Wednesday, February 10, 2016
Video - Nigeria aiming to revitalize economy dependent on oil
Nigeria's economy has been hit hard by the falling price of crude, which has lost almost two-thirds of its value in the last year. Although the country aims to re-invigorate it's oil dependent economy, many of its citizens are grappling with these changing economic times.
Nigeria Super Eagles coach Sunday Oliseh fined for youtube rant
Oliseh looks set to consult with his lawyers about contesting the sanction.
The 41-year-old posted a video on his own website to hit back at what he called the "insanity" of his critics.
He had come under pressure after Nigeria failed to get past the group stages of the African Nations Championship (CHAN) in Rwanda.
The coach has since apologised to the NFF for his outburst aimed at the Nigerian media as well as his vociferous former international teammates.
"When I spoke of critics I did not mean the general public of Nigeria! I would never dare refer to my beloved country men as insane!" Oliseh published on his Twitter account.
In another Tweet: "How dare I insult 170 Million people who I love and have shown me so much love. Please forgive the error of editing! God bless you all."
The country's sports minister Solomon Dalung and NFF boss Amaju Pinnick met in the capital Abuja on Tuesday to discuss the embarrassing saga.
Former Nigeria captain Oliseh, who succeeded Stephen Keshi as coach in July, has seen his reign in charge of the three-time African Champions blighted by controversies.
Some high profile players have decided to retire since he took over as coach including goalkeeper Vincent Enyeama - Nigeria's most-capped player - who quit after he was replaced as captain.
Two weeks later striker Emmanuel Emenike also announced his retirement from international football.
Oliseh, unpaid for five months, had also gone public with the money problems affecting his team during the CHAN tournament to the embarrassment of his employers.
Nigeria face seven-time African champions Egypt in back-to-back 2017 African Cup of Nations fixtures next month.
They are two points behind group leaders Egypt after two rounds of matches with only group winners guaranteed automatic qualification to the tournament in Gabon.
BBC
Related story: Nigeria Super Eagles coach Sunday Oliseh goes on youtube rant
President Muhammadu Buhari didn't call all Nigerians criminals
The presidency has described as misconstrued the various interpretations of President Muhammadu Buhari’s comments in an interview granted to the UK’s Telegraph newspaper on February 5.
In a statement Tuesday by Garba Shehu, the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, noted that the wave of negative reactions to the President’s remarks about the reputation of Nigerians abroad was a result of incomplete understanding of President Buhari’s point.
“President Buhari was asked about the flood of migrants from Nigeria and the fraudulent applications for asylum put in by people desperate to leave their motherland at any cost, and it was this question that elicited his response,” he said, encouraging Nigerians to avail themselves of a full text of the interview, which has now been made available on the Telegraph’s website.
Mr Shehu added that it was preposterous for anyone to imagine that the president of Nigeria would describe all the citizens of the country he leads as criminals, when he himself is a Nigerian–obviously not a criminal–and when there are many Nigerians of honest living making their country proud all over the world.
“Unfortunately, there are also Nigerians giving their country a bad image abroad, and it is to those Nigerians that the President referred in his comments,” he said, adding that people may play politics and online games with the President’s comments, but the fact of the matter remains that Nigeria’s reputation abroad has been severely damaged by her own citizens.
“These Nigerians who leave their country to go and make mischief on foreign shores have given the rest of us a bad reputation that we daily struggle to overcome.”
Mr. Shehu called attention to the many efforts of President Buhari to clean up the image of Nigeria, such as the war on corruption, stating that acknowledging you have a problem is the first step to preferring a solution.
“President Buhari is very aware of the problems the people of Nigeria face both at home and abroad, and he is not shying away from admitting them even as he focuses on solutions to bring them to a permanent end.”
Premium Times
In a statement Tuesday by Garba Shehu, the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, noted that the wave of negative reactions to the President’s remarks about the reputation of Nigerians abroad was a result of incomplete understanding of President Buhari’s point.
“President Buhari was asked about the flood of migrants from Nigeria and the fraudulent applications for asylum put in by people desperate to leave their motherland at any cost, and it was this question that elicited his response,” he said, encouraging Nigerians to avail themselves of a full text of the interview, which has now been made available on the Telegraph’s website.
Mr Shehu added that it was preposterous for anyone to imagine that the president of Nigeria would describe all the citizens of the country he leads as criminals, when he himself is a Nigerian–obviously not a criminal–and when there are many Nigerians of honest living making their country proud all over the world.
“Unfortunately, there are also Nigerians giving their country a bad image abroad, and it is to those Nigerians that the President referred in his comments,” he said, adding that people may play politics and online games with the President’s comments, but the fact of the matter remains that Nigeria’s reputation abroad has been severely damaged by her own citizens.
“These Nigerians who leave their country to go and make mischief on foreign shores have given the rest of us a bad reputation that we daily struggle to overcome.”
Mr. Shehu called attention to the many efforts of President Buhari to clean up the image of Nigeria, such as the war on corruption, stating that acknowledging you have a problem is the first step to preferring a solution.
“President Buhari is very aware of the problems the people of Nigeria face both at home and abroad, and he is not shying away from admitting them even as he focuses on solutions to bring them to a permanent end.”
Premium Times
Tuesday, February 9, 2016
Nigeria Super Eagles coach Sunday Oliseh goes on youtube rant
Nigeria's head coach Sunday Oliseh hits back at the "insanity" of critics in the Nigerian media with an eight-minute rant.
The Super Eagles were eliminated in the group stages of African football tournament CHAN, but Oliseh defends his record, and points out he has lost just two of his 14 games in charge of Nigeria.
Monday, February 8, 2016
Former Central Bank Governor Lamido Sanusi criticises President Buhari
Mr Sanusi said the drawbacks of the policy "far outweigh its dubious benefits", the Financial Times reports.
President Muhammadu Buhari told the BBC last week that he was not convinced of the need to "murder" the naira.
The falling oil price has put pressure on his currency policy.
The authorities are keeping the official naira rate at around 200 to the US dollar, but the black market rate is closer to 300.
The government relies on oil exports for vital foreign exchange and the declining price means there are fewer dollars in the country.
"The government does not have the reserves to keep the exchange rate at its official level in the market, " Mr Sanusi told the Financial Times.
The policy has "never worked" wherever it has been tried, he added.
But Mr Buhari told the BBC that he is yet to be convinced that he should allow the currency to be devalued.
In an effort to sustain the policy, the government has imposed currency restrictions, and halted the importation of certain goods in order to stop dollars leaving the country.
Mr Sanusi was the central bank governor from 2009 to 2014, when he was suspended by then-President Goodluck Jonathan following a row over corruption in the oil sector.
He is now the emir of Kano, an influential religious post among Muslims in Nigeria.
BBC
Friday, February 5, 2016
Video - Hijacked oil tanker recovered from separatists in Nigeria
An oil tanker hijacked by Nigerian separatists has been recovered. Nigeria's navy say the Greek-owned MT Leon Dias is now anchored off the coast of Benin. There's no confirmation yet on the fate of the crew or the hijackers. They seized the ship last week. And threatened to blow it up - unless authorities freed a Biafran separatist leader. The incident has fuelled tensions around the ongoing calls for an independent Biafran state.
Related story: Militants in Nigeria hijack merchant ship and demand release of activist
Nigeria rises in FIFA rankings
Sunday Oliseh’s men were ranked 66 in the January edition of the monthly rankings.
Yesterday’s result means the win against Niger and draw with Tunisia at the soccer championship for home-based national team players have improved the country’s rating in the latest FIFA rankings.
Not only that, the win over Cote d’Ivoire and draw with Angola in warm-up matches for the tournament in Rwanda have also added more points to the Super Eagles.
However, they are now 12th in Africa with Cote d’Ivoire still the best ranked African team as they are 28th in the world.
Nigeria’s AFCON 2017 rivals Egypt are now 55th in the world and eighth in Africa.
The FIFA rankings are expected to be one of the things to consider when the draw for the final round of the qualifying tournament for the 2018 World Cup is done in June.
Teams will be drawn in five groups to play on home and away basis with the overall group winners qualifying for the World Cup in Russia.
The other top ranked teams in Africa are Cape Verde, Algeria, Ghana, Senegal, Tunisia, Congo, Egypt, DR Congo, Guinea and Cameroon.
Belgium remain atop the pile beating Argentina to the second position with reigning world champions Germany dropping to fourth place.
Former world champions Spain are unmoved at number three while Euro 2016 hosts France climbed up one place to the 24th spot.
The three most impressive teams for February’s ranking all come from Asia: Palestine (110, plus 21), Saudi Arabia (55, plus 20) and Korea DPR (95, plus 18) enjoyed the biggest advances since the last world ranking.
The next FIFA world ranking will be published on March 3, 2016.
Daily Trust
Girl rescued from Boko Haram wants to rejoin militant husband who kidnapped her
Almost a year after she was rescued from Boko Haram captivity by the Nigerian army, Zara John is still in love with one of the militants who abducted her.
She was delighted to discover that she was pregnant with his child following a urine and blood test carried out by a doctor in the refugee camp to which she was taken after her rescue.
“I wanted to give birth to my child so that I can have someone to replace his father since I cannot reconnect with him again,” said 16-year-old Zara, one of hundreds of girls kidnapped by Boko Haram militants during a seven-year insurgency in north-east Nigeria.
But any decision over the baby was taken out of her hands.
Her father drowned during flooding in 2010 so her uncles intervened. Some were adamant they did not want a Boko Haram offspring in their family and insisted on an abortion. Others felt the child should not be blamed for its father’s crimes.
