For the second time in April, Dangote Petroleum Refinery and Petrochemicals has again reduced the ex-depot (gantry) price of petrol, lowering it from ₦867 to ₦835 per litre.

The Lagos-based $20 billion refinery informed its marketers and customers of the price adjustment on Wednesday. This fresh slash follows an earlier downward review earlier in the month, signifying a continued intervention by the private refinery in stabilising fuel prices in the country.

A senior official of the company, who spoke on condition of anonymity, had earlier confirmed the new price, disclosing that a formal statement would be issued in due course.

Further checks on the petroleumprice.ng portal also corroborated the development, confirming that the ex-depot price had indeed been reviewed to ₦835 as of Wednesday afternoon.

Following the reduction, petrol pump prices in retail outlets with special supply arrangements with Dangote Refinery — including major marketers such as MRS Oil & Gas, Ardova Plc, and Heyden Petroleum — are expected to drop below ₦900 per litre, reflecting the marginal cut in the gantry price.

 

Later in the day, the company’s official spokesperson, Mr Anthony Chiejina, released a formal statement confirming the price reduction. He noted that outlets in Lagos with special agreements would sell petrol at ₦890 per litre, offering some relief to consumers amid economic hardship.

This latest adjustment comes in the wake of a strategic meeting held last week between top executives of Dangote Refinery and the Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Mr Wale Edun. The meeting reportedly reaffirmed the Federal Government’s commitment to the naira-for-crude initiative.

The Ministry clarified that the policy was not a temporary intervention, but a “key policy directive designed to support sustainable local refining” and was to be continued immediately — overriding the earlier decision by the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) under its former Group CEO, Mele Kyari, which had suspended the initiative.

Nigeria, Africa’s most populous nation, continues to battle chronic energy challenges, with erratic power supply stifling industrial and domestic productivity. For decades, the nation relied on imported refined petroleum products due to the comatose state of its government-owned refineries.

The emergence of the Dangote Refinery has been seen as a potential game-changer in Nigeria’s petroleum landscape, especially since the removal of petrol subsidy by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu in May 2023, which triggered a steep rise in pump prices from around ₦200 to nearly ₦1,000 per litre.

Bitcoin and other leading cryptocurrencies extended their gains on Monday, driven by positive investor sentiment despite concerns over upcoming U.S. tariffs and key economic data releases later this week.

As of 9:55 am WAT, Bitcoin rose 3.71% to $87,480, while Ethereum gained 4.05%, trading at $2,093. The global cryptocurrency market capitalisation increased by 2.94% in the past 24 hours, reaching $2.84 trillion.

Other notable performers included XRP, Cardano, and Dogecoin, which posted gains of 3%, 2%, and 3.8%, respectively. Chainlink, Avalanche, Hedera, and Stellar also recorded growth ranging from 3% to 10%.

“Bitcoin is holding above $86,000, registering a 3% gain today. The key resistance level to watch is $86,700; a breakout could pave the way for $90,000,” said Vikram Subburaj, CEO of Giottus.

Bitcoin’s market capitalisation surged to $1.727 trillion, with dominance rising to 60.73%. Its 24-hour trading volume soared by 93% to $18.2 billion, while stablecoin transactions accounted for 94.74% of total crypto trading, reaching $57.58 billion, according to CoinMarketCap.

Solana Leads the Charge

Solana (SOL) emerged as a standout performer, surging over 7% in the past 24 hours to trade above $139.

The rally was fueled by reports suggesting that President Trump’s April 2 tariffs may be more targeted than initially feared, easing market concerns.

Solana’s momentum aligns with increasing adoption rates. DeFiLlama reported that Solana’s total value locked (TVL) reached 54.87 million SOL, its highest level since June 2022. Additionally, Ali Charts revealed that a record 11.09 million addresses now hold SOL, underscoring growing investor confidence.

Further supporting the bullish outlook, over $72 million in assets have recently been bridged from Ethereum to Solana. Solana’s weekly active addresses (17 million) now significantly exceed Ethereum’s (1.8 million), while Binance’s rising SOL wallet balances suggest fresh accumulation following recent selling activity.

Institutional Interest on the Rise

Institutional acceptance of Solana continues to grow, with Volatility Shares launching two Solana futures ETFs (SOLZ and SOLT) on Nasdaq on March 21.

