Index to Nigerian Newspapers

Noble Laureate, Prof. Wole Soyinka, says restructuring has become inevitable for the nation to prevail over its challenges. Mr Soyinka spoke at the Punch Nigeria Ltd 50th Anniversary Lecture titled "Recovering the Narrative" at Civic Centre, Victoria Island, Lagos. Delivering a lecture on the theme, Soyinka said that Nigerians did not have to go through unending hardship to live better. Soyinka said those leading the country recognised the importance of restructuring and its inevitability, but were not adopting it, for whatever reason. According to him, restructuring is necessary in order to maximize development. Soyinka noted that provision of palliatives to the suffering masses was just a stop gap. Calling for genuine action on restructuring, Soyinka decried that many conferences on the subject had not yielded positive results. Soyinka said that government should restore dignity to citizens and guarantee three square meals a day for the people. On the media, Soyinka said that humanity could be transformed if language and media were positively used.

The House of Representatives, yesterday, mandated its joint Committees on Banking Regulations and Banking Institutions to conduct an investigative hearing on the non-compliance by banks and financial institutions with the directives of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) on the Net Open Position Limits. The resolution was arrived at following the adoption of a motion on matters of urgent national importance on the need for banks to implement CBN's policies on holding excess long foreign exchange and Net Open Position Limits, sponsored by Hon Babajimi Benson (APC, Lagos) at plenary. While presenting the motion, Benson noted that the Central Bank of Nigeria is saddled with the responsibility of regulating the monetary policies of the country as provided for by the CBN Act. The lawmaker added that this speculative activity by commercial banks and certain financial institutions has further exacerbated the harsh economic situation in the country and led to difficulty by legitimate businesses to obtain forex for their business transactions. According to him, unless drastic legislative measures are taken to enforce the implementation of these directives, the country will continue to experience dire economic hardship as a result of continuous rise in foreign exchange rates. The motion was unanimously passed.