The Central Bank of Nigeria has announced the appointment of the members of the board of directors for Polaris Bank.

In a statement on Monday, the bank disclosed that Kassim Gidado was appointed as the board chairman.

The new Polaris Bank board is the chief of staff at MAG Group Limited and advisor to various governments.

Also, Akwa Okon, with a background in law and finance, was named a non-executive director.

He previously served as managing director of the Niger Delta Development Commission and is a chartered accountant.

Other non-executive directors of the bank are Mallam Umar; Ayaba Ayo-Joseph; Giwa-Amu Ibironke, and Onosode Christopher.

The Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer of Polaris Bank, Kayode Lawal, welcomed the new board members, describing the appointments as a step towards achieving growth and value for stakeholders.

In January, the CBN dissolved the boards and managements of Union Bank of Nigeria, Keystone Bank and Polaris Bank over alleged corporate governance infractions and non-compliance with regulatory requirements.

This came barely three weeks after the Special Investigator on the CBN and Related Entities, Jim Obazee, submitted its final report to President Bola Tinubu.

In a statement by the acting Director of Corporate Communications, CBN, Sidi Hakama, the central bank said the affected banks’ alleged infractions varied from regulatory non-compliance, corporate governance failure, disregarding of the conditions under which their licences were granted, and involvement in activities that posed a threat to financial stability, among others.

Recall that the apex revoked the operating license of Skye Bank on September 21, 2018, and renamed it Polaris Bank.

The then CBN Governor, Godwin Emefiele, said AMCON would take over all the assets and liabilities of the defunct entity.

The Naira continued its downward trend on Friday, depreciating to N1,660 per dollar in the parallel market.

This represents a slight decline from the N1,655 per dollar traded on Thursday.

In a similar vein, the Naira depreciated to N1,546.41 per dollar in the Nigerian Autonomous Foreign Exchange Market (NAFEM) on Friday. According to data from FMDQ, the indicative exchange rate for NAFEM fell from N1,649.76 per dollar on Thursday, indicating a marginal appreciation of N103.35 for the Naira.

However, the gap between the parallel market and NAFEM rates widened significantly, increasing to N113.59 per dollar from N5.24 per dollar the previous day. This growing disparity highlights the ongoing instability in the foreign exchange market.

The Federal Government says it has commenced distribution of fresh Compressed Natural Gas kits to some states of the federation in its drive to foster rapid adoption of CNG.

This was disclosed Friday by an official of the Presidential Compressed Natural Gas Initiative, Moses Onate, during an inspection of the CNG kit warehouse located in Ibafo, along the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway, Ogun State.

With the hike in fuel prices, many drivers claimed they have been struggling to keep their businesses afloat.

The exercise, which the Federal Government said could reduce the cost of transportation by over 40 per cent started in Abuja and Lagos.

Speaking on the distribution Onate noted that states like Lagos, Oyo, Kaduna, Ogun and the FCT would be getting 1,000 conversion kits to continue the conversion initiative.

Onate added that of the 1,000 kits made available to the warehouse, 450 have been distributed to Kaduna and Abuja while 550 would be distributed to Lagos, Ogun and Oyo.

He said, “As of this morning, 450 have gone out to Kaduna and Abuja. 550 will be going to Lagos, Oyo, and Ogun states today.”

He also said the FG had not got any negative feedback on the kits distributed previously.

According to him, there are up to 10 CNG conversion centres in Lagos State alone.

“This initiative will seriously help people as regards the cost in the sense that fuel is around a thousand naira now, but CNG is around N210/N230.

“The gross margin between what fuel is being sold for and CNG price will have a lot of positive impact on everybody. We will live to enjoy CNG,” he said.

In his reaction, a pipeline engineer at the warehouse, Austin Nwaodhu, urged motorists and vehicle owners to adopt the CNG initiative stressing that it offers a cheaper alternative to fuel because of its low consumption rate, and user-friendliness.

He added that CNG did not emit much fumes into the atmosphere which could cause harm to members of the public.

“CNG is a good initiative by the president that will help to bring down the cost of running a vehicle compared to petrol. It will bring down the cost of running our cars.

“It is friendly to the environment and does not emit fumes unlike petrol,” Nwaodhu stressed.