In the end, the majority carried the vote and Zara was allowed to keep her child, a son she named Usman who is now about seven months old.
“Everybody in the family has embraced the child,” Zara told the Thomson Reuters Foundation, asking that her location remain undisclosed. “My uncle just bought him tins of Cerelac [instant cereal] and milk.”
Zara was 14 when Boko Haram militants fighting to establish a caliphate raided her village of Izge, in north-east Nigeria, in February 2014.
They razed homes in the village, slaughtered men, and loaded women, girls and children into lorries.
Two of Zara’s brothers were out of town when the militants struck in one of a wave of hit-and-run attacks on villages as well as suicide bombings on places of worship or markets.
Zara’s mother fell off one of the overloaded lorries but tried to chase after the vehicle that was ferrying away her only daughter and her four-year-old son but was unable to keep up as the lorry headed on the 22-kilometre journey to Bita.
At the time, Bita and other surrounding towns close to the Sambisa forest, were in Boko Haram control.
“As soon as we arrived, they told us that we were now their slaves,” Zara recalled.
Her days were spent doing chores and learning the tenets of her new religion, Islam. Two months later she was given away in marriage to Ali, a Boko Haram commander, and moved into his accommodation.
“After I became a commander’s wife, I had freedom. I slept any time I wanted, I woke up any time I wanted,” she said.
“He bought me food and clothes and gave me everything that a woman needs from a man,” adding that he also gave her a mobile phone with his number plugged in and tattooed his name on her stomach to mark her as a Boko Haram wife.
Ali assured her that the fight would soon be over and they would return to his hometown of Baga where he intended his new wife to join his fishing business.
He told her that he had abandoned his fisherman trade and joined the militant group after his father and elder brother, both fishermen like himself, were killed by Nigerian soldiers.
In a June 2015 report based on years on research and analysis of evidence, Amnesty International said the Nigerian army was guilty of gross human rights abuse and extra judicial killing of civilians in parts of north-east Nigeria, calling for an investigation into war crimes.
Ali was not at home when the Nigerian army stormed Bita in March 2015 and rescued Zara and scores of other women, taking them to a refugee camp in Yola in north-east Nigeria.
The raid came as international scrutiny on Nigeria increased after the high profile abduction of 200 schoolgirls from Chibok in northern Nigeria in April 2014 which caused outrage internationally and sparked the global campaign #bringbackourgirls. Those girls are yet to be found.
But Zara and Ali stayed in touch by phone until Nigerian soldiers realised some of the girls in the camp were still in touch with their abductors, seized their phones and moved them to another camp until they were reunited with their families.
Zara now lives with her extended family and son in a town far away from Izge.
Back with her family, Zara’s male relatives took over control of her life again, with requests for interviews fielded by them and all of her movements monitored by her family.
But asked her opinion, she said she would rather be with her Boko Haram husband.
“If I had my way, I would retrieve the phone number he gave me,” she said, regretting not committing his number to memory.
But Zara is realistic and knows the possibility of being reunited with Ali is very slim.
Instead she wants to return to school when Usman stops breastfeeding and maybe then run her own business.
“I want to do a business that is suitable for a woman, something that will not take me out of the house,” she said.
Reuters
She was delighted to discover that she was pregnant with his child following a urine and blood test carried out by a doctor in the refugee camp to which she was taken after her rescue.
“I wanted to give birth to my child so that I can have someone to replace his father since I cannot reconnect with him again,” said 16-year-old Zara, one of hundreds of girls kidnapped by Boko Haram militants during a seven-year insurgency in north-east Nigeria.
But any decision over the baby was taken out of her hands.
Her father drowned during flooding in 2010 so her uncles intervened. Some were adamant they did not want a Boko Haram offspring in their family and insisted on an abortion. Others felt the child should not be blamed for its father’s crimes.
In the end, the majority carried the vote and Zara was allowed to keep her child, a son she named Usman who is now about seven months old.
“Everybody in the family has embraced the child,” Zara told the Thomson Reuters Foundation, asking that her location remain undisclosed. “My uncle just bought him tins of Cerelac [instant cereal] and milk.”
Zara was 14 when Boko Haram militants fighting to establish a caliphate raided her village of Izge, in north-east Nigeria, in February 2014.
They razed homes in the village, slaughtered men, and loaded women, girls and children into lorries.
Two of Zara’s brothers were out of town when the militants struck in one of a wave of hit-and-run attacks on villages as well as suicide bombings on places of worship or markets.
Zara’s mother fell off one of the overloaded lorries but tried to chase after the vehicle that was ferrying away her only daughter and her four-year-old son but was unable to keep up as the lorry headed on the 22-kilometre journey to Bita.
At the time, Bita and other surrounding towns close to the Sambisa forest, were in Boko Haram control.
“As soon as we arrived, they told us that we were now their slaves,” Zara recalled.
Her days were spent doing chores and learning the tenets of her new religion, Islam. Two months later she was given away in marriage to Ali, a Boko Haram commander, and moved into his accommodation.
“After I became a commander’s wife, I had freedom. I slept any time I wanted, I woke up any time I wanted,” she said.
“He bought me food and clothes and gave me everything that a woman needs from a man,” adding that he also gave her a mobile phone with his number plugged in and tattooed his name on her stomach to mark her as a Boko Haram wife.
Ali assured her that the fight would soon be over and they would return to his hometown of Baga where he intended his new wife to join his fishing business.
He told her that he had abandoned his fisherman trade and joined the militant group after his father and elder brother, both fishermen like himself, were killed by Nigerian soldiers.
In a June 2015 report based on years on research and analysis of evidence, Amnesty International said the Nigerian army was guilty of gross human rights abuse and extra judicial killing of civilians in parts of north-east Nigeria, calling for an investigation into war crimes.
Ali was not at home when the Nigerian army stormed Bita in March 2015 and rescued Zara and scores of other women, taking them to a refugee camp in Yola in north-east Nigeria.
The raid came as international scrutiny on Nigeria increased after the high profile abduction of 200 schoolgirls from Chibok in northern Nigeria in April 2014 which caused outrage internationally and sparked the global campaign #bringbackourgirls. Those girls are yet to be found.
But Zara and Ali stayed in touch by phone until Nigerian soldiers realised some of the girls in the camp were still in touch with their abductors, seized their phones and moved them to another camp until they were reunited with their families.
Zara now lives with her extended family and son in a town far away from Izge.
Back with her family, Zara’s male relatives took over control of her life again, with requests for interviews fielded by them and all of her movements monitored by her family.
But asked her opinion, she said she would rather be with her Boko Haram husband.
“If I had my way, I would retrieve the phone number he gave me,” she said, regretting not committing his number to memory.
But Zara is realistic and knows the possibility of being reunited with Ali is very slim.
Instead she wants to return to school when Usman stops breastfeeding and maybe then run her own business.
“I want to do a business that is suitable for a woman, something that will not take me out of the house,” she said.
Reuters
Thursday, February 4, 2016
Video - Nigeria president Muhammadu Buhari still promises to rescue the 276 kidnapped schoolgirls
Nigeria's president Muhamadu Buhari said his government was doing everything necessary to rescue the Chibok girls. Speaking to the European Parliament Buhari reiterated his commitment to finding the girls alive and returning them to their families. .Its been almost two years since some 276 were kidnapped by militants in Nigeria's northern town of Chibok .Despite worldwide condemnation and campaign to have the girls released their whereabouts still remains unknown.
Supercar sellers in Nigeria hit by economic slow-down
Nigeria's wealthy elite would be hard pushed to find a clear road in this traffic-clogged city that would allow them to floor the pedal and get anywhere near approaching top speed.
But now sales of luxury sports cars have slumped as Africa's biggest economy and largest oil producer is battered by the fall in global crude prices.
A Porsche showroom in Lagos is full of top-of-the-range models selling from $100,000 (£70,000) and upwards.
In the good times, high-spending Nigerians would roll into the garage with fat wallets and drive out in a Porsche - now the showroom is deserted.
The managing director, Parvin Singh, told me that sales were down 50% last year compared to 2014. He blames the crash on the crude oil crisis.
While gas and oil sales only account for around 15% of the country's GDP - "Nigeria is not Saudi Arabia," as one analyst put it to me - the industry has a disproportionate effect on the economy as a whole.
Oil revenues account for 75-80% percent of the government's budget and if it does not have cash, it cools overall spending.
"The government is Nigeria's biggest spender," says Mr Singh. "When the government stops spending, it has a cascading effect on the corporate sector."
Nigeria's new government - elected last year - has grand plans to diversify the economy. It wants to invest in infrastructure such as power plants, roads and bridges, to boost growth.
But without oil revenues, the money is not there for this investment, even if government officials say that they will claw back cash by cracking down on corruption.
President Muhammadu Buhari finds himself battling rising inflation, a currency that has collapsed to record lows on the parallel market, a stock market slump, and the slowest pace of economic growth in more than a decade.
The government has started talks with the World Bank and African Development Bank with the hope of raising some money to help it fund a forecast $11bn (£7.7bn) budget deficit.
All this means this nation of entrepreneurs will continue doing business while battling against extraordinary odds.
One of them is Gbolahan Eyiowuawi, who runs a catering company after studying at a cooking school in the UK.
In order for Mr Eyiowuawi to run his business he needs a generator for his fridges because of power cuts.
He must constantly explain to furious customers they have to pay more because of fluctuating prices. And, then, when he has cooked the food, he needs to negotiate Lagos' notorious traffic.
His worst disaster: He turned up at a wedding two hours late.
"The person hiring our services got really mad as people were already leaving," he told me.