Major asset managers, including Franklin Templeton and VanEck, have also applied for spot Solana ETFs, signalling increased interest in the cryptocurrency.

Meanwhile, BitMEX co-founder Arthur Hayes expressed optimism about Bitcoin’s trajectory, stating, “The Fed’s policy orientation could help Bitcoin achieve $110k before it retests $76.5k.”

With the crypto market gaining momentum, investors remain focused on key technical levels and macroeconomic developments that could shape future price movements.

Unarguably one of the most exceptionally unique amazons ever produced by the African continent, the story of Ibukunoluwa Abiodun Awosika is intriguing in many ways. Despite being raised in a male-dominated society, she shines as a star, defying all barriers to become a global force in banking, entrepreneurship, and mentorship.

The Founder of The Chair Centre Group, former Chairperson of First Bank of Nigeria, co-founder and past chairperson of Women in Management, Business and Public Service (WIMBIZ), Awosika, is a trailblazer and an outstanding motivation to the African girl child that no barrier exists where there is a will. With a net worth of over $18.6 million, according to estimates from Forbes Africa as of 2012, the 61-year-old is worth more than her monetary value, especially when measured by the impact she’s made as an author and motivational speaker.

Awosika, a recipient of many awards from reputable global brands, was a guest on Channels Television’s  Amazing Africans programme, during which she shared her journey from ordinary to extraordinary.

Enjoy some excerpts from this interesting interview!

In The Beginning…

I’m very proud of my entire experience at Methodist Girls High School. First, it was a school that had a lot of culture and a lot of values and sought in many ways to influence our minds in an all-round way. I was very active in sports. I was in the school’s relay team from my second year in school. I was pretty fast, as my friends used to call me ‘The Rabbit’. I was very involved in school plays and I used to debate to represent my school in debates and all of that. So, you had a full life; all the other things to do were fun and we were mixed backgrounds so it wasn’t just an elitist school. It was girls from every kind of home but we all got into the class because we were smart and so you learned from each other so it was a good community.

I have a quote here: ‘Seeing my drive as a young entrepreneur, my father used to say I have given birth to this one and if anything happened, he was always present to assist me even if it meant selling his house to pay up any debts’. He never discouraged you and I’m sure that had a great influence on what you felt you were capable of doing when you don’t have to go against your parents you have their full support.

I am a daddy’s girl, no doubts and no apologies. In many ways I think I had a special relationship with my dad, my siblings always say that he was a hardworking man, he believed in the value of working hard but he was also a very simple man in many ways. My father was in many ways the epitome of contentment. A man who worked hard, and pursued his goals but was happy with his estate in life and was comfortable sitting with the President and can sit the next day with the mechanic and have a gist and talk about it.

When we were young if my father’s driver was driving us to school or somewhere, you didn’t have the right to say, ‘My driver’, because you would get told: ‘You don’t have a driver. My driver doesn’t belong to you’. My dad will tell you: ‘He is my driver and you just have the privilege of being driven’.

I didn’t understand when people asked me later in my 20s: ‘Oh you did something, weren’t you afraid it wasn’t a thing that a girl could do? I didn’t understand it because I grew up in a home where we were mainly girls. My dad had mainly girls. Well, they had three boys in their lifetime and one passed and so I have two brothers and there were five girls. So, we were mainly girls and my dad never told us there was something we couldn’t do. Rather, it was about that we could do anything we wanted to do and we got all the support and encouragement to do that.

My mother was the same in many ways. She had left her Cameroonian home at a very young age, she was about 18 when she left to marry the guy she had met. I think my dad had gone on some Man O’ War thing to Cameroon and they met. She had been betrothed to another king or something; her father was the king of their community. She came to Nigeria and they got married. My dad went to England to further his education and my mom was pregnant with me. She had my brother, she was pregnant with me and was waiting to have me when my dad left for school in England and so she waited, had me, and after I think barely a year, she left my brother and myself with my grandmother and she went to join her husband in England.

You’ve described your father as ‘non-traditional’ in more ways than one. He’s also non-traditional when it comes to maybe even viewing women would you say?

In many ways. I had the liberty of expression, that’s the word I would use and I think that went for myself and all my siblings. My dad was strict in terms of values. He was strict especially because we were mainly girls but as he was strict in terms of making sure he kept us on the straight and narrow path, he was a very supportive, liberated parent in terms of expressing ourselves.

