Business
Don Proffers Solution To Fuel Crisis
An energy consultant and senior lecturer in the Faculty of Law of the Rivers State University, Dr. Samuel Chike Dike has charted a way out of the current fuel crisis rocking the country, with a charge to the Federal Government to rise to the occasion and tackle headlong the intractable challenges facing the petroleum sector.
Dike, who spoke with The Tide in an exclusive interview in Port Harcourt identified short and long term measures to address the fuel crisis.
According to him, a combination of factors is responsible for the lingering crisis, which he listed as regulatory failure, institutional defects and attitudinal malfunctioning.
“A combination of these factors collates into what we are having today. Regulatory failure because the regulators of the petroleum sector like the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR), the Minister of Petroleum Resources, among others have failed to efficiently discharge their duties. If you regulate it properly, fine. If you don’t regulate properly, then, the result is what we are having today,” he said.
Dike further indicated that institutions like the Ministry of Petroleum Resources and the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) have equally compounded the petroleum sector woes due to poor performance, saying, “there is governance problem in the NNPC right from time, as it has been bedeviled by structural defects.”
He decried a situation where the Federal Government is involved in running the affairs of the corporation, stressing that a situation where the government appoints top management staff of the corporation, including the Minister of Petroleum Resources was counter-productive.
According to him, “NNPC should run as a commercial outfit and be left in the hands of private individuals, who will run it as a profit-oriented business and pay tax to the government.”
The energy consultant also emphasised the need for the government to restructure NNPC in such a way that it would only have oversight functions while the management of the corporation is left in the hands of private citizens.
He said the earlier the government distances itself from the management of the corporation, the better for the country, adding that the way it is presently structured, makes all the Departments of NNPC appendages of government.
The university teacher also decried a situation where the NNPC is currently saddled with the responsibility of importing petroleum products, instead of allowing independent oil marketers to do so.
Describing the situation as a sad commentary, Dike said the circumstances surrounding the current fuel scarcity in the country have left Nigerians more confused, as they no longer know what to believe, and urged both the NNPC and the marketers to tell the citizens the true position.
Donatus Ebi
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.