"At first I couldn't face the bride but then I gave her a vacuum cleaner and water dispenser and she seemed OK."
The hungry bride may have been happy with her vacuum cleaner but many Nigerians are not happy with their lot.
Millions live in poverty and an astonishing two million young people are entering the job market every year.
Economist Bismarck Rewane says the government faces enormous challenges.
"If the youth see some hope and direction they will put their energies to positive use," he said. "But if they see hopelessness and despair then you will have militancy, insurgency and social breakdown."
"It's either you win big or you lose big time."
It is a stark warning. Oil may have once buoyed Nigeria but now the slump in global prices is proving extremely painful to Africa's largest economy.
BBC
But now sales of luxury sports cars have slumped as Africa's biggest economy and largest oil producer is battered by the fall in global crude prices.
A Porsche showroom in Lagos is full of top-of-the-range models selling from $100,000 (£70,000) and upwards.
In the good times, high-spending Nigerians would roll into the garage with fat wallets and drive out in a Porsche - now the showroom is deserted.
The managing director, Parvin Singh, told me that sales were down 50% last year compared to 2014. He blames the crash on the crude oil crisis.
While gas and oil sales only account for around 15% of the country's GDP - "Nigeria is not Saudi Arabia," as one analyst put it to me - the industry has a disproportionate effect on the economy as a whole.
Oil revenues account for 75-80% percent of the government's budget and if it does not have cash, it cools overall spending.
"The government is Nigeria's biggest spender," says Mr Singh. "When the government stops spending, it has a cascading effect on the corporate sector."
Nigeria's new government - elected last year - has grand plans to diversify the economy. It wants to invest in infrastructure such as power plants, roads and bridges, to boost growth.
But without oil revenues, the money is not there for this investment, even if government officials say that they will claw back cash by cracking down on corruption.
President Muhammadu Buhari finds himself battling rising inflation, a currency that has collapsed to record lows on the parallel market, a stock market slump, and the slowest pace of economic growth in more than a decade.
The government has started talks with the World Bank and African Development Bank with the hope of raising some money to help it fund a forecast $11bn (£7.7bn) budget deficit.
All this means this nation of entrepreneurs will continue doing business while battling against extraordinary odds.
One of them is Gbolahan Eyiowuawi, who runs a catering company after studying at a cooking school in the UK.
In order for Mr Eyiowuawi to run his business he needs a generator for his fridges because of power cuts.
He must constantly explain to furious customers they have to pay more because of fluctuating prices. And, then, when he has cooked the food, he needs to negotiate Lagos' notorious traffic.
His worst disaster: He turned up at a wedding two hours late.
"The person hiring our services got really mad as people were already leaving," he told me.
"At first I couldn't face the bride but then I gave her a vacuum cleaner and water dispenser and she seemed OK."
The hungry bride may have been happy with her vacuum cleaner but many Nigerians are not happy with their lot.
Millions live in poverty and an astonishing two million young people are entering the job market every year.
Economist Bismarck Rewane says the government faces enormous challenges.
"If the youth see some hope and direction they will put their energies to positive use," he said. "But if they see hopelessness and despair then you will have militancy, insurgency and social breakdown."
"It's either you win big or you lose big time."
It is a stark warning. Oil may have once buoyed Nigeria but now the slump in global prices is proving extremely painful to Africa's largest economy.
BBC
Wednesday, February 3, 2016
Video - Global oil price decline affecting Nigeria's economy
Nigerian business are beginning to feel the effect of shrinking revenue as oil prices continue to tumble at the world market. The government has imposed quotas on the amount of hard cash Nigerians can spend abroad amidst scarcity of dollars in Africa's biggest economy.
Nigeria ends cruid oil swaps
The Nigerian government has jettisoned its policy of exchanging crude oil with refined petroleum products, from foreign suppliers, the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Ibe Kachikwu, has said.
The controversial crude-for-products arrangement, popularly called crude swap, catered for a part of the country’s domestic need for petroleum.
Mr. Kachikwu, who is also the Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, said in its place the government was adopting Direct-Sale–Direct-Purchase (DSDP) arrangement billed to take off from March 2016.
The Minister announced the new arrangement while appearing before the House of Representatives Ad-Hoc Committee set up to investigate NNPC’s offshore processing and crude swap arrangements for the period between 2010 to date.
The new DSDP arrangement, he said, was adopted to entrench transparency into the crude oil-for-product transaction by the corporation in line with global best practices.
Under the old order, crude oil was exchanged for petroleum products through third party traders at a pre-determined yield pattern.
The minister stated that the DSDP option would save the government over $1 billion, as all cost elements of middlemen would be eliminated, giving the NNPC the latitude to control crude oil sale and purchase transactions with its partners.
“On assumption as the GMD of NNPC, I met the Offshore Processing Arrangement (OPA). There is always room for improvement. My team and I came up with the DSDP initiative with the aim of throwing open the bidding process. This initiative has brought transparency into the crude-for-product exchange matrix in tandem with global best practices,” Mr. Kachikwu said.
“The DSDP initiative whittles down the influence of the Minister in the selection of bid winners as it allows all the bidders to be assessed transparently based on their global and national track record of performance before the best companies with the requisite capacities are selected,” he added.
Mr. Kachikwu said the introduction of the DSDP was necessary to reduce the gaps inherent in the OPA and the losses incurred by the NNPC in the past.
The new arrangement, he explained, would help the NNPC to grow indigenous capacity in the international crude oil business and generate employment opportunities for indigenous companies selected.
The DSDP initiative would also give other government agencies, such as the Bureau of Public Procurement (BPP) and Nigeria Extractive Industry and Transparency Initiative (NEITI), the opportunity to be a part of the bidding process in order to engender adherence to due process.
On the alleged non-transparent nature of previous crude oil-for-products exchange arrangements, the Minister assured that the reconciliation process was on-going, adding that going forward the Ministry would deploy technology to track cargoes and trans-shipment at the reception depots in order to forestall any incidence of round tripping.
On the price modulation policy introduced by the Federal Government, the Minister said this would eliminate the burden of subsidy on imported petroleum products.
Premium Times
The controversial crude-for-products arrangement, popularly called crude swap, catered for a part of the country’s domestic need for petroleum.
Mr. Kachikwu, who is also the Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, said in its place the government was adopting Direct-Sale–Direct-Purchase (DSDP) arrangement billed to take off from March 2016.
The Minister announced the new arrangement while appearing before the House of Representatives Ad-Hoc Committee set up to investigate NNPC’s offshore processing and crude swap arrangements for the period between 2010 to date.
The new DSDP arrangement, he said, was adopted to entrench transparency into the crude oil-for-product transaction by the corporation in line with global best practices.
Under the old order, crude oil was exchanged for petroleum products through third party traders at a pre-determined yield pattern.
The minister stated that the DSDP option would save the government over $1 billion, as all cost elements of middlemen would be eliminated, giving the NNPC the latitude to control crude oil sale and purchase transactions with its partners.
“On assumption as the GMD of NNPC, I met the Offshore Processing Arrangement (OPA). There is always room for improvement. My team and I came up with the DSDP initiative with the aim of throwing open the bidding process. This initiative has brought transparency into the crude-for-product exchange matrix in tandem with global best practices,” Mr. Kachikwu said.
“The DSDP initiative whittles down the influence of the Minister in the selection of bid winners as it allows all the bidders to be assessed transparently based on their global and national track record of performance before the best companies with the requisite capacities are selected,” he added.
Mr. Kachikwu said the introduction of the DSDP was necessary to reduce the gaps inherent in the OPA and the losses incurred by the NNPC in the past.
The new arrangement, he explained, would help the NNPC to grow indigenous capacity in the international crude oil business and generate employment opportunities for indigenous companies selected.
The DSDP initiative would also give other government agencies, such as the Bureau of Public Procurement (BPP) and Nigeria Extractive Industry and Transparency Initiative (NEITI), the opportunity to be a part of the bidding process in order to engender adherence to due process.
On the alleged non-transparent nature of previous crude oil-for-products exchange arrangements, the Minister assured that the reconciliation process was on-going, adding that going forward the Ministry would deploy technology to track cargoes and trans-shipment at the reception depots in order to forestall any incidence of round tripping.
On the price modulation policy introduced by the Federal Government, the Minister said this would eliminate the burden of subsidy on imported petroleum products.
Premium Times
MTN hires top US fomer attorney to help fight Nigeria fine
MTN Group has hired a former top United States (US) law enforcement official to help challenge a $3.9 billion fine imposed by Nigeria for failing to disconnect unregistered users, the Financial Times reported on Wednesday.
Citing people familiar with the situation, the newspaper said former US Attorney General Eric Holder pleaded with Nigerian officials last month on behalf of the telecoms company.
Africa’s largest mobile phone company was handed a $5.2 billion penalty in October, prompting weeks of lobbying that led to a 25 percent reduction to $3.9 billion.
MTN, however, was still not prepared to pay the fine and launched a court challenge in December, saying the Nigerian telecoms regulator had no legal grounds to order the penalty.
A judge in Lagos, Nigeria’s commercial capital, last month gave MTN until 18 March to try to reach a settlement over the fine, which equates to more than twice MTN’s annual average capital spending over the past five years.
MTN spokesman Chris Maroleng was not immediately available to comment.
Holder, who led the US Justice Department from 2009 to 2015 and was one of President Barack Obama’s longest-serving cabinet members, returned to law firm Covington & Burling, where he was previously a partner from 2001 to 2009.
EWN
Citing people familiar with the situation, the newspaper said former US Attorney General Eric Holder pleaded with Nigerian officials last month on behalf of the telecoms company.
