need.
Mr Blinken also emphasised the urgency of holding an inclusive political dialogue to resolve the ethnic and political divisions in the country.
The conflict has pushed Tigray into a deep humanitarian crisis, with hundreds of thousands of people living in famine-like conditions.

Zimbabwe will from Wednesday circulate new 50-dollar currency notes, the highest ever denomination to be printed. The new note is only worth 60 US cents.
The new notes were launched on Tuesday and the central bank said it would circulate 360m dollars through banks.
This is the sixth denomination to be circulated in the country but the lower-value notes have not been in high circulation because of inflation.
People had to carry many notes for transactions hence the need for a higher denomination.
The new note's design features an image of anti-colonialist heroine Mbuya Nehanda.

Vice President Yemi Osinbajo assured Nigerians that President Muhammadu Buhari will not waste time before signing the Petroleum Industry Bill which has just been passed by the National Assembly.
Osinbajo described the passage of the legislation as a feat noting that he was not unmindful of the challenges faced by operators in the oil and gas sector.
Osinbajo says the global lockdown triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic had pushed the industry into a state of major economic crisis and further amplified the global clamour for cleaner and more sustainable renewable energy.
Osinbajo stated that the future survival and the success of many players in the industry will not only depend on their achieving greater focus on cleaner energy sources but also upon their ability to deliver low-cost solutions to their stakeholders.

The Taraba State Governor, Darius Dickson Ishaku, has called on the Federal Government to speed up oil exploration in the northeast region of the country in order to help enhance and diversify the country’s economy.
He urged the federal government to expand and expedite exploration in the Chad basin, as well as the Benue trough, which, according to geological reports, is rich in oil and gas.
He says they anticipate that early exploitation of petroleum resources in the North-East region will increase our revenue profile.
Governor Ishaku also recommended that the Forum push for the removal of the exploration and exploitation of mineral resources from the exclusive list to the concurrent list.

The Senate has condemned the unlawful encroachment and arrest of Nigerians by the authorities of the Republic of Benin.
This stance by the upper chamber followed a motion by Senator Tolu Odebiyi during the plenary on Tuesday.
The lawmaker drew the attention of lawmakers to reports of encroachments into Nigeria’s territory by authorities of the Republic of Benin.
Odebiyi noted that the arrest of these Nigerians is based on the allegation that they are resisting encroachment into Nigerian land through Igbokofi village in Yewa North LGA of Ogun State.