Tomorrow, I will be teaching with Pastor W.F. Kumuyi on the theme “Unlimited Potentials”. I invite you to make time and attend this year’s Impact Academy. I will speak on Against All Odds and will draw heavily from Romans 8 with practical cases. Good People, “in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us”. We’re all WINNERS with unlimited potentials. May His Grace be with you!
Schedule here
Ndubuisi Ekekwe To Speak in Pastor W.F. Kumuyi’s Impact Academy
India is revisiting its scrutiny on game apps with Chinese ties. The South Asian giant had in 2020, moved to curtail the proliferation of Chinese apps in its markets, following a conflict between the two countries that resulted in the death of many Indian military personnel.
The sweeping action saw several Chinese apps removed from Indian markets, where they had thrived for long.
Now, TechCrunch reports citing sources, that Google has pulled the popular battle royale game Battlegrounds Mobile India, more popularly known as BGMI, from Play Store in India after a New Delhi order.
The decision is coming a year after developer Krafton launched the app. The BGMI game has also been delisted from Apple’s App Store in the country.
“On receipt of the order, following established process, we have notified the affected developer and have blocked access to the app that remained available on the Play Store in India,” a Google spokesperson told TechCrunch.
The report below, highlighting the swiftness of both Google and Apple in implementing the order, indicates that it follows the 2020 conflict-based trajectory.
The app was delisted by Google from the Play Store; a person familiar with the matter told TechCrunch that Krafton delisted the app from Apple’s App Store Thursday evening. The iPhone-maker didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. A Krafton spokesperson acknowledged the delisting and said the company was seeking clarification.
The development follows a growing tension between India and China, two nuclear-armed neighboring nations that have been especially at odds since deadly skirmishes along the Himalayan border in 2020. India reacted to the move by banning hundreds of China-linked apps including PUBG and TikTok, both of which counted India as their largest overseas market by users.
Of the hundreds of apps that New Delhi banned in the country, Krafton’s PUBG was the only title that made a return — though with a completely revamped avatar.
Krafton said it had cut ties with its publishing partner Tencent and pledged to invest $100 million in India’s gaming ecosystem. Krafton — which has backed a number of Indian startups including Nodwin Gaming, Loco, Pratilipi and Kuku FM in the past one and a half years — told TechCrunch earlier this week that it was on track to deploy about $140 million in the country by next month.
The South Korean-headquartered firm said earlier this week that over 100 million users had signed up for the game in India in the past one year since launch. According to Sensor Tower, Battlegrounds Mobile India had amassed over 16.5 million monthly active users in the country.
It was unclear why the Indian government had ordered to block Battlegrounds Mobile India.
Last month, a local media report — whose authenticity has been questioned by many — claimed that a child had killed his mother under the influence of the game. The report gained wide popularity on social media and reached the nation’s parliament this month. India’s Junior IT Minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar said last week that law enforcement agencies were investigating the subject.
Indian authorities have raided the local offices of Chinese phonemakers Xiaomi, Vivo and Oppo in recent months and levelled charges of tax fraud against them. China’s embassy in India criticized Indian authorities earlier this month for “frequent investigations” into the local units of the phonemakers and warned that such moves “impede the improvement of [the] business environment” in India and “chills the confidence and willingness” of other foreign nation’s businesses to invest and operate in the South Asian nation.
The name “Chief Wole Olanipekun SAN” is an authority in the Nigerian legal space. Lawyers quote his name in court to convince other lawyers and even judges. He is one of the oldest living members of the inner bar having been conferred a SAN in 1991; when most lawyers of today are still toddlers and some are even yet to be born.
Young lawyers watch him with so much admiration, how he marshals out his points and arguments with resounding tone and cerebral prowess. He is one of the most admired lawyers that lawyers even go to court just to listen to him present his case and argue his facts and he never disappoints.
It is rather ridiculous to be making jest of a person of that caliber; that he cannot win a case free and fair without external or unethical influence on the judge his matter is before; after all, he is the chairman of a committee which most (if not all) judges in Nigeria are members of.
This whole drama started in June 2022 when one Ms. Adekunbi Ogunde, a partner in the law firm of Messr Chief Wole Olanipekun wrote a letter to a prospective client boasting about how influential the boss (Chief Wole Olanipekun) is and how the boss amongst other things can easily influence the outcome of cases in Nigeria as the chairman of body of benchers which judges are members of.
Lawyers in different circles have been protesting about this incident calling for the discipline of the lawyer that sent out this kind of letter since it is an aberration to the Rules of Professional Conduct of legal practitioners and some of us are in shock and in utter dismay, asking one another if this is what really goes on behind the scenes in courtrooms; that can a celebrated lawyer of high repute like Chief Wole really engage in unethical practices to influence judges to get judgments and judicial outcomes in his favour? as proudly boasted by Chief’s young colleague: This assertion should be thoroughly looked into and investigated.