Africa’s largest mobile phone company was handed a $5.2 billion penalty in October, prompting weeks of lobbying that led to a 25 percent reduction to $3.9 billion.
MTN, however, was still not prepared to pay the fine and launched a court challenge in December, saying the Nigerian telecoms regulator had no legal grounds to order the penalty.
A judge in Lagos, Nigeria’s commercial capital, last month gave MTN until 18 March to try to reach a settlement over the fine, which equates to more than twice MTN’s annual average capital spending over the past five years.
MTN spokesman Chris Maroleng was not immediately available to comment.
Holder, who led the US Justice Department from 2009 to 2015 and was one of President Barack Obama’s longest-serving cabinet members, returned to law firm Covington & Burling, where he was previously a partner from 2001 to 2009.
EWN
EFCC recovers $2 trillion in 12 years
Nigeria’s anti-graft agency has recovered more than $2 trillion of stolen public funds in the last 12 years, the country’s justice minister said on Tuesday, Nigerian newspaper Vanguard reported.
Abubakar Malami, the Nigerian Attorney-General and Minister of Justice, said that the funds had been stolen by “criminal groups and public office holders” and praised the work of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC)—which was established in 2003—in recovering the funds.
Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari has made tackling corruption a key priority of his administration, and the EFCC is playing a prominent role in his anti-corruption drive. An EFCC report in 2015 found that more than $2 billion of government funds earmarked for procuring arms to fight Boko Haram had gone missing since 2007.
The report has led to a wide-ranging investigation and a number of high-profile arrests, including ex-national security advisor Sambo Dasuki and former defense minister Bello Haliru Mohammed. Nigerian authorities reportedly raided the office of former vice-president Namadi Sambo on Saturday in connection with the arms scandal.
Speaking at an anti-corruption event in Abuja on Tuesday, Malami said that the Buhari administration is committed to recovering “the fortunes that criminals have made illegally by returning every penny that belongs to the Nigerian public.” Malami also estimated that the country’s former military ruler, the late General Sani Abacha, had alone laundered around $2 million before his death in 1998.
A December 2015 report by corruption watchdog found that 75 percent of Nigerians believed that corruption in the government had increased over the previous 12 months.
The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) was established in 2003 and investigates financial fraud in Nigeria. The agency is currently engaged in a wide-ranging investigation into an arms corruption scandal, which saw more than $2 billion of funds earmarked for procuring arms to fight Boko Haram.
Newsweek
Abubakar Malami, the Nigerian Attorney-General and Minister of Justice, said that the funds had been stolen by “criminal groups and public office holders” and praised the work of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC)—which was established in 2003—in recovering the funds.
Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari has made tackling corruption a key priority of his administration, and the EFCC is playing a prominent role in his anti-corruption drive. An EFCC report in 2015 found that more than $2 billion of government funds earmarked for procuring arms to fight Boko Haram had gone missing since 2007.
The report has led to a wide-ranging investigation and a number of high-profile arrests, including ex-national security advisor Sambo Dasuki and former defense minister Bello Haliru Mohammed. Nigerian authorities reportedly raided the office of former vice-president Namadi Sambo on Saturday in connection with the arms scandal.
Speaking at an anti-corruption event in Abuja on Tuesday, Malami said that the Buhari administration is committed to recovering “the fortunes that criminals have made illegally by returning every penny that belongs to the Nigerian public.” Malami also estimated that the country’s former military ruler, the late General Sani Abacha, had alone laundered around $2 million before his death in 1998.
A December 2015 report by corruption watchdog found that 75 percent of Nigerians believed that corruption in the government had increased over the previous 12 months.
The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) was established in 2003 and investigates financial fraud in Nigeria. The agency is currently engaged in a wide-ranging investigation into an arms corruption scandal, which saw more than $2 billion of funds earmarked for procuring arms to fight Boko Haram.
Newsweek
Helicpoter crash in Nigeria - All crew and passengers survive
Crew members as well as passengers aboard a chartered Bristow helicopter which crashed Wednesday while flying from Port Harcourt to Lagos survived the accident, the Accident Investigations Bureau has said.
Tunji Oketunbi, the spokesperson for the Bureau told PREMIUM TIMES on telephone that all occupants of the craft survived the accident.
“They all survived, they all survived,” the AIB spokesperson said when contacted for updates.
Mr. Oketunbi said search and rescue were apace and that his agency was in the process of circulating a detailed statement about the crash.
An official of Bristow Helicopter had earlier confirmed the incident to PREMIUM TIMES but declined to provide details.
The official said the company was still collating details of the incident and would make same public at the end of the exercise.
Initial reports said about 13 passengers were on board the craft at the time of the incident.
The identities of the affected passengers were unknown at the time of this report.
The new crash occurred less than six months after another helicopter belonging to the same company crashed in Lagos.
The chopper had on August 12, 2015 plunged into the Lagos Lagoon, killing six of the 12 persons on board.
Premium Times
Tunji Oketunbi, the spokesperson for the Bureau told PREMIUM TIMES on telephone that all occupants of the craft survived the accident.
“They all survived, they all survived,” the AIB spokesperson said when contacted for updates.
Mr. Oketunbi said search and rescue were apace and that his agency was in the process of circulating a detailed statement about the crash.
An official of Bristow Helicopter had earlier confirmed the incident to PREMIUM TIMES but declined to provide details.
The official said the company was still collating details of the incident and would make same public at the end of the exercise.
Initial reports said about 13 passengers were on board the craft at the time of the incident.
The identities of the affected passengers were unknown at the time of this report.
The new crash occurred less than six months after another helicopter belonging to the same company crashed in Lagos.
The chopper had on August 12, 2015 plunged into the Lagos Lagoon, killing six of the 12 persons on board.
Premium Times
Tuesday, February 2, 2016
Nigerian military kill 100 Boko Haram fighters and rescue 1,200 hostages
Nigerian soldiers had Monday rescued over 1200 captives in Borno border communities after a heavy gun battle at a local market where Boko Haram insurgents go to trade every week, officials and witnesses said.
The insurgents had held captive more than 2000 villagers from various communities around the border areas of Borno state for more than two years running.
Soldiers acting on a tip off by local security operatives stormed Boboshe village where the insurgents usually converge every Monday to trade. The insurgents who mostly go to the market armed began to exchange fire with the soldiers.
The soldiers had the day as more than a hundred corpses of the insurgents were gathered at the end of the battle.
After the victory in Boboshe, soldiers moved into Garindawaji and Mamawarhi communities where over one thousand civilians were being held captives to set them free. Many women of ages 30 and 18 were among the rescued.
Falmata Kalli, who is in her early 30s, said Boko Haram gunmen took her away from Marte village about two years ago after they had killed her husband.
She now had a baby out of a pregnancy she got while being sexually abused by Boko Haram insurgents.
“I saw them kill my husband by shooting him”, said Falmata. “After that, they dragged me away with them, my two children were left with my aged mother in-law, but I don’t know what becomes of them now: it has been two years now since they attacked our town, Marte.”
In tears she looked at her one year old child and said “I got him while being in the captivity of Boko Haram terrorists…I cant say who his father is, honestly; but he comes out of me and he is my child, I must love and care for him even though I will never forgive those that did this to me.”
Deputy Governor of Borno State, Usman Mamman Durkwa on Tuesday visited Dikwa border town where the rescued villagers were being camped by soldiers.
Soldiers in Dikwa briefed the deputy governor that most of the villagers had been under the captivity of the insurgents for nearly two years.
The deputy governor who went to the border town with luxury buses ordered that the rescued persons be immediately conveyed to Maiduguri where they would be accommodated in some of the IDP camps.
TODAY
The insurgents had held captive more than 2000 villagers from various communities around the border areas of Borno state for more than two years running.
Soldiers acting on a tip off by local security operatives stormed Boboshe village where the insurgents usually converge every Monday to trade. The insurgents who mostly go to the market armed began to exchange fire with the soldiers.
The soldiers had the day as more than a hundred corpses of the insurgents were gathered at the end of the battle.
After the victory in Boboshe, soldiers moved into Garindawaji and Mamawarhi communities where over one thousand civilians were being held captives to set them free. Many women of ages 30 and 18 were among the rescued.
Falmata Kalli, who is in her early 30s, said Boko Haram gunmen took her away from Marte village about two years ago after they had killed her husband.
She now had a baby out of a pregnancy she got while being sexually abused by Boko Haram insurgents.
“I saw them kill my husband by shooting him”, said Falmata. “After that, they dragged me away with them, my two children were left with my aged mother in-law, but I don’t know what becomes of them now: it has been two years now since they attacked our town, Marte.”
In tears she looked at her one year old child and said “I got him while being in the captivity of Boko Haram terrorists…I cant say who his father is, honestly; but he comes out of me and he is my child, I must love and care for him even though I will never forgive those that did this to me.”
Deputy Governor of Borno State, Usman Mamman Durkwa on Tuesday visited Dikwa border town where the rescued villagers were being camped by soldiers.
Soldiers in Dikwa briefed the deputy governor that most of the villagers had been under the captivity of the insurgents for nearly two years.
The deputy governor who went to the border town with luxury buses ordered that the rescued persons be immediately conveyed to Maiduguri where they would be accommodated in some of the IDP camps.
TODAY
Former Nigeria Vice President Namadi Sambo raided by EFCC
Nigeria's anti-corruption agency has raided the offices of ex-Vice-President Namadi Sambo, the BBC has learned.The raid was carried out on Saturday by agents from the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) as part of a probe into an arms deal, a source said.
