The board of Access Holdings Plc said an acting Group Chief Executive Officer will be announced soon to replace its late CEO, Herbert Wigwe.

The company, in a statement signed by the Group Company Secretary, Sunday Ekwochi on Sunday, confirmed Wigwe’s death, as well as his wife and son in an helicopter crash in United States on Friday.

According to the statement, the appointment of a new head was in line with the company’s policy.

The statement partly reads, “In line with the company’s policy, the board will soon announce the appointment of an Acting Group Chief Executive Officer even as we remain confident that the Access Group will build further on Dr. Wigwe’s legacy of growth and operational excellence.”

The former Chairman of Nigeria Exchange Group, Abimbola Ogunbajo was also on board the ill-fated chopper are three others.

A member of National Transportation Safety Board at a press briefing on Sunday, said preliminary reports suggest that the crash could have been caused by wintry weather and rain.

Wigwe was appointed Access Holdings GCEO on March 28, 2022.

Prior to his appointment, he had occupied various positions within Access Bank, from being the deputy managing director at Access Bank from 2012 to 2014, when he became the group managing director and CEO.

He served as the chairman of Access Bank (Ghana), Access Investment & Securities Limited, Central Securities and Clearing System and presently as chairman of Access Bank Limited and Unified Payments Services Limited.

Former Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) governor, Mohammed Sanusi, has said rather than blaming President Bola Tinubu for the present hardship in the country, accusatory fingers should be pointed at his immediate predecessor, Muhammadu Buhari, over the way he handled the economy.

The former emir of Kano, who spoke virtually on Sunday at a religious event in Abuja, maintained that the immediate past administration failed to properly manage its economic policies.

According to him, Buhari turned a deaf ear to reasonable advice on how to take Nigeria out of its economic woes.

He said he would, therefore, not be able to meet the expectations of a section of Nigerians who wanted him to criticize President Tinubu over the current economic difficulties in the country.

The former royal father stated: “I have been, over the years, talking about the pending crisis ahead of the current economic hardship. Any economist who has studied monetary policy in the last eight years knows that Nigerians will fall into this difficult situation.

“The difficult situation Nigerians are facing is just the beginning (if the right decision is not put in place) because Nigeria is not exceptional; such situations happened in Germany, Zimbabwe, Uganda, and Venezuela.

“The previous administration turned adamant about our appeal for corrective measures (on the economic policy). I have said in the presence of the now sitting president in Kaduna state, any politician who tells you that things will be easy, don’t vote for him because he is lying. People merely dismissed my advisory as a political statement.

“If I am to be fair and just to President Bola Tinubu, he is not to blame for the current hardship; for eight years, we were living a fake lifestyle with huge debt from foreign and domestic debts. The Central Bank of Nigeria owes over N30 trillion, which resulted in debt service surpassing 100 per cent.

“I can’t join other Nigerians criticising Tinubu on the current economic hardship, and I am not saying he is a saint free from wrongdoing, but in this current economic situation, President Tinubu is not to be blamed. I will also speak if I see any wrong economic policy of the Tinubu administration in the future

“It’s injustice for anyone to blame the Tinubu administration for the current economic hardship because there is no other alternative than the removal of the fuel subsidy. After all, Nigeria cannot even afford to pay the subsidy. In the last eight years, the Central Bank continued to print more money, and the Naira continued to depreciate. There is too much naira in circulation because the CBN is printing the currency without restraint.

“The economy was poorly managed, and they are not willing to take advice; in the last eight years, apart from sycophancy, nothing has been done; those sycophants are those buying the dollar at the rate of N400 and selling it at the rate of N600 to N700.

“A boy who has no record of service has a private jet and owns houses in Dubai and England just because he is buying dollars at so a rate and selling them.

“I can only plead with the people to endure the hardship, and those who have the means to help the downtrodden should do so.

“I am also pleading with commoners to live according to their earnings; we must not peg our lives above our earnings in this difficult situation where people are looking for what to eat.

They were stacked full of commodity including rice, pasta, sugar, cooking oil and other food items.

The Kano State Public Complaint and Anti Corruption Commission (PCACC) on Sunday confiscated essential goods running to several millions of Naira stocked in ten warehouses at Dawanau international comodity market in Kano metropolis.

