Tell Magazine

The gale of reversals of concession agreements by government portrays the nation as an unfriendly investment destination   For Philip Asiodu, a former federal permanent secretary, last week’s termination of the concession agreement between the federal government and the Bi-Courtney Consortium, represented by Bi-Courtney Highway Services Limited, BHSL, would remain a bitter pill to swallow. “It’s so disgraceful for Nigeria,” the former technocrat observed at a book presentation in Lagos, describing the government’s handling of the Public-Private Partnership, PPP, policy as “very bad signals” to investment in Nigeria. Not usually given to anger, the renowned bureaucrat and economic adviser to…

Virtually all the banks in the country have declared mega profits in their third quarter results, an indication that they are out of the woods. But experts say they have failed to stimulate the growth of the economy by not lending to the productive sector   The stage was set last year when banks, which suffered declining profits in the 2009 and 2010 financial years, started recording positive results. By the first and second quarters of this year, virtually all the banks had bounced back to profitability, declaring jumbo profits to the delight of their stakeholders. So even before the…

Many Nigerians, unknown to them, are increasingly becoming exposed to dangerous ionising radiation with attendant danger to their health   It was about midday. Jackson Ndubuisi, a former staff of Cotecna Destination Inspection, a company based in Lagos, was perching on a seat in his lawyer’s office at Obafemi Awolowo Way, Ikeja, Lagos, his chubby face, which had been bathed by the light that filtered through the tinted windows, was expressionless. He looked robust and fit to the ordinary eye as he prepped himself for the interview session.  But barely had he spoken for five minutes when the father of…

The search for grazing fields, which has turned Fulani herdsmen into guerrilla fighters, spreading terror and fear among farming communities in the country, is also generating an uproar in the National Assembly   Aliyu Bello, 26, son of a Fulani herdsman in Bachit Village, Riyom Local Government, LG, area of Plateau State is an unusual herdsman. Dressed in a faded pair of trousers and shirt and a knitted cap that covers part of his face, the young herdsman appears to be at home in the lonely jungle of Miango Forest in the Bassa LG area of the state. Though he claims…