Mr Sambo is the most senior member of the former government to be targeted by the EFCC since President Muhammadu Buhari took office last May.
The former vice-president has not yet commented on the raid.
He was believed to have been out of the country when his office in the capital, Abuja, was targeted.
Mr Sambo is not the first ally of former President Goodluck Jonathan to come under scrutiny from the anti-corruption watchdog.
In December, Nigeria's former national security advisor, Sambo Dasuki, was charged over an alleged $68m (£47m) fraud. He denied any wrongdoing.
A wider investigation is currently under way into the disappearance of $2bn of government money, which was meant to be spent on the fight against Boko Haram Islamist militants.
The Islamist militant group has killed thousands in north-eastern Nigeria in its six-year campaign.
Mr Sambo served as vice-president for five years, until the People's Democratic Party (PDP) was defeated in elections last April.
Mr Buhari took office with a pledge to tackle corruption in Africa's most populous state and biggest oil producer.
BBC
Militants in Nigeria hijack merchant ship and demand release of activist
Nigerian militants have hijacked a merchant ship and threatened to blow it up with its foreign crew if authorities do not release a detained leader agitating for a breakaway state of Biafra, according to officers in the military.
The vessel – which has not been identified – was hijacked on Friday and the navy is pursuing it, the officers said.
The hijackers have given the government 31 days to free Nnamdi Kanu, the director of the banned Radio Biafra, who was detained by secret police on 17 October and accused of terrorism.
The ultimatum was given at the weekend by a militant identified by the nom de guerre of Gen Ben. A leader of a Biafran separatist movement, Uchena Madu, said Ben was not a separatist but “some Niger Delta militants have shown interest in working with us”.
The hijacking indicates the separatists could be working with Niger Delta militants blamed for recent bombings of oil pipelines in the oil-rich south, escalating conflict in a country already burdened by Boko Haram’s deadly Islamist uprising in the north-east and violent ethno-religious confrontations between farmers and herders in central Nigeria.
Africa’s biggest economy and oil producer has also been affected by plummeting petroleum prices.
Nigeria’s Igbo people prosecuted a civil war to create a separate state of Biafra in the south-east that killed a million people in the 1960s. Many Igbos claim they still suffer discrimination.
Guardian
The vessel – which has not been identified – was hijacked on Friday and the navy is pursuing it, the officers said.
The hijackers have given the government 31 days to free Nnamdi Kanu, the director of the banned Radio Biafra, who was detained by secret police on 17 October and accused of terrorism.
The ultimatum was given at the weekend by a militant identified by the nom de guerre of Gen Ben. A leader of a Biafran separatist movement, Uchena Madu, said Ben was not a separatist but “some Niger Delta militants have shown interest in working with us”.
The hijacking indicates the separatists could be working with Niger Delta militants blamed for recent bombings of oil pipelines in the oil-rich south, escalating conflict in a country already burdened by Boko Haram’s deadly Islamist uprising in the north-east and violent ethno-religious confrontations between farmers and herders in central Nigeria.
Africa’s biggest economy and oil producer has also been affected by plummeting petroleum prices.
Nigeria’s Igbo people prosecuted a civil war to create a separate state of Biafra in the south-east that killed a million people in the 1960s. Many Igbos claim they still suffer discrimination.
Guardian
Monday, February 1, 2016
Video - Boko Haram attack village in Nigeria - 69 reported dead
At least 69 people have been killed in a spate of attacks near the north-eastern city of Maiduguri. ISIL-affiliated Boko Haram is the prime suspect. It's the bloodiest incident of its kind in Nigeria so far this year.
Nigeria seeking loan from World Bank
Nigeria is holding talks with the World Bank to help it fund a forecast $11bn (£7.7bn) budget deficit.
However, Finance Minister Kemi Adeosun said in a statement that it was not applying for an "emergency loan".
Nigeria is believed to be looking for around $3.5bn from the World Bank and the African Development Bank.
Africa's largest economy has been hit hard by the recent fall in oil prices, and the government needs to find new sources of income to fund its budget.
Last year's government budget was largely financed by oil revenue.
Ms Adeosun said that "Nigeria, as a member of World Bank group is entitled to access available funds like every member-country," but she is also looking at the domestic market as a means to get finance.
"No application for loans have been made. We are simply discussing options for funding [the] 2016 budget," she added.
Chief Africa economist for Standard Chartered bank Razia Khan told the BBC that going to the World Bank could be attractive as it may offer Nigeria better terms for a loan than it would get from the international money markets.
Nigeria is deliberately boosting spending on infrastructure development to try to boost the economy as it tries to deal with the oil price shock, she added.
The country is also under pressure to devalue the currency, the naira, as it tries to cope with the impact of the declining oil price.
BBC
However, Finance Minister Kemi Adeosun said in a statement that it was not applying for an "emergency loan".
Nigeria is believed to be looking for around $3.5bn from the World Bank and the African Development Bank.
Africa's largest economy has been hit hard by the recent fall in oil prices, and the government needs to find new sources of income to fund its budget.
Last year's government budget was largely financed by oil revenue.
Ms Adeosun said that "Nigeria, as a member of World Bank group is entitled to access available funds like every member-country," but she is also looking at the domestic market as a means to get finance.
"No application for loans have been made. We are simply discussing options for funding [the] 2016 budget," she added.
Chief Africa economist for Standard Chartered bank Razia Khan told the BBC that going to the World Bank could be attractive as it may offer Nigeria better terms for a loan than it would get from the international money markets.
Nigeria is deliberately boosting spending on infrastructure development to try to boost the economy as it tries to deal with the oil price shock, she added.
The country is also under pressure to devalue the currency, the naira, as it tries to cope with the impact of the declining oil price.
BBC
Saturday, January 30, 2016
U-17 World Cup winner Kelechi Nwakali joins Arsenal
The Nigeria Under-17 captain has been strongly linked with the Gunners in recent days, amid talk a deal has been agreed.
And now Nigerian outlet Tribune reports that Nwakali is flying to London with his agent to complete a move to the Emirates Stadium.
They managed to grab a word with him before his flew out, and the player says he is happy to be moving to the club.
‘I am going to Arsenal to work and try to be the best I can,’ he said.
‘With God anything is possible, to work hard to justify my claim for first team football.’
Nwakali’s Nigeria team mate Samuel Chukwueze is expected to follow him by moving to Arsenal in the next month or so.
Soccerblitz
Related story: Nigeria U-17 World Cup winners being scouted by Arsenal and Manchester City
Friday, January 29, 2016
Video - Critics fault Nigerian government for not devaluing the naira
In Nigeria there have been critics of the central bank's decision not to devalue the currency believe that the countrys refusal to devalue may hurt more than benefit its economy. Central bank Governor Godwin Emefiele ruled out any form of devaluation after the Monetary Policy Committee meeting on Tuesday despite a steep depreciation of the local unit. The naira has been under sustained pressure following severe shortages of foreign exchange as a result of the fall in the price of oil.
Related story: President Muhammadu Buhari rejects calls to devalue the Naira
The Economist calls former Nigeria president Goodluck Jonathan an 'ineffectual buffoon'
The Economist has described former Nigerian president, Goodluck Jonathan, an ineffectual buffoon in an article titled: “Cheap oil is causing a currency crisis in Nigeria. Banning imports is no solution”
In the article which an analysis of President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration and policies, The Economist took a dig at Jonathan and how he managed Nigeria.
Read “Cheap oil is causing a currency crisis in Nigeria. Banning imports is no solution” below:
More than 30 years ago, a young general swept to power in the fifth of Nigeria’s military coups since independence in 1960. The country he inherited was a mess: bled dry by pilfering politicians within and hammered by falling oil prices without. Last year that general, Muhammadu Buhari, became president again—this time in a democratic vote. The problems he has inherited are almost identical. So are many of his responses.
In the eight months since Mr Buhari arrived at Aso Rock, the presidential digs, the homicidal jihadists of Boko Haram have been pushed back into the bush along Nigeria’s borders. The government has cracked down on corruption, which had flourished under the previous president, Goodluck Jonathan, an ineffectual buffoon who let politicians and their cronies fill their pockets with impunity. Lai Mohammed, a minister, reckons that just 55 people stole $6.8 billion from the public purse over seven recent years.
Mr Buhari, who—unusually among Nigeria’s political grandees—is said to have just $150,000 and a couple of hundred cattle to his name, abhors such excess. As military ruler he jailed, fired or forced into retirement thousands of bureaucrats whose fingers had been in the till. This time, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has arrested dozens of bigwigs, including a former national security chief accused of diverting $2.2 billion. The EFCC has a poor record of securing convictions; but a single treasury account has been introduced to try to stop civil servants siphoning off cash. And agencies which may not be remitting their fair share to the state are having their books trawled by Kemi Adeosun, the finance minister.
Such measures are doubly important because the economy is swooning along with the oil price. The sticky stuff directly accounts for only 10% of GDP, but for 70% of government revenue and almost all of Nigeria’s foreign earnings.
Oil’s price has fallen by half, to $32 a barrel, in the months since the new government came to power, sending its revenues plummeting. Income for the third quarter of 2015 was almost 30% lower than for the same period the year before, and foreign reserves have dwindled by $9 billion in 18 months. Ordinarily there would be buffers to cushion against such shocks, but Mr Jonathan’s cronies have largely squandered them. Growth was about 3% in 2015, almost half the rate of the year before and barely enough to keep pace with the population. The stockmarket is down by half from its peak in 2014.
