Business
Stakeholders Task NDDC Boss To Sanitise Agency
Some stakeholders in the region have urged the new Board Chairman of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), Loretta Onoche, to ensure that she clears up the rots in the agency to unable it live up to its obligations.
The stakeholders who were reacting to the performance of NDDC, in terms of development in the Niger Delta since its inception, in a public forum in Port Harcourt last weekend, lamented that the agency had become a conduit pipe of wastage of resources, at the expense of the development of the region.
In his reaction to the issue, a public affairs analyst, Solomon Onuekwa, while expressing disappointment over the situation, said the only way forward is for some staff, especially Directors, that have stayed long in the agency, to be retired.
He accused some of the Directors of being part of the problems in the commission, saying that they collaborate with the management and board to siphon money from the agency.
“Some of these directors are corrupt, and they are the ones that should show the board members how things should be in the commission. Some of them have been there for over fifteen years, and they know all the loop holes to siphon money.
“If Loretta Onoche really wants to make impact to develop Niger Delta, let her retire these Directors, and sanitize the system, and you will see that things will change, and real development will take place in the region, which is why the NDDC was set up”, he said.
Tilting a bit from Onuekwa’s position, a civil society advocate, Dr. Vincent Amadi, said any Chief executive of NDDC that allows a director of the agency to mislead him or her, already wants to go in that direction.
According to Amadi, the way to show uprightness is to bypass any such Directors and make use of their deputies, since they are civil servants, and have specific tenure of service.
“Any Chief Executive of any organization who wants to be upright, can bypass corrupt officers under him, and use other people to achieve his goal, and that is what I want the new NDDC Board Chairman to do, if she sincerely wants to sanitize the commission and bring development to the region”, he said.
It would be recalled that the new NDDC board Chairman, Loretta Onoche, on take over of office, noted that there is a lot of decay in the commission, but that she was determined to sanitize the system.
The commission has been allegedly notorious in awarding contracts on paper and payment completed, and numerous inflation and abandonment of contacts, at the detriment of Niger Delta communities and development.
By: Corlins Walter
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.