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FIRS Bos, Babatunde Fowler’s Wizardry

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FIRS Boss, Babatunde  Fowler’s Wizardry

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 Babatunde Fowler, Executive Chairman,  Federal Inland Revenue Service, FIRS, is undoubtedly  one of the few heads of agencies in Nigeria who can  be described as game changers under the current administration  of President Muhammad  Buhari.

Reports about the agency’s revenue fact sheet at the last meeting of the Federation Account Allocation Committee, FAAC,  in Abuja,  indicated that it pooled the sum of N4.63trn into federation purse in 11 months between January and November 2018.

Upon his appointment  in 2015, tax defaulters were gripped with fears not because of the money to pay but because of the models that Fowler would use to extract and milk out unremitting taxes from them.

Perhaps, they must have heard or be familiar with his history and stellar performance when he headed the Board of Lagos State Internal Revenue Service (LIRS) between 2006 and 2015.

Within his nine years stewardship in Lagos State and over four years at the Federal, one can only say that Fowler is an erudite tax reformer.

Under his watch, Lagos State experienced a sharp increase in Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) from an average of N3.6 Billion monthly as at January, 2006 to an average of over N23 Billion monthly as at June, 2015.

He recorded  improved quality of service delivery to taxpayers as well as improvement in the use of IT and other modern methods of tax administration.

He introduced unprecedented enlightenment campaigns on tax administration and education in Africa, to mention but few.

When Lagos State was running on zero allocation under former President Olusegun Obasanjo , Fowler came on board with some financial gurus to propound the theory by which the state could generate its internal income without solely depending on what was shared from the federation Account.

 The model put together worked for the state  as it became financially independent and a role model to many states of the federation.

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Cement costs more in Nigeria than Kenya, Togo, FCCPC finds

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FCCPC

Cement price manipulation is under investigation by the FCCPC after a three-month study found Nigerian prices were high despite surplus capacity

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Heirs Life Names Pastor Jerry Eze Independent Non-Executive Director

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Heirs

Heirs Life appoints Jerry Eze as an Independent Non-Executive Director to strengthen financial inclusion, consumer trust and insurance adoption (more…)

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Shoreline Group secures US$200 million Afreximbank Facility

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Shoreline Group today announced that African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank) has approved a US$200 million facility in favour of Shoreline Power Company Limited and co-borrowers including Arkad S.p.A., Shoreline’s majority-owned engineering and construction platform.
Approved in June 2026, the facility was arranged and provided by Afreximbank as sole mandated lead arranger and lender. It provides bonding and working-capital capacity for Arkad’s delivery of the Hassi Bir Rekaiz project and supports Shoreline and its affiliates in developing further pipeline and infrastructure
projects in Nigeria and other permitted jurisdictions.
“This is a defining transaction for Shoreline and Arkad. We built Arkad as an African- sponsored engineering platform capable of competing at the highest level, and it is now delivering against a billion-dollar energy contract. Afreximbank’s US$200 million commitment gives the platform the financial strength to match its engineering capability and pursue further major infrastructure mandates. It demonstrates that African enterprises can assemble the capital, capability and partnerships required to compete for infrastructure at international scale.”
Hassi Bir Rekaiz Phase 2a Arkad holds 44 per cent of the approximately US$1 billion EPCCS-1 contract awarded by Groupement
Hassi Bir Rekaiz (GHBR) to an unincorporated consortium led by Egypt’s Petrojet, which holds 56 percent. EPCCS-1 covers engineering, procurement, construction, commissioning and start-up for the Phase 2a central processing facility and related infrastructure at the Hassi Bir Rekaiz field in Algeria’s Berkine
Basin.
GHBR is the joint operating entity for the licence, held by Sonatrach with 51 per cent and Thailand’s PTTEP with 49 per cent. The project includes a new crude oil processing facility with capacity of 31,500 barrels per day, facilities for associated gas and produced-water treatment, approximately 217 kilometres
of pipelines and the brownfield modifications required to integrate existing Phase 1 infrastructure.
The facilities are designed to support later expansion to 63,000 barrels per day under Phase 2b.
“This financing addresses the instruments that determine whether an EPC contractor can execute at scale: performance guarantees, advance payment guarantees and working capital through the project cycle. Hassi Bir Rekaiz is a demanding scope, combining a new central processing facility, associated treatment systems, pipelines and brownfield integration. With Petrojet, and with the support of Shoreline and Afreximbank, Arkad is focused on disciplined delivery against the project’s safety, quality and schedule requirements.”
The transaction was structured under Afreximbank’s Engineering, Procurement and Construction Initiative, which supports African engineering and construction firms with the financial instruments required to compete for and execute large infrastructure contracts. Afreximbank also supported the Arkad-Petrojet partnership through its EPC twinning work at the Intra-African Trade Fair held in Algiers
in 2025.
According to Afreximbank, the transaction is its first support for a Sub-Saharan African contractor undertaking a major infrastructure project in North Africa. For Shoreline, it demonstrates a practical model for combining African ownership and capital with established international engineering andindustrial capability.

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