Domestic oil producers are feeling the pinch worst. Many borrowed heavily to buy oilfields when crude was worth more than $100 a barrel, and are now struggling to pay the interest on loans, says Kola Karim, the founder of Shoreline Group, a Nigerian conglomerate. This, in turn, threatens to create a banking crisis. About 20% of Nigerian banks’ loans were made to oil and gas producers (along with another 4% to underperforming power companies). Capital cushions are plumper than they were during an earlier banking crisis in 2009; but, even so, bad debts are mounting and banks that are exposed to oil producers may find themselves in trouble. “It wouldn’t surprise me if one or two went down,” says a senior banker in Nigeria.
The government’s response to the crisis has been three-pronged. First, it is trying to stimulate the economy with a mildly expansionary budget. At the same time, it is trying to protect its dwindling hard-currency reserves by blocking imports. Third, it is trying to suppress inflation by keeping the currency, the naira, pegged at 197-199 to the dollar. Only the first of these policies seems likely to work.
The budget, which includes a plan to spend more on badly needed infrastructure, is a step in the right direction. Although government revenues are under pressure from the falling oil price, Mr Buhari hopes to offset that by plugging “leakages” (a polite term for theft) and taxing people and businesses more. That seems reasonable. At 7%, Nigeria’s tax-to-GDP ratio is pitifully low. Every percentage point increase could yield $5 billion of extra cash for the coffers, reckons Kayode Akindele of TIA Capital, an investment firm. Mr Buhari also plans to save some $5 billion-$7 billion a year by ending fuel subsidies—a crucial reform, if he sticks with it. Even so he will be left with a deficit of $15 billion (3% of GDP) that will have to be filled by domestic and foreign borrowing.
Yet his policies on the currency seem likely to stymie that. The central bank has frozen the naira at its current overvalued official rate for almost a year. The various import bans (on everything from soap to ballpoint pens) are supposed to reduce demand for dollars, but have little effect. Businesses that have to import essential supplies to keep their factories running complain that they have been forced into the black market, where the naira currently trades at 300 or more to the dollar. Several local manufacturers have suspended operations. International investors, knowing that the value of their assets could tumble, have slammed on the brakes and some have pulled money out of the country just as their dollars are most needed.
Nigeria is fortunate in having low levels of public debt (less than 20% of GDP), but it is not helped by high interest rates, which mean that 35% of government revenue goes straight out of the door again to service its borrowings. It would not take much to push it into a debt crisis.
Frustratingly, this crunch is one that Nigeria has been through before—under the then youthful Mr Buhari. Then, as now, he refused to let the market set the value of the currency. Instead he shut out imports, causing the legal import trade to fall by almost 50% and killing much of Nigeria’s nascent industry in the process. Between 1980 and 1990, carmaking fell by almost 90%. Today, as in the 1980s, the president is making a bad situation worse.
PM News
In the article which an analysis of President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration and policies, The Economist took a dig at Jonathan and how he managed Nigeria.
Read “Cheap oil is causing a currency crisis in Nigeria. Banning imports is no solution” below:
More than 30 years ago, a young general swept to power in the fifth of Nigeria’s military coups since independence in 1960. The country he inherited was a mess: bled dry by pilfering politicians within and hammered by falling oil prices without. Last year that general, Muhammadu Buhari, became president again—this time in a democratic vote. The problems he has inherited are almost identical. So are many of his responses.
In the eight months since Mr Buhari arrived at Aso Rock, the presidential digs, the homicidal jihadists of Boko Haram have been pushed back into the bush along Nigeria’s borders. The government has cracked down on corruption, which had flourished under the previous president, Goodluck Jonathan, an ineffectual buffoon who let politicians and their cronies fill their pockets with impunity. Lai Mohammed, a minister, reckons that just 55 people stole $6.8 billion from the public purse over seven recent years.
Mr Buhari, who—unusually among Nigeria’s political grandees—is said to have just $150,000 and a couple of hundred cattle to his name, abhors such excess. As military ruler he jailed, fired or forced into retirement thousands of bureaucrats whose fingers had been in the till. This time, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has arrested dozens of bigwigs, including a former national security chief accused of diverting $2.2 billion. The EFCC has a poor record of securing convictions; but a single treasury account has been introduced to try to stop civil servants siphoning off cash. And agencies which may not be remitting their fair share to the state are having their books trawled by Kemi Adeosun, the finance minister.
Such measures are doubly important because the economy is swooning along with the oil price. The sticky stuff directly accounts for only 10% of GDP, but for 70% of government revenue and almost all of Nigeria’s foreign earnings.
Oil’s price has fallen by half, to $32 a barrel, in the months since the new government came to power, sending its revenues plummeting. Income for the third quarter of 2015 was almost 30% lower than for the same period the year before, and foreign reserves have dwindled by $9 billion in 18 months. Ordinarily there would be buffers to cushion against such shocks, but Mr Jonathan’s cronies have largely squandered them. Growth was about 3% in 2015, almost half the rate of the year before and barely enough to keep pace with the population. The stockmarket is down by half from its peak in 2014.
Domestic oil producers are feeling the pinch worst. Many borrowed heavily to buy oilfields when crude was worth more than $100 a barrel, and are now struggling to pay the interest on loans, says Kola Karim, the founder of Shoreline Group, a Nigerian conglomerate. This, in turn, threatens to create a banking crisis. About 20% of Nigerian banks’ loans were made to oil and gas producers (along with another 4% to underperforming power companies). Capital cushions are plumper than they were during an earlier banking crisis in 2009; but, even so, bad debts are mounting and banks that are exposed to oil producers may find themselves in trouble. “It wouldn’t surprise me if one or two went down,” says a senior banker in Nigeria.
The government’s response to the crisis has been three-pronged. First, it is trying to stimulate the economy with a mildly expansionary budget. At the same time, it is trying to protect its dwindling hard-currency reserves by blocking imports. Third, it is trying to suppress inflation by keeping the currency, the naira, pegged at 197-199 to the dollar. Only the first of these policies seems likely to work.
The budget, which includes a plan to spend more on badly needed infrastructure, is a step in the right direction. Although government revenues are under pressure from the falling oil price, Mr Buhari hopes to offset that by plugging “leakages” (a polite term for theft) and taxing people and businesses more. That seems reasonable. At 7%, Nigeria’s tax-to-GDP ratio is pitifully low. Every percentage point increase could yield $5 billion of extra cash for the coffers, reckons Kayode Akindele of TIA Capital, an investment firm. Mr Buhari also plans to save some $5 billion-$7 billion a year by ending fuel subsidies—a crucial reform, if he sticks with it. Even so he will be left with a deficit of $15 billion (3% of GDP) that will have to be filled by domestic and foreign borrowing.
Yet his policies on the currency seem likely to stymie that. The central bank has frozen the naira at its current overvalued official rate for almost a year. The various import bans (on everything from soap to ballpoint pens) are supposed to reduce demand for dollars, but have little effect. Businesses that have to import essential supplies to keep their factories running complain that they have been forced into the black market, where the naira currently trades at 300 or more to the dollar. Several local manufacturers have suspended operations. International investors, knowing that the value of their assets could tumble, have slammed on the brakes and some have pulled money out of the country just as their dollars are most needed.
Nigeria is fortunate in having low levels of public debt (less than 20% of GDP), but it is not helped by high interest rates, which mean that 35% of government revenue goes straight out of the door again to service its borrowings. It would not take much to push it into a debt crisis.
Frustratingly, this crunch is one that Nigeria has been through before—under the then youthful Mr Buhari. Then, as now, he refused to let the market set the value of the currency. Instead he shut out imports, causing the legal import trade to fall by almost 50% and killing much of Nigeria’s nascent industry in the process. Between 1980 and 1990, carmaking fell by almost 90%. Today, as in the 1980s, the president is making a bad situation worse.
PM News
Thursday, January 28, 2016
President Muhammadu Buhari rejects calls to devalue the Naira
Nigeria’s President Muhammadu Buhari stood firm in rejecting calls to devalue the currency of Africa’s top oil producer, saying that he wouldn’t “kill the naira.”
Letting the currency fall would only result in higher inflation and cause hardship for poor- and middle-class Nigerians, Buhari said, according to an e-mailed statement from his spokesman Garba Shehu on Thursday.
“President Buhari said that proponents of devaluation will have to work much harder to convince him that ordinary Nigerians will gain anything from it,” Shehu said. “The president added that he had no intention of bringing further hardship on the country’s poor who, he said, have suffered enough already.”
The central bank of Africa’s largest economy has pegged the naira at 197-199 per dollar since March to stem its slide amid a rout in oil prices. The policy has led to a shortage of foreign-exchange and been widely criticized by investors and businesses, who blame the restrictions for exacerbating the country’s economic slump. Growth was 3 percent last year, the slowest pace since 1999, according to the International Monetary Fund.
Three-month naira forwards strengthened 3.4 percent to 226.32 per dollar by 3:50 p.m. in Lagos, the highest on a closing basis since Dec. 22. The black market rate has plunged as Nigerians have become desperate for foreign currency, falling to a record low of 306 per dollar this week.
Buhari was speaking at a meeting on Wednesday with Nigerians in Kenya’s capital, Nairobi, according to Shehu.
Nigeria’s Monetary Policy Committee resisted pressure to devalue the currency on Tuesday. Central bank Governor Godwin Emefiele gave no hint that curbs on imports and foreign-exchange trading would be lifted.
‘Needs Inflows’
Investors have questioned whether the regulator would weaken the currency without the president’s permission. Finance Minister Kemi Adeosun said in an interview last week that the central bank was “completely independent.”
