Business
Court Advises NPA To Settle Disengaged Workers
The Federal High Court sitting in Port Harcourt, has advised management of the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) to initiate move to have an out-of-court settlement with its disengaged workers.
The presiding Judge, Justice Gladys Olotu, who gave the advice at the resumed hearing of a suit brought against the management of NPA by 530 disengaged workers of the authority, gave the management up to January 27, 2010 to meet and negotiate with the disengaged workers.
Justice Olotu also slammed a fine of N5,000.00 to the management of NPA for failure to appear in court at the first sitting and first hearing on the case, respectively.
Reacting to the decision of the Federal High Court, counsel to the disengaged NPA workers, Mr Odeamuza Awari Osomune said the affected former workers would explore the opportunity given by the court to see if the authority would agree to settle out of court.
“We will explore the opportunity given to us by the court, if NPA agrees to honour it. if NPA agrees to pay the disengaged workers what is due them, then there is no point still being in court,” Mr Osomune said.
It would be recalled that 530 workers of NPA, who were disengaged from the authority in April 2008 had gone to the Federal High Court, Port Harcourt, to protest the refusal of the authority’s management to pay them what is due them as retirement benefits in full.
The disengaged workers had alleged that the management of NPA paid into their various bank accounts less than what they expected as retirement benefits.
Insisting that the management of NPA had at a meeting with the leadership of the Senior Staff Association (SSA) of the authority as well as that of the maritime workers union of Nigeria (MWUN), agreed to pay in full the accrued benefits of the disengaged workers on monetised rate, the workers regretted that two weeks after the meeting, the authority’s management decided to pay in meagre sums into their bank accounts as retirement benefits.
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.