Ekiti: Oni, Ojudu Attack Fayemi, APC Wants Primary Concluded And Other Newspaper Headlines Today

The All Progressives Congress has ordered that the process of electing its standard-bearer in the forthcoming Ekiti State governorship election must be concluded before its National Working Committee takes the next step. This was even as the party leadership held that the conduct of the party’s ward congresses across the 36 states of the federation and the Federal Capital Territory was largely peaceful. According to THE PUNCH, The APC National Publicity Secretary, Mallam Bolaji Abdullahi, who spoke to The PUNCH on the telephone on Sunday, said the issues regarding the Ekiti governorship primary had been resolved.

THE NATION reveals that bandits kill 45 in Kaduna. Barely three days after Inspector-General of Police (IGP) Ibrahim Idris visited Birnin Gwari Local Government Area of Kaduna State over the spate of killngs, bandits at the weekend killed 45 people, including women and children. Condemning the attack, Governor Nasir El-Rufai said the Federal Government’s plan to establish an Army battalion in Birnin-Gwari would soon be implemented. During his visit, the IG ordered immediate deployment of additional 200 policemen in the area.

Moving to APC’s congress NIGERIAN TRIBUNE discloses that despite violence, APC claims ward congresses successful.  Violence and protests characterized the conduct of the ward congresses (APC) in many states of the federation, at the weekend, though the party insisted on Sunday that the exercise was a success and commended delegates for their peaceful conduct.

Finally on the economy sector, BUSINESS DAY reports that benefits of lower yields eluding bulk of small businesses. Commercial bank lending rates – to which millions of small businesses in Africa’s largest economy are exposed- isn’t letting up to the extent at which yields on domestic government bonds and Treasury bills have over the past one year.
A change of tack by the Federal government- wherein cheaper dollar denominated loans are making way for expensive domestic loans- has cut government debt supply and sent yields to as low as 12 percent this year from some 22 percent in 2017. The new tack is helping the federal government manage ballooning domestic debt servicing costs, while it is tipped to free up bank credit to the private sector and help companies raise debt capital at a lesser rate through commercial papers. For a large corporate or a publicly listed company, perhaps bank credit will flow better and debt capital can be raised at a lower rate. Small businesses outside of those two categories are not as optimistic of raising capital at cheaper rates and may rightly feel hard done by.