Buhari “has been influencing the central bank, we see a situation where as commander-in-chief, whatever he wants to be implemented is what is done,” said Mike Nwanolue, a currency analyst at Lagos-based Greenwich Trust Group Ltd. Keeping the naira artificially inflated “is not good for a country that needs inflows and also intends to raise Eurobonds.”
Nigeria’s government plans to sell as much as $1 billion of dollar bonds to help fund a record budget deficit this year.
Bloomberg
Letting the currency fall would only result in higher inflation and cause hardship for poor- and middle-class Nigerians, Buhari said, according to an e-mailed statement from his spokesman Garba Shehu on Thursday.
“President Buhari said that proponents of devaluation will have to work much harder to convince him that ordinary Nigerians will gain anything from it,” Shehu said. “The president added that he had no intention of bringing further hardship on the country’s poor who, he said, have suffered enough already.”
The central bank of Africa’s largest economy has pegged the naira at 197-199 per dollar since March to stem its slide amid a rout in oil prices. The policy has led to a shortage of foreign-exchange and been widely criticized by investors and businesses, who blame the restrictions for exacerbating the country’s economic slump. Growth was 3 percent last year, the slowest pace since 1999, according to the International Monetary Fund.
Three-month naira forwards strengthened 3.4 percent to 226.32 per dollar by 3:50 p.m. in Lagos, the highest on a closing basis since Dec. 22. The black market rate has plunged as Nigerians have become desperate for foreign currency, falling to a record low of 306 per dollar this week.
Buhari was speaking at a meeting on Wednesday with Nigerians in Kenya’s capital, Nairobi, according to Shehu.
Nigeria’s Monetary Policy Committee resisted pressure to devalue the currency on Tuesday. Central bank Governor Godwin Emefiele gave no hint that curbs on imports and foreign-exchange trading would be lifted.
‘Needs Inflows’
Investors have questioned whether the regulator would weaken the currency without the president’s permission. Finance Minister Kemi Adeosun said in an interview last week that the central bank was “completely independent.”
Buhari “has been influencing the central bank, we see a situation where as commander-in-chief, whatever he wants to be implemented is what is done,” said Mike Nwanolue, a currency analyst at Lagos-based Greenwich Trust Group Ltd. Keeping the naira artificially inflated “is not good for a country that needs inflows and also intends to raise Eurobonds.”
Nigeria’s government plans to sell as much as $1 billion of dollar bonds to help fund a record budget deficit this year.
Bloomberg
Rat poison sales sky rocketing in Nigeria due to spread of Lassa Fever
An outbreak of a fever similar to the Ebola virus has Nigeria on edge.
Lassa fever has sickened at least 57 people and killed 34 since it broke out in Nigeria late last year. The disease is transmitted by rats, and in its later stages shares symptoms with Ebola, which killed over 11,000 people in West Africa after it broke out in 2013. Eight people died from Ebola in Nigeria.
Lassa fever, which is named after a town in Nigeria’s northeastern Borno State, sickens people who come into contact with rat excrement. Symptoms in the early stage include headache and fever, while in later stages people can bleed from their mouth and other orifices.
The fever broke out in parts of the country’s north, before spreading south to the commercial capital Lagos and to Edo and Akwa Ibom states in the Niger Delta.
Hassan Garba, a hospital director in the northern city of Bauchi, blamed the transportation of crops for the spread of the disease.
“When you’re moving food material like grains from the north to the south or the east or to the west of the country, you most probably may be moving with rats who can hide among shipments," said Garba.
That’s led to a run on supplies of rat poison in cities across the north. In Kaduna, Adamu Abubakar said he wasn’t taking any chances at home.
“This fever brought by rat, so that is why I’m rushing to the market and I’ll buy… rat medicine in order to kill all the rat that is in my house,” said Abubakar.
Merchant Odundele Benga said his supplies of the poison were exhausted.
“People are rushing the rat poison now. I don’t even have enough to sell,” said Benga.
But the director of the Kaduna state ministry of health Ado Zakari Mohammed warned people to be cautious with the poison, which is deadly to humans.
VOA
Lassa fever has sickened at least 57 people and killed 34 since it broke out in Nigeria late last year. The disease is transmitted by rats, and in its later stages shares symptoms with Ebola, which killed over 11,000 people in West Africa after it broke out in 2013. Eight people died from Ebola in Nigeria.
Lassa fever, which is named after a town in Nigeria’s northeastern Borno State, sickens people who come into contact with rat excrement. Symptoms in the early stage include headache and fever, while in later stages people can bleed from their mouth and other orifices.
The fever broke out in parts of the country’s north, before spreading south to the commercial capital Lagos and to Edo and Akwa Ibom states in the Niger Delta.
Hassan Garba, a hospital director in the northern city of Bauchi, blamed the transportation of crops for the spread of the disease.
“When you’re moving food material like grains from the north to the south or the east or to the west of the country, you most probably may be moving with rats who can hide among shipments," said Garba.
That’s led to a run on supplies of rat poison in cities across the north. In Kaduna, Adamu Abubakar said he wasn’t taking any chances at home.
“This fever brought by rat, so that is why I’m rushing to the market and I’ll buy… rat medicine in order to kill all the rat that is in my house,” said Abubakar.
Merchant Odundele Benga said his supplies of the poison were exhausted.
“People are rushing the rat poison now. I don’t even have enough to sell,” said Benga.
But the director of the Kaduna state ministry of health Ado Zakari Mohammed warned people to be cautious with the poison, which is deadly to humans.
VOA
Wednesday, January 27, 2016
President Muhammadu Buhari visits Kenya and Ethiopia
President Muhammadu Buhari has departed Abuja, Wednesday morning, for Nairobi, Kenya on a three-day visit.
He would equally leave the country on Friday for Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, for the summit of African Union leaders.
The president was accompanied to Kenya by the Ministers of Foreign Affairs, Finance and Industry, Trade and Investment.
Upon his arrival in Nairobi, the President would alongside his host, President Uhuru Kenyatta and other dignitaries participate in the memorial service for Kenyan fallen soldiers who were killed by Al-Shabaab in Somalia on January 15.
At the end of the memorial service in Eldoret, President Buhari would proceed to Nairobi for bilateral talks on Thursday with Kenyan Government officials led by President Kenyatta.
President Buhari with his host would preside over a Kenya-Nigeria Business Forum in Nairobi.
At the end of his visit to Kenya on Friday, President Buhari would travel to Addis Ababa for the 26th Summit of African Union Heads of State and Government.
He is expected to participate in a meeting of the African Union’s Peace and Security Council before returning to Abuja on Sunday.
Vanguard
He would equally leave the country on Friday for Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, for the summit of African Union leaders.
The president was accompanied to Kenya by the Ministers of Foreign Affairs, Finance and Industry, Trade and Investment.
Upon his arrival in Nairobi, the President would alongside his host, President Uhuru Kenyatta and other dignitaries participate in the memorial service for Kenyan fallen soldiers who were killed by Al-Shabaab in Somalia on January 15.
At the end of the memorial service in Eldoret, President Buhari would proceed to Nairobi for bilateral talks on Thursday with Kenyan Government officials led by President Kenyatta.
President Buhari with his host would preside over a Kenya-Nigeria Business Forum in Nairobi.
At the end of his visit to Kenya on Friday, President Buhari would travel to Addis Ababa for the 26th Summit of African Union Heads of State and Government.
He is expected to participate in a meeting of the African Union’s Peace and Security Council before returning to Abuja on Sunday.
Vanguard
Nigeria's international sex-trafficking ring
It's 08:00 in the Catalan Police Headquarters on the outskirts of Barcelona and Xavi Cortes, head of the anti-trafficking unit, waits patiently for his 22 teams to confirm they are in position. Finally, he gives the order.
Two-hundred-and-fifty officers quietly climb out of their police vans. Single file, each team approaches a residential building watched by a few surprised neighbours.
On reaching the door, one of the masked police officers uses his fingers to count down. Three, two, one. The door is knocked down, the silence shattered, the officers rush inside.
The raid results in the arrest of the leaders of a Nigerian-based group running an international sex-trafficking ring in Barcelona. It's known as the Supreme Eiye Confraternity (SEC), or the Air Lords, and 23 people are now behind bars, with European Arrest Warrants issued for those who have left the country.
This operation was 18 months in the planning and involved monitoring more than a million phone calls, tapping dozens of mobile phones and months of surveillance.
Cortes and his team first came across the group in 2011 during a forgery investigation, but quickly discovered it was a huge network trafficking women and drugs.
He asks me to look at his screen. On it is a map detailing all the locations they have identified where members of the SEC operate. Cities are marked in Europe, North, West and East Africa, North and South America, the Middle East and Asia.
Eiye in Yoruba, the main language of south-western Nigeria means "bird". The group's insignia is an eagle and each city containing members is called a "nest", with the "mother nest" in Ibadan, about 100km (60 miles) north-east of Lagos.
The group was started at the University of Ibadan in the 1970s, and the original intention was to make a positive contribution to society. Over time, however, many members went astray, committing violence in Nigeria and delving into crime abroad.
The group now traffics human beings and narcotics (cocaine and marijuana) and forges passports. It has also facilitated the transport of stolen crude oil into Europe.
"They are able to earn money in many ways, but we are focused on human-trafficking and the victims," says Cortes.
His second-in-command, Alex Escola, then tells me something remarkable.
"You know, one of the tappings showed us that last year, on 7 July, around 400 members of SEC met in Geneva. They had a big meeting, all together."
It was an audacious display of arrogance. In a city where many of the world's global institutions are headquartered, including numerous UN agencies, a global criminal institution held its own parallel international gathering and no-one tried to stop it.
