Business
Abia’ll Stop Depending On Federal Allocation By 2022 – Commissioner
Abia State Government will cease to depend on federal allocation from 2022 when the return on government’s current investment in oil palm will be sufficient enough to finance the state.
The State Commissioner for Information, Mr John Okiyi made the assertion at an interaction with the members of the Correspondents Chapel of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ) in Umuahia, Wednesday.
Okiyi said that the present administration had invested heavily in agriculture, especially in oil palm plantations.
According to him, government has so far planted 7.7 million high-yielding tenera palm seedlings, which will start yielding within the next three years.
Okiyi further said that government’s investment in infrastructure, especially in Aba, the economic hub of the state, was to make the city attractive to investors.
The commissioner said that the massive road construction was aimed at making Aba accessible to investors from other parts of the country and beyond.
He said that already the rehabilitation and reconstruction of roads in Aba, which were in terrible state of disrepair and hampering economic activities had begun to yield results.
The commissioner said that some big hotels, which closed shop due to the dilapidation of the roads in the city, were currently being resuscitated by their owners.
Okiyi said that every road that was being built by the present administration in Aba had serious economic relevance.
He cited the reconstruction of Port Harcourt Road, Faulk’s Road linking Enugu-Port Harcourt Expressway, Ukwu Mango and Aba-Owerri Road.
Okiyi also reacted to the recent ranking by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), which ranked Abia as middle-class state in the country.
He described the ranking as fair enough, but argued that the state has yet to get to where it hoped to be.
According to him, Abia will not rest on its oars, but “determined to break new grounds until we are able to meet our dream for Abia”.
The commissioner said that the NBS ranking proved that the state had pride itself in the prudent management of its scarce resources.
“It shows that Abia has not been borrowing over the years and that we have also been prudent in management of our limited resources,” Okiyi said.
He justfied the government’s spending of over N6.8 billion to reconstruct Faulks Road, Aba,
The commissioner said that the project included the construction of underground tunnels that would move excess water from the Ifeobara Pond to Waterside.
Okiyi said that the road, as well as others, were built with the cement technology to last for 30 years by renowned road construction companies.
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.
