Economy
TikTok restores service in US after Trump pledge
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TikTok is resuming services to its 170 million users in US after President-elect Donald Trump said he would issue an executive order to give the app a reprieve when he takes office on Monday.
On Saturday evening, the Chinese-owned app stopped working for American users, after a law banning it on national security grounds came into effect.
Trump, who had previously backed a ban of the platform, promised on Sunday to delay implementation of the law and allow more time for a deal to be made. TikTok then said that it was in the process of “restoring service”.
Soon after, the app started working again and a popup message to its millions of users thanked Trump by name. In a statement, the company thanked the incoming president for “providing the necessary clarity and assurance” and said it would work with Trump “on a long-term solution that keeps TikTok in the United States”.
TikTok CEO Shou Chew is expected to attend Trump’s inauguration Monday.
Posting on Truth Social, a social media platform he owns, Trump said on Sunday: “I’m asking companies not to let TikTok stay dark! I will issue an executive order on Monday to extend the period of time before the law’s prohibitions take effect, so that we can make a deal to protect our national security.”
TikTok’s parent company, Bytedance, previously ignored a law requiring it to sell its US operations to avoid a ban. The law was upheld by Supreme Court on Friday and went into effect on Sunday.
It is unclear what legal authority Trump will have to delay the implementation of a law that is already in effect. But it expected that his government will not enforce the ban if he issues an executive order.
It’s an about-face from his previous position. Trump had backed a TikTok ban, but has more recently professed a “warm spot” for the app, touting the billions of views he says his videos attracted on the platform during last year’s presidential campaign.
For its part, President Joe Biden’s administration had already said that it would not enforce the law in its last hours in office and instead allow the process to play out under the incoming Trump administration.
But TikTok had pulled its services anyway on Saturday evening, before the swift restoration of access on Sunday.
The short-form video platform is wildly popular among its many millions of US users. It has also proved a valuable tool for American political campaigns to reach younger voters.
Under the law passed last April, the US version of the app had to be removed from app stores and web-hosting services if its Chinese owner ByteDance did not sell its US operations.
TikTok had argued before the Supreme Court that the law violated free speech protections for its users in the country.
The law was passed with support from both Republicans and Democrats in Congress and was upheld unanimously by Supreme Court justices earlier this week.
The issue exposes a rift on a key national security issues between the president-elect and members of his own party. His pick for Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, had vocally supported the ban.
“TikTok extended the Chinese Communist Party’s power and influence into our own nation, right under our noses,” he said last April. But he seemed to defer to the president-elect when a journalist asked if he supported Trump’s efforts to restore the ban.
“If I’m confirmed as secretary of State, I’ll work for the president,” he told Punchbowl media last week.
After Trump intervened on Sunday morning, Senate Intelligence Committee Chair Tom Cotton, a Republican senator from Arkansas, broke with Trump by saying that any company that helps TikTok stay online would be breaking the law.
“Any company that hosts, distributes, services, or otherwise facilitates communist-controlled TikTok could face hundreds of billions of dollars of ruinous liability under the law, not just from DOJ, but also under securities law, shareholder lawsuits, and state AGs,” he wrote on social media.
An executive order that goes against the law could be fought in court.
Several states have also sued the platform, opening up the possibility to TikTok being banned by local jurisdictions, even if it is available nationally.
Although the platform went live again on Sunday for existing users, the question of whether third-parties – hosting platforms or app stores like Google or Apple – could support TikTok in the US remains murky, says University of Richmond law professor Carl Tobias. The app had been removed from those stores in anticipation of the ban.
“It is murky,” he told the BBC.
In a post on Truth media, Trump promised to shield companies from liability, opening the door to TikTok being available on Apple and Google again.
“The order will also confirm that there will be no liability for any company that helped keep TikTok from going dark before my order,” the president-elect said on Truth Social Sunday.
But during the Supreme Court hearings, Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar was adamant that an executive order cannot change the law retroactively.
“Whatever the new president does, doesn’t change that reality for these companies,” Justice Sonia Sotomayor said during the hearings.
“That’s right,” Prelogar said.