One thing that cannot be denied no matter how far we stretch the argument is that Chief is a very sound and cerebral legal mind. He is solid and extremely good with this legal craft. I have watched him in court many times present his case and argument; his arguments are always astute and resounding, so enough with the silly comments and subtle diss from some lawyers who may have been looking for a way to take a stab on Chief that all Chief has been doing is to go to court show his face and later put a call across to the judge. This is totally unfair to the person of Chief and ridiculing his legacies but truth be told, it was the handwork of an overzealous partner in the Chief’s office who first made an open boast of how influential Chief is and how tChief is the head of judges and justice in Nigeria and his involvement in any matter will always switch things in the Favour of the client that exposed Chief to this unwonted attacks and silly insults.
But the law is the law, no matter who is involved and the law must be allowed to take its course. It is glaring (although until proven guilty) that a partner and a young colleague of Chief Wole broke some rules of the RPC specifically rule 39(2) which prohibits solicitations of this kind and according to the rules of the RPC which Chief is one of those that made the law, once a lawyer despite the status of that lawyer is accused to have broken any ethical rule, that lawyer must be summoned before the Legal Practitioners Disciplinary Committee (LPDC) to determine if that lawyer is guilty or not and if determined to be guilty, appropriate punishment must be meted to that fellow.
On this note, the Nigerian Bar Association advised Chief to step down as the chairman of the Body of Benchers (BOB) for the time being reason being that the LPDC which a partner in the law firm of Chief is brought before is a committee under the supervision of the BOB which Chief is chairing and the presence of Chief may likely raise the presumption of bias on the part of Chief and according to the rule of fair hearing, one cannot be a judge in his own matter.
Chief has accused some members of the bar of using this as an avenue to throw insults and jabs at him but even if this claim is true, it does not whittle down the point that his presence as the chairman of a body superintending over the affairs of the disciplinary committee will likely influence the outcome or there will be a reasonable presumption of that.
The law is the law, Chief should in good faith step down for the time being and allow his colleague to face the disciplinary panel, if not Chief will be setting a dangerous precedent that the law is only made for the weak and less influential but the powerful and influential are far above the law.
Good People, I am very excited to announce that I will keynote The Africa Youth Conversation 2.0 on Saturday, July 30, 2022. My presentation will focus on the broad theme of “Building systems that enable young people to succeed at a significant scale”. Connect with Convener Odinaka Iloh and register free here
Get the message from me: no matter what is happening in Nigeria at this time, the future is full of abundance and this is the best time to be a young person. We just have to propel any optimistic exuberance with #action – and with that, success will become a constant. #letsgo
There seems to be little hope for economic recovery for Nigeria in the near future as the oil production shortfalls that have largely contributed to slow Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth is expected to extend to the next three years.
The situation was confirmed on Wednesday by the Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Mrs. Zainab Ahmed, after the Federal Executive Council meeting held in Abuja. According to the draft copy of the Medium Term Expenditure Framework 2023-2025, which was approved by the minister, the federal government has projected that the oil sector’s contribution to GDP will decline between 2023 and 2025 to 5%.
The oil sector has increasingly faltered quarter-on-quarter, trailing other sectors of the economy in contribution to Nigeria’s GDP growth.
According to data published by the Nigeria Bureau of Statistics (NBS) in February 2022, the oil sector contribution to the Nigerian economy declined to 5.19% at N1.055 trillion in the fourth quarter of 2021, down by 3.68 basis points, from the 5.87% contribution in the corresponding period in 2020.
This is notably as a result of the decline in the nation’s oil output that has fallen short of its 1.753 million barrels per day (mbpd) OPEC’s quota. Nigeria’s oil production has dropped Year-on-Year, by 23.8% to 1.024 (mbpd) in May 2022, from 1.344 mbpd recorded in the corresponding period of 2021, according to the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries.
The Finance Minister said that in the draft document of the framework, crude oil price assumption for 2023 is $70 per barrel, 2024 is $66 per barrel and $62 per barrel for 2025, with an estimated production rate of 1.69 million barrels per day for 2023 and 1.813 million barrels per day for 2024 and 2025.
“The assumptions that we made for the next medium term framework from 2023 to 2025 is that crude oil price will be at $70 per barrel for 2023, $66 per barrel for 2024 and $62 per barrel for 2025.
“Crude oil production is projected to be 1.69million bpd for 2023 and 1.813million bpd for both 2024 as well as 2025.
“We have also projected on the nominal GDP, that the size of Nigeria’s economy will rise up to N225.5 trillion with 95 percent of this contribution by the non-oil sector while the oil sector will contribute only five per cent.
“And some steady increase from 2024 to reach up to N280.7 trillion in 2025. This means that Nigeria continues to retain its position as the largest economy in Africa,” she said.
The oil windfall orchestrated by Russia-Ukraine conflict presented a golden opportunity for OPEC members to increase their GDP – but Nigeria is missing in the party.
The Minister of State for Petroleum, Chief Timipre Sylva, has attributed the shortfalls to vandalism of oil installations and crude oil theft that has cost Nigeria’s economy N3.038 trillion in the past one year.
With a solution not in sight, the federal government appears to be shifting attention to non-oil sectors.
President Muhammadu Buhari has touted agriculture to be Nigeria’s new main source of revenue generation. But insecurity in the country, particularly in the northern region, has greatly stymied the aim.
Other sectors are also striving under an unfriendly business environment dominated by epileptic power supply, making it difficult for the non-oil sector to fill the gap created in the nation’s GDP by the oil production shortfalls.