The Commission had set up an intelligence mechanism and launched a manhunt on food hoarders who Imposed untold hardship on the citizens.

In a grand operation, the Chairman of the Commission, Barrister Muhyi alongside the personnels of Commission clamped down on warehouses and stores engaged in hoarding of assorted foodstuff across the state.

All the owners of such warehouse were nowhere to be found during the operation but those opened were stacked full of commodity including rice, pasta, sugar, cooking oil and other food items.

The Chairman of the Anti-graft Agency said, some of the owners of the warehouses have been issued notice to report to the anti graft Commission preparatory to facing charges before the court of law for their illegal activities.

“As you can see, the Kano state Public Complaint and Anti Corruption Commission (PCACC) has made true it’s promise that we are going to embark on fight against hoarding of essential commodities in the state.

“We started last Thursday and we have made a significant impact towards stopping the instant rise in the price of essential commodities. It was such that within a week, rice had jumped from N52,000 to N61,000 within a week.

“Alhamdulillah form what we have done so far, we are certain that there is impact. From here we are going to the market to ascertain the situation.

“Firstly, we were able to stop the instant increase in prices of the commodities and secondly we have the belief that if we sustain the tempo we will be able to bring down the prices from where they have gotten to.

“As you can see now we are going round the warehouses and we met a lot of issues which after we go back to the office we are going to digest. “One fundamental problem is each stalk we enter they will be claiming that it is the World Food Program Store. We wonder if the world food program will starve the country while taking the food somewhere else.

“You can see, I was told here today that the price of maize has jumped from N30,000 to N60,000. So you see, a hundred percent increase, this is unacceptable. You can see these stores, there are hundreds of millions of Naira worth of hoarded commodity.

“We are taking over the stores now and we are going to make some certain arrests because these will not be tolerated. This is not a market, this is a warehouse. We have activated our intelligence mechanism and they have come up with reports on where and how they are hoarding it” he explained.

Ahmad Sorondinki in Kano

The Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) in Abuja unveiled the registration of two million businesses as part of efforts to curb rising unemployment and achieve the 50 million job creation target for Nigerian youths.

The Registrar-General and CEO of the CAC, Hussaini Ishaq Magaji SAN, at a ground-breaking ceremony in Abuja, said the registration was part of efforts to simplify the burden for young Nigerians who want to contribute meaningfully to the Nigerian economy.

“The registration of the new business was part of the CAC’s contribution to the realisation of the present administration’s economic revival plan in collaboration with moniepoint to develop the MSMEs sector, in line with the current administration target of 50 million jobs,” he said.

He said the president has youth employment as priority and the first step is to ensure that those willing to engage in different ventures donot encounter hurdles because when they start their enterprises, they will also be employers of labour.

President Bola Tinubu has warned Nigerian universities against indiscriminate award of honorary degrees, saying that it undermines the very core values of academic integrity and must be discontinued.

In a recent communication, President Tinubu brings attention to the issue of universities awarding honorary degrees without sufficient scrutiny. The President highlights the need for universities to carefully assess individuals before bestowing such significant recognition.

Tinubu, expressed his cautionary advice during the joint occasion of the graduation ceremonies for the sixth, seventh, and eighth batches of students from the Federal University of Lafia (FULafia), which took place in Lafia, the capital city of Nasarawa State, yesterday.

The Acting Executive Secretary of National Universities Commission (NUC), Mr. Chris Jibreel-Maiyaki, on behalf of the president, clarified that degrees are granted to individuals who demonstrate both exemplary character and learning.

In his viewpoint, he asserted that honorary degrees ought to be bestowed upon deserving Nigerians who have made significant contributions to the advancement of society. He stated that academic proficiency and professional education are only a small part of the criteria necessary to construct a robust and thriving nation.

He said: “Moral training and ethical standards must be coupled with the best form of academic development for universities to fulfill their purpose.

“Therefore, universities’ management and the general environments of teaching and learning must model the highest standard of integrity, probity and moral discipline.

“In this connection, I must draw your attention to the tendency of some institutions to devalue the quality of their degrees by giving out honorary doctorate degrees indiscriminately against the common universities’ community practice.”

President Tinubu has additionally committed to consistently and optimistically address the requirements of universities and their communities, in an effort to restructure and improve outcomes effectively.