Business
Kerosene Scarcity Hits Abuja Over Kaduna Curfew
The Abuja NNPC mega station said it had no kerosene to sell because of the curfew imposed in Kaduna State following the recent attacks on churches and reprisals by Christian youths.
Reports said that the station had had no stock of the product for almost a week now.
The development has led to the absence of long queues of consumers who thronged the station daily to buy the product.
The Operations Supervisor at the filling station, Mr Stephen Yohanna,described the situation as “unfortunate’’ but assured the public that loading of the product would soon resume now that the curfew hours had been extended.
“We have run out of stock of kerosene and that is why we are not dispensing at the moment.
“We get our supply of the product from Kaduna but the crisis there has hampered our operations here,’’ Yohanna said.
He reiterated the commitment of management of the filling station to ensuring the availability of kerosene always.
Sales representative at the station, Mr Baba Shettima, said that they were expecting two trucks of kerosene.
“We are expecting two trucks of kerosene from Kaduna, by God’s grace; we will commence the sale of kerosene to our buyers by tomorrow,’’ Shettima said.
Other filling stations visited by our correspondents did not have the product as well.
Sales Supervisor at AP filling station, Central, Mr Samson Olajumoke, corroborated the fact that the curfew in Kaduna had affected supplies.
“We get our supplies from Lagos, but they have not been able to supply us with the product because they themselves cannot get it due to the crisis situation in Kaduna.
“We are expecting to start getting it by next week; when we get the product, we will start selling immediately,” he said.
The consumers of the product have continued to lament the non availability of the product.
A trader, Mrs Taiwo Ajala, said that the lack of kerosene at the stations was already taking its toll on her catering business.
Ajala said that the NNPC mega station was the only station where she got the product at the official price of N50 per litre.
Meanwhile, black marketers are making brisk business as they are seen displaying the product in front of the various filling stations. They sold a litre for between N180 and N200.
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.