Professor Tobias said that the law does include a provision that would allow the president to postpone the ban for up to 90 days, if he can show that the company is making substantial progress on alleviating national security issues. But, he said, it’s not clear whether those conditions have been met.
“The best thing Trump could do is work with Congress, and not potentially be in violation of the law or have any questions left hanging,” he said.
“I don’t know that we’re going to know a whole lot more until we see that executive order.”
Economy
See Black Market Dollar To Naira Exchange Rate Today 5th August 2026
The Black Market Dollar-to-Naira Exchange Rate for 5th August 2026 Can Be Accessed Below.
NOTE: The exchange rate changes hourly. It depends on the volume of dollars available and the Demand. This means…you can buy or sell 1 dollar at a certain rate, and the price can change (high or low) within hours.
The official naira black market exchange rate in Nigeria today, including the Black Market rates, Bureau De Change (BDC), and CBN rates.
The exchange rate fluctuates hourly based on the supply and demand of dollars in the market.
What’s the dollar to naira black market today, 5th August 2026?
The exchange rate for a dollar to naira at Lagos Parallel Market (Black Market) players sell a dollar for ₦1425 and buy at ₦1410 on Wednesday, 5th August, 2026, according to sources at Bureau De Change (BDC).
Please note that the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) does not recognize the parallel market (black market), as it has directed individuals who want to engage in Forex to approach their respective banks.
Dollar to Naira Black Market Rate Today
Dollar to Naira (USD to NGN) Black Market Exchange Rate Today
Selling Rate ₦1425
Buying Rate ₦1410
Dollar to Naira CBN Rate Today
Dollar to Naira (USD to NGN) CBN Rate Today
Highest Rate ₦1364
Lowest Rate ₦1361
Economy
FG to Roll Out 90,000km Fibre Optic Network within Weeks – Minister
Minister of Communications, Innovation and Digital Economy, Dr. Bosun Tijani, has disclosed that the federal government will, in a matter of weeks, roll out a 90,000-kilometre fibre optic network nationwide.
He described it as one of the country’s most ambitious digital infrastructure projects targeted at transforming broadband connectivity across the country.
Tijani, who spoke with newsmen yesterday after briefing President Bola Tinubu at the State House, Abuja, on the progress of three flagship digital projects being implemented by his ministry, said government had completed the resource mobilisation and contractual processes required for the fibre project and was ready to begin deployment across the country.
He said: “We’re now at the point where, in a few weeks’ time, we should start to lay those fibre, so people will start seeing us around the country deploying the fibre. This is going to transform Nigeria for good.”
According to him, the project would extend fibre optic infrastructure to every state, geopolitical zone, local government area and ward, significantly improving the quality and reach of internet connectivity.
“This is a project where every state, every geopolitical zone, every local government and every ward in this country will be covered with fibre optic cables, which will transform the quality of connectivity,” he added.
Tijani also appreciated Tinubu for policy reforms that have strengthened the communications sector, including the designation of digital infrastructure as Critical National Infrastructure, tariff adjustments and tax harmonisation.
“I think our sector has been extremely fortunate. With Mr. President, as you can imagine, he’s given us quite a number of things that the sector has been demanding for a long time. Whether it’s the critical national infrastructure designation for all digital infrastructure, or the slight adjustment in tariff, which you’ve seen, the tax harmonisation, which the sector has been asking for.
“I think it’s probably the sector that is most appreciative of this government because when we came in, the sector was contributing between 16 to 18 per cent to our GDP, but today that sector is tracking close to 21 per cent, so it’s a significant growth”, he said.
On rural connectivity, the minister stressed that the government would begin deploying about 3,700 telecommunications towers from October to provide network coverage for more than 20 million Nigerians currently living in communities without access to telecommunications services.
He stressed: “Mr. President also sanctioned that project. Today we’re in a place where, before the end of the year, we’ll also start to deploy close to 3,700 towers. It’s taken a lot of time putting this project together, raising the capital for it, but we are at a point where we should now start deploying around October.”
Tijani also stated that Nigeria would launch an alphanumeric postcode system on October 1, placing the country among a small number of nations using the advanced addressing technology.
