Business
TUC Faults Oversized Speed Bumps On PH Roads
The Trade Union Congress(TUC), has decried the number and size of speed bumps on major roads in Port Harcourt, particularly at the Air Force/Eliozu axis of Obio/Akpor Local Government Area of Rivers State.
The Deputy National President, TUC, Mr Chika Onuegbu, made this complaint in a chat with newsmen in Port Harcourt, recently.
Onuegbu said it was arbitrary to build speed bumps on any road without due consultation with relevant authorities such as the Ministry of Urban Development and Town Planning.
According to him, We just woke up one morning and saw the speed bumps, several of them have been built on the Eliozu/Air Force Road and these speed bumps are causing a hell of traffic. Unfortunately, it is against the law to build a speed bump of this nature on a major highway and nobody is talking.
He lamented that the speed bumps were causing heavy traffic jams on the road, stressing that a lot of man hours were lost due to the length of time it took to surmount the traffic difficulty people pass through to get to their places of work and businesses on daily basis.
He said: “people are passing through excruciating pains in the morning; people take hours to get to work as the hold ups build even after the Eliozu bridge”.
The TUC boss observed that there were modern ways of building speed bumps without necessarily disturbing the free flow of traffic, saying, “whoever that is responsible for putting those speed bumps should at least consult and find out the modern ways of achieving its objective and not take Rivers State 20 years back’’.
He said the presence of speed bumps on major roads posed a security threat to motorists as hoodlums could easily take advantage of the slow traffic and attack commuters.
The labour leader appealed to the state government to come to the aid of motorists by prevailing on the relevant agencies to remove the speed bumps for easy flow of traffic.
Tonye Nria-Dappa
Cornerstone of Financial Services
A survey of more than 1 000 global finance leaders undertaken by digital payment network Ripple shows that 72% of respondents believe they need to offer a digital asset solution to remain competitive.
According to Ripple, leaders from the banking, fintech, corporate and asset management sector have made it clear that the “digital asset revolution is happening now”.
“Digital assets are quickly becoming a cornerstone of financial services, underpinned by progressive regulation, growing interest from Tier-1 banks, a steady consumer shift from banks to fintech providers, and booming stablecoin adoption,” Ripple says.
The survey was conducted in early 2026 and the findings released in March.
Stablecoin Boon or Bane?
Ripple has experienced significant success in the stablecoin sector since launching its Ripple USD (RLUSD) stablecoin in 2024.
With a market cap of $1.56 billion, it is considered a major regulated player in the market.
No doubt the platform was pleased to learn through its own survey that financial leaders were most bullish about stablecoins.
Roughly three-quarters of respondents believed they could boost cash-flow efficiency and unlock trapped working capital.
Ripple noted that finance leaders were thinking about stablecoins as more than “just a new way to execute payments”; instead, they viewed them as effective tools for treasury management.
In March 2026, Ripple began testing a new trade finance model built around RLUSD in a bid to increase the speed of cross-border payments.
The pilot initiative, developed alongside supply chain finance company Unloq [https://unloq.com], is running on the XRP Ledger inside a testing framework developed by the Monetary Authority of Singapore.
The Asian city-state is one of the platform’s biggest growth markets.
The idea behind the project is to see whether stablecoin-based settlement can streamline trade finance, too often hampered by reliance on intermediaries and slow reconciliation.
The only potential drawback is that if the initiative takes off, the Ripple to USD price could be negatively affected.
Ripple has always championed its native XRP token as a bridge asset, the “middleman” in the process of a financial institution turning dollars in the US into pounds in the UK, for example.
Ripple converts dollars into XRP and then back into pounds.
If RLUSD can do exactly the same thing, questions will be asked about XRP’s relevance.
That is a bridge Ripple will have to cross if it gets to that point.
Tokenisation Partners
Another interesting finding from Ripple’s survey is that most banks and asset managers are seeking tokenisation partners to help execute their strategies.
Some 89% of respondents said digital asset storage and custody were top priority. “Token servicing/lifecycle management also ranks highly for banks at 82%, while asset managers place greater emphasis on primary distribution at 80%,” Ripple found.
The survey also revealed that just more than half of fintechs and financial institutions want an infrastructure provider that can offer a “one-stop-shop solution”. This rose to 71% among corporate financial leaders.
Ripple attributes this to institutions and firms wanting uncomplicated, cohesive systems.
Infrastructure Rules
In its final analysis, Ripple says companies across the board are looking for partners and solutions that are “secure, compliant, battle-tested and that enable growth and execution”.
“The message is clear: infrastructure decisions made today will shape competitive positioning tomorrow.”
No surprise that this is precisely where Ripple is placing much of its focus.