It’s not only your parents who passed on some important life lessons, your grandmother also has played a significant role in your life. Could you let us know how she also lent herself to your trajectory and success?

Well, I think my grandmother had the most influence in nurturing my early years because my grandmother was responsible for me until my parents came back from England by the end of ‘68, early ’69, when I was about 6 or 7 years old or thereabouts. So, the early years of my life were my grandmother’s to nurture. They used to call her by my name ‘cos she had only boys and I was the girl she raised. She had a little shop in our family compound area in Ibadan. My family is from the capital of Oyo State in Ibadan and my grandmother used to sell salt. She had this little shop where she used to sell salt and little things. I think maybe my first exposure to business was sitting in my grandmother’s little store and joyfully handing over products to customers.

I had things figured out so when you follow the trail, you will see just how much the hand of God played in my life you know. When I was in secondary school, I thought I wanted to become a doctor and then I found out that Medical School involved working with real dead bodies and I quickly changed my mind. It was that simple for me, I couldn’t imagine myself playing around with dead bodies so I gave up on being a doctor. Then I thought I wanted to be an architect. Anyway, I ended up in the university to study Chemistry but by the end of my first year in Chemistry, I realised I didn’t love it. I could pass Sciences but it wasn’t a love for me and I wasn’t enjoying it. So, I then thought okay I’d like to be a lawyer because everybody thought I’d make a great lawyer. After all, I used to debate so well and I thought they might just be right. I remember going to sit outside the office of the Dean of Law every day for many days until his secretary said to the man: ‘Look you have seen this young lady, she’s been coming here every day’. And then, this elderly professor, he is dead now. He asked me to come in and asked me: ‘What can I do for you young lady?’ And I said: ‘Sir, I’d like to transfer to law next session.’ The man looked at me and had a good laugh and thought: ‘I like your guts. You know if I only take one person next session it will be you but you must pass very well’. I said, ‘Yes sir’. However, that would be my problem because once you pass very well my department will never release me to him and if I didn’t pass well enough, he wouldn’t take me. I had a Catch 99 Situation. Anyway, I resolved the situation myself because by the end of the session, I changed my mind about wanting to be a lawyer. I now decided I would like to be a Chartered Accountant so I could go and work in a bank.

During my youth service, I was a very rich corper because I was very busy; I was presenting a programme on CTV in Kano. They had some commercial programmes that I used to present. I was doing voiceover and commercials. I was running aerobics classes for private clients because I was an athlete even up to my university level. So I was doing everything to open up myself and I was making money doing that.

From Auditing To Furniture-Making

When I decided I didn’t want to do the audit anymore, I came back home and when I came back I didn’t want to sit down. I had been making my own money and now I didn’t want to go back to my parents to start asking for allowances or anything so I wanted any job I could find first. So, the first job I could get was in a Furniture Company, one week after I came back from Youth Service. Now, I just wanted something to kill time I still had my eyes on going to work in the bank and I only lasted three and a half months in that company. First, I realised whilst there why I had thought about studying Architecture ‘cos all the creative part of me came alive and I realized I was in my element in terms of what I was doing there but I didn’t like the value system of the company and the way they did their business.

I realised working there that when they hired the carpenters, they came with their tools, and that the expensive machinery, there were smaller versions of them, and you could rent the use of those machines without even buying them and there are places where you go and do pay-as-you-go for them to process things for you. There were different factors of production available in this space and all I had to do was think of how to bring them together with three carpenters, two sprayers and two upholsters that was the team.

Building A Transgenerational Business

When I was 31 years old and going on 32, I had my second child. I decided then that I would like to build the business to the highest possible level but I wanted to have a life and in wanting to have a life, I made up my mind that the business must be able to survive without me and I wanted to do it in my lifetime and not when I’m dead so I decided that by 50 I was going to be out of running my business every day. By 48, I had a firm come in and consolidate all my businesses as they were into the Group and then picked people to manage the business in different levels. I have the title of CEO (but) right now I just tell them to refer to me as the founder because I don’t run the business. I have a COO who has the CEO responsibilities, running the entire business and she’ll get his title soon enough. For the past so many years now, I have kept my eye on the business. I’m responsible, I’m focused on helping them in terms of trying to identify the right strategy and if we want to get into new businesses but I’ve allowed the Group to try and find its way without me and I’ve always shunned any temptation to go back.

Why?

Because if you really want a business to outlive you it has to be able to live without you.