“Nigeria will be amongst maybe 10 or 15 countries in the world with an alphanumeric postcode. It’s the latest design in the postcode system where we can now identify every property in this country. We’re hoping to launch that one on the 1st of October”, he said.
The system, the minister said, will assign a unique address to every building, making deliveries faster, boosting e-commerce, strengthening security and improving public service delivery.
“Inability to locate places comes at a cost. You can start to imagine what this will do to e-commerce. This would transform e-commerce completely because it means that things can now be delivered in record time”, Tijani said.
According to him, integrating the postcode system with existing government identity databases would enhance security and improve the efficiency of government services.
“Our alphanumeric postcode is unique because it allows us to have unique addresses for every property. In a lot of countries, like the UK, postcodes are not unique to one building; they’re typically for a cluster of buildings. But what we have here is one where you can identify every building. That will change the game significantly for Nigeria in terms of the delivery of public services,” he added.
Economy
NEC approves $4.5bn refinancing of $3.3bn oil-backed loan
The National Economic Council on Monday approved the refinancing of the $3.3bn Project Gazelle Pre-Export Finance Facility through a new $4.5bn facility named Project Gazelle 2.
The approval came at the 159th meeting of NEC, held virtually and chaired by Vice President Kashim Shettima, following a presentation by the Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Dr Taiwo Oyedele, on the significance of the refinancing arrangement.
The approval allows the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited to refinance the outstanding balance of approximately $1.5bn under the original 2023 facility while unlocking an additional $3bn in liquidity to strengthen Nigeria’s external reserves and support ongoing fiscal and infrastructure priorities.
Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Communications in the Office of the Vice President, Stanley Nkwocha, revealed details of the approval in a statement he signed Monday titled ‘NEC Approves Refinancing of $3.3bn Project Gazelle to Optimise Cost, Unlock Additional Liquidity.’
According to Nkwocha, Council observed the significance of unlocking additional liquidity for the federation and pledged its support for the actualisation of the initiative.
Briefing journalists after the meeting, Oyedele explained that the new arrangement had been structured on considerably more favourable terms than the original facility, including a substantial reduction in the volume of crude oil pledged to secure the loan.
He explained, “The refinancing has been structured on more favourable terms than the original facility, including a reduction in the volume of pledged crude oil from 90,000 barrels of oil per day to approximately 78,750 barrels of oil per day, a 12.5 per cent reduction.”
Oyedele said the reduction in pledged volume translated directly into more crude available for the federation to sell and retain revenue from outside the terms of the facility.
“Under the new arrangement, an additional 11,250 barrels of oil per day for the federation will be released, while there will be a reduction in the pledged crude volumes by NNPC Limited,” he said.
The Minister described the refinancing as a dual achievement, improved liquidity access on better terms while simultaneously strengthening the country’s overall financing structure.
He stated, “While accessing additional liquidity on improved terms, the arrangement is freeing up resources for strategic national priorities while strengthening the country’s financing structures.”
In his opening remarks to Council, Vice President Shettima called for the design of a responsive, scalable and data-driven social protection policy to confront multidimensional poverty in Nigeria, framing the challenge in vivid and deeply human terms.
He argued, “Government policies are often heard before they are seen they speak through the price of food, the condition of hospitals, the records in schools, the strain on families, the confidence of those who invest their labour in the nation’s future, and, very importantly, the ambitions of state governments.”
The VP urged Council members to ensure that every decision reached at NEC left ordinary Nigerians with confidence that their government was attentive and responsive to their daily struggles.
“Every decision we make must assure the citizens that their government is paying attention to the pulse of the nation and is resolved to respond with competence, compassion and purpose,” he said.
Project Gazelle was originally structured in 2023 as a pre-export finance facility secured against future crude oil sales, designed to provide Nigeria with dollar liquidity to defend the naira and support foreign exchange market stability amid the sharp currency volatility that followed the administration’s unification of exchange rate windows.
The refinancing under Project Gazelle 2 extends and restructures that facility on improved terms, reflecting both the larger size of the new facility and NNPC Limited’s improved negotiating position following three years of oil sector reforms aimed at attracting fresh investment from international oil companies and boosting domestic production capacity.
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