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By Uche Nworah, Ph.D “It has always been my passion and desire to see our local communities thrive. I am an apostle of rural development. Our experience in Africa, in Nigeria in particular shows that the rural folks are usually not well taken care of. Most of the developmental efforts from governments and development partners focus more on the urban cities. “As business leaders and wealth creators, we can intervene in certain strategic ways. Yes, many of us build big mansions in our villages, build rural roads and contribute to community development projects in our respective communities, but sometimes some of these projects do not solve the immediate economic needs of the rural populace whose major challenges our research showed are mainly jobs, and economic opportunities”. ...

By Uche Nworah, Ph.D One does not need to be a soothsayer to conclude that the new digital banks are eating the breakfast of the big banks in Nigeria, especially in retail banking. The big banks continue to hold the ace in corporate and investment banking, but for how long? The apps and payment systems of the new digital banks seem to work better. We noticed this during the 2023 Naira currency crunch when the online portals of most of the big banks collapsed, and people couldn’t do transactions timely. During this time, the portals of the new digital banks worked almost seamlessly. Many argue that the traditional banks have suffered massive human capital losses from ‘japaing’ (migrating) staff, but then one wonders, where are the digital banks getting their own staff from? It...