The spread of novel Corona Virus Disease (COVID-19) in Nigeria touched a new milestone as the latest statistics provided by the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control reveal Nigeria now has 28,167 confirmed cases.

On the 4th of July 2020, 603 new confirmed cases and 6 deaths were recorded in Nigeria, having carried out a total daily test of 3,355 samples across the country.

To date, 28,167 cases have been confirmed, 11,462 cases have been discharged and 632 deaths have been recorded in 35 states and the Federal Capital Territory. A total of 148,188 tests have been carried out as of July 4th, 2020 compared to 144,833 tests a day earlier.

COVID-19 Case Updates- 4th July 2020

• Total Number of Cases – 28,167
• Total Number Discharged – 11,462
• Total Deaths – 634
• Total Tests Carried out – 148,188

According to the NCDC, the 603 new cases were reported from 19 states- Lagos (135), Edo (87), Abuja (73), Rivers (67), Delta (62), Ogun (47), Kaduna (20), Plateau (19), Osun (17), Ondo (16), Enugu and Oyo (15), Borno (13), Niger (6), Nasarawa (4), Kebbi (3), Kano (2), Sokoto and Abia (1) case each

Meanwhile, the latest numbers bring Lagos state total confirmed cases to 11,045, followed by Abuja (2,153), Oyo (1,466), Edo (1,353), Kano (1,264), Delta (1,227) Rivers (1,181), Ogun (974),  Kaduna (855), Katsina (579), Borno (528), Bauchi (516), Gombe (513), Ebonyi (438), Plateau (421), Ondo (410), Abia (383), Enugu (372), Imo (352), Jigawa (318).

Kwara state has recorded 269 cases, Bayelsa (234), Nasarawa (225), Osun (165), Sokoto (153),  Niger (122), Akwa Ibom (104), Benue (97), Adamawa (89), Kebbi (84), Zamfara (76), Anambra (73), Yobe (61), Ekiti (43), Taraba (19), while Kogi state has recorded 5 cases.

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Lock Down and Curfew

In a move to combat the spread of the pandemic disease, President Muhammadu Buhari directed the cessation of all movements in Lagos and the FCT for an initial period of 14 days, which took effect from 11 pm on Monday, 30th March 2020.

The movement restriction, which was extended by another two-weeks period, has been partially put on hold with some businesses commencing operations from May 4. On April 27th, 2020, Nigeria’s President, Muhammadu Buhari declared an overnight curfew from 8 pm to 6 am across the country, as part of new measures to contain the spread of the COVID-19. This comes along with the phased and gradual easing of lockdown measures in FCT, Lagos, and Ogun States, which took effect from Saturday, 2nd May 2020, at 9 am.

On Monday, 29th June 2020 the federal government extended the second phase of the eased lockdown by 4 weeks and approved interstate movement outside curfew hours with effect from July 1, 2020.

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The Minister of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development, Sadiya Umar Farouq, has said that about 109,823 beneficiaries of the N-Power programme now have their own businesses.

This represents about 22% of the 500,000 Nigerians that have benefited from this programme since its inception.

This was disclosed in a statement by the Minister’s Special Assistant on Strategic Communications, Mrs Halima Oyelade on Saturday, July 4, 2020. She said that the beneficiaries of Batch A and B of N-Power have established businesses in their communities.

The Minister in the statement said, “Statistics like this gives me joy and once again, I want to say congratulations; I look forward to hearing amazing testimonies and meeting beneficiaries of this programme who will be doing great things in the future”.

She emphasized President Muhammadu Buhari’s vision of lifting 100 million Nigerians out of poverty in the next 10 years by creating opportunities that would improve the productivity of Nigerian youths for entrepreneurship or employment.

Going further the minister said, “Thus, the need to find ways to engage them is of utmost importance. However, the commencement of the enrolment of Batch C was predicated on the need to give more Nigerian youths the opportunity to benefit. This is because, keeping only 500,000 beneficiaries for four years defeats the purpose of Mr President’s vision, hence the need to scale up and was in no way meant to be punitive.”

While acknowledging the beneficiaries’ contributions, Farouq said, ‘’You are our model N-Power beneficiaries. Please avail yourselves of all opportunities provided by government like interest-free loans and leverage on those opportunities while using N-Power as a stepping stone”.

The minister said the ministry is working at resolving some of the challenges facing the programme which include delays in the payment of stipends, beneficiaries not showing up at their places of primary assignments and people accessing the programme while gainfully employed elsewhere.

The minister also assured beneficiaries that outstanding payments would be made and transition plans were ongoing and would be duly communicated to them on their platform.

Some of the beneficiaries of the programme gave good testimonies about the impact of the programme in their lives and all expressed their gratitude to the Federal Government for the opportunity.

Nairametrics has reported the opening of application portal for batch C of the programme with effect from 11.45 pm on June 26, 2020. There have been over 3 million applicants that have shown interest in batch C of the programme in about a week.

It has been a long journey for financial services provider, Meristem Nigeria, having started out as a boutique stockbroking firm over 16 years ago and morphing into a capital market conglomerate offering an array of diversified service and product offerings. The tale is similar for the art and culture doyen, Nike Okundaye-Davies whose humble beginning in traditional weaving and dying practice annealed her to the art world and art lovers.

At a graceful age of 70, she has achieved over 102 solo art exhibitions, 36 group art exhibitions, a permanent display of two of her works in the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art, a Harvard recognition and many other global acclaims. With four (4) art galleries spread across the country, and the Lagos center being the biggest art gallery in West Africa, she once told a Forbes journalist that her dreams are driven by careful financial planning as she reinvests at least two-thirds of her income in her business and art centers.

Meristem taps into her creative energy in this campaign, highlighting the shared story of growth and collaboration for both institutions, and the need to onboard the right partners to achieve long term financial goals and investment security.

Meristem, a capital market conglomerate and diversified financial services provider offering stockbroking, wealth management, asset management, trustee services and financial advisory. Over the past 16 years, Meristem has been consistent in value creation and innovation within the capital market space. The Nigerian stock exchange awarded Meristem as the best digital broker of the year. In 2018 also, Meristem became the first Nigerian asset management firm to attain compliance with the Global Investment Performance Standards (GIPS) by the CFA Institute. In 2017, Meristem handled the single largest trade in the history of the Nigerian Stock Exchange.