Hello Twentyten Daily Readers,
Welcome to a new week with us at Twentyten Daily. Last week we reported how since the Federal government has banned the operation of Twitter in Nigeria, the country has cumulatively lost over N200 billion. The ban which took effect in the country on June 5 has reached 3 months of shutdown. This figure was calculated based on the NetBlocks Cost of Shutdown Tool which reported that it costs Nigeria’s economy N102.77 million ($250,600) every hour to ban Twitter. The Federal Government had on June 4 announced the suspension of Twitter in Nigeria. Telecommunication companies started blocking access to Twitter on June 5, after they received a directive from the Nigerian Communications Commission to block access to Twitter. Read here
How Accurately Is Suicide Portrayed In Nigeria?
A 2016 report by WHO titled, “Suicide in the World: Global Health Estimates,” showed that Nigeria has the highest suicidal rate among African countries in 2016 with over 17,000 suicide cases. According to the report, 9,300 victims were males and 8,410 were women.Another report circumventing reported cases from January 2010 to December 2019 showed that about 350 people were reported to have died by suicide, of which a majority of the reported cases were male (80.6%). Read here
Only One Network Provider Recoded Increase In July
Latest report by the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has shown that Globacom (Glo) was the only network that recorded an increase in its subscriber base in July, 2021. This was according to the monthly subscribers’ report for July published on its website. NCC indicated that Glo moved from 50,130,540 in June, to 51,137,799 at the end of July thus growing its subscriber base by 1,007,259 new subscribers. Read here
NNPC’s Revenue Drops By N916bn
The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation said that its revenue for the 2020 financial year fell to N3.72 trillion from N4.63 trillion in 2019. This shows a difference of N916bn. This is coming after declaring its first profit in its 44-year history. Read here
In Five Years, Nigeria Attracted $3.9bn Telecoms Investments
According to a new report by Agusto & Co., Nigeria’s telecommunications industry attracted $3.9 billion in foreign portfolio and direct investments between 2015 and 2020.
The credit rating agency, in its 2021 Telecommunications Industry report, said, “Between 2015 and 2020, foreign investments (portfolio and direct) attributable to the telecommunications industry amounted to $3.9bn, an average of seven percent of Nigeria’s total capital importation during the same period. Read here
What We Know About The New C.1.2 Variant
C.1.2 is reported to be the variant carrying the most mutations since the original “wild” variant emerged in China. According to a pre-print study put out by South Africa’s National Institute for Communicable Diseases, the C.1.2 variant was first identified in the Gauteng and Mpumalanga provinces in May 2021. It has been found in other provinces in South Africa as well as in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Mauritius, New Zealand, Portugal and Switzerland. Read here