Benin City, Nigeria, is a human-trafficking hub, and a good place to observe how the criminal operation works.
After long negotiations, our team manages to speak to a recruiter, whose job it is to find girls. The recruiter explains that they either approach girls directly or through their families offering fake jobs abroad in a supermarket, or as a cleaner.
However, not everyone is tricked. Many women approach the recruiters themselves, often in full knowledge that they will be working as a prostitute in Europe. Some parents, also aware of this, approach recruiters on behalf of their children.
Destiny, who was 19 when she was trafficked to Spain three years ago, told me she knew sex would be involved but had never imagined she would be turned into a sex slave.
"If you live in Benin, there are many girls who came back from [Spain] with lots of money. They told us they had to have sex sometimes," she says. "We are not stupid but I did not know I would be beaten and raped and have to have sex every night of the week."
NGOs in Benin City say many of the recruiters now look outside the major cities in order to find girls who have not heard their warnings about the reality of life for trafficked women, or the stories of those like Destiny who have returned and are now alerting others to the dangers.
Once recruited, the girls are then taken to Lagos or to northern Nigeria where they are picked up by men known as "coyotes" or "trolleys".
The journey to Europe is perilous. Wire taps reveal how coyotes transporting women were stopped by armed groups in the deserts of Niger or southern Libya demanding thousands of euros for them to pass.
"One phone call from a coyote to SEC showed how a coyote was saying, 'I have a gun on my head and they want money,'" says Cortes.
A woman who was herself trafficked tells me about other horrors.
"The journey took weeks," says Sarah, who arrived in Spain in 2013 at the age of 21. "One of the girls kept asking for water. The men did not like it so they threw her out in the desert in Libya. They left her and we continued the journey. They told the boss on the phone that she was killed by terrorists. We were not human beings. We were animals."
Once girls are trafficked across the desert, they are then taken to "keepers", who often rape them before they cross to Europe.
"When we got to Libya they put us in a house," says Sarah. "This is when I knew we would not be working in a supermarket. One man was taking care of us. He would have sex with us, rape us. Then I became pregnant."
Women who insist they will not work as prostitutes are tied up in a position called "the crocodile". Their hands tied to their feet, they are left for days with no food or water. Some are left to die as an example to others.
Keepers often get the women pregnant prior to making the crossing to Spain. With a child or pregnant, they stand a better chance of not being deported, and the men can use access to the child as a form of blackmail to keep the women under control.
Two years ago, at a time when the coyotes reported Libya had become too dangerous, recorded phone calls show that the girls were taken instead to Greece, via Yemen, Iran and Turkey. And today, as the Mediterranean becomes more difficult to cross - and the authorities try harder to detect traffickers - the SEC has begun to use airports in the UK more frequently.
"This is a more expensive option for the group," Cortes tells me. "They use forged documents and passports from Nigeria to fly into places like Gatwick. The language is also easier for them. These documents are expensive though and need co-operation of people working in the government to get."
One evening in Barcelona, I head out with the undercover surveillance team. At around 10pm, plain-clothes officers in an unmarked car drive me to Badalona on the edge of the city.
We are taken to a top-floor flat where police have spent hundreds of hours watching the house opposite. A light is on in the window and shadows move between the curtains, before someone appears on the balcony - a madame.
Most of the women that make it to Europe live in flats with a few other women and their madame - almost always a trafficked woman, who has managed to pay off her debt. Girls arrive knowing they must earn a sum, which may be from 30,000 to 60,000 euros (£22,000 to £44,000), before they will be free.
There are two ranks of madame. Lower-ranking madames prowl the streets - many on la Rambla, the main tourist strip in the centre of Barcelona - constantly texting and calling their girls to check on their whereabouts. Girls are told to earn about 500 euros (£370) a night to stay in the madame's good books.
But clients, mostly tourists, may pay as little as 20 euros (£15) for sex, so this is often impossible.
After a night's work, girls return home and divide their earnings into three. One part goes to pay for the flat, the second to pay for food and the third goes to the SEC. If they are not earning enough or refuse to work, the madames may beat them.
Higher-ranking madames collect money from their subordinates to pass on to local SEC leaders known as ibakkas. Always men, the ibakkas run the whole operation. They facilitate payment through the hawala system - a form of money transfer based on trust and one that is difficult to trace.
Ibakkas make sure that if any of their girls step out of line, their families back home are threatened. Family members have been known to be abducted and "disappeared" when girls refuse to pay their madames.
One woman, Jessica, who was trafficked to Spain in 2009, says two of her daughters, now in their early 20s, left home in Benin to escape the gang. One is in Dubai, the other in Morocco waiting to cross to Spain.
But in escaping one group of traffickers, they have put themselves in the hands of another.
"In order to pay the debt, they will be prostitutes too," says Jessica.
Tragically, this is not an isolated case.
It's a few days after the raid and Cortes seems content. Back in the office, dressed in full uniform, he details the large quantities of phones, computers, fake passports and documents seized at the time of the arrests.
Despite that, there is a hint of frustration in his smile.
"The size of the network means those arrested will be replaced," he says.
According to recent wire taps, one of the major European co-ordinators of the group is looking to restructure the gang. The ibakka, based in London, was trying to get his 95 other European counterparts together for a meeting.
This kind of organised crime cannot simply be tackled locally. Arresting madames and taking women off the streets merely increases the demand for more women from Nigeria. This is an organised crime group, run by men, operating across the world. This is a network which requires a global police response.
BBC
Related stories: Video - Documentary on human trafficking between Nigeria and Italy
Video - Part 2 of documentary on human trafficking between Nigeria and Italy
Tuesday, January 26, 2016
Video - Devaluation of the Naira affecting economy in Nigeria
A slump in vital oil revenues has hit public finances in Africa's biggest economy and knocked down the value of the naira by more than 30 percent on the parallel market since last year.
Video - Amnesty appeal in Nigeria for weapons to be handed in
A state in Nigeria has set up an initiative for illegal weapons to be handed in, without their owners being charged.
But victims of crime say the amnesty isn’t enough to solve the crime problem.
Nigeria producing at $5 per barrel due to oil crash
As oil prices continue on the downward slide, Nigerian oil firms may be producing at up to $5/barrel loss, as average production costs for independent and marginal field producers is between $30 and $35/barrel.
Oil prices, yesterday, resumed their free fall, with Brent crude, similar to Nigeria’s sweet crude grade, falling 2.6 per cent to $31.34 a barrel following a 10 per cent rise on Friday, while U.S. oil shed 95 cents to $31.24.
To compound the producers’ woes, a significant proportion of what is produced is lost to oil thieves and pipeline vandals, which they insist are even more dangerous than the bearish run oil prices
Industry chiefs, who spoke exclusively with Vanguard on phone, argued that the turbulence in the international oil market deserves urgent attention.
Specifically, they insisted that the Federal Government needs to be talking with Nigerian producers very fast, if it must save indigenous companies from running aground and plunging the economy into deeper crisis than it is in already.
Impact on producers
Speaking on the impact of the oil crash on the producers, Chairman, Petroleum Technology Association of Nigeria, PETAN, Mr. Emeka Ene, said:
“Current price is below Nigeria’s average of between $30 and $35 per barrel. Most marginal field producers are producing above $30/barrel, and with pipeline vandalism activities, costs will shoot up by another $10/barrel, so oil production now is not sustainable.”
Ene, who spoke against the backdrop of oil crashing to 13-year lows of below $28/barrel last week, noted that the bearish run may soon fizzle out, whether shale or conventional oil is being produced at above $25/barrel. As such, the southward run is not favourable to any producer.
He also revealed that “a lot of Nigerian companies are out of work because they cannot compete with the multinationals, so government needs to have a serious talk with stakeholders in the industry.”
Oil theft, pipeline vandalism
Whether oil prices go bullish soon or not, other stakeholders feel that the benefits of the rise will be lost on Nigeria, if the government does not deal decisively with the twin incidence of pipeline vandalism and oil theft.
The President, Nigerian Association of Petroleum Explorationists, NAPE, Mr. Nosa Omorodion, maintained that “government needs to address the issue of oil theft and pipeline vandalism very fast because, even if price stabilises tomorrow or whenever, we will still not be able to reap the full benefits of that rise.”
He further argued that “oil theft and vandalism remain recurring and very worrisome because these issues are much bigger than oil slide, which is mostly driven by speculation, while these activities affect planning and are more cankerous than price slide. Operators are risking their assets including human resources to produce the oil, only to have it stolen thereafter.”
Against this backdrop, Omorodion, whose association is responsible for finding and producing oil, revealed that NAPE is planning a national seminar this month end to holistically address the issue of oil slide.
He said: “We are going to assess the length and breadth of the oil and gas industry because the price slide is not only affecting petroleum, but also other sectors of the economy.”
Apart from the impact on cost of production, the NAPE boss noted that “The current price is affecting so many things, as nobody is drilling for exploration now, and no one is thinking about fancy technology to boost production. Also, exploration will suffer as no company is exploring for new wells to grow reserves, and many small scale producers, which are mostly Nigerians, will shut down.”
Going forward
Currently, most producers, both OPEC and non-OPEC including the U.S., Saudi Arabia, Russia, Iraq and a host of others are producing at optimal capacities, which indicates that the downward glide may not let up soon. Also, some analysts have predicted that price may glide to below $20 or even $10/per barrel before rebounding.
Furthermore, with Iran’s oil also up in the market and expected to be ramped up systematically, compounded by the melt down in demand being fueled by the crisis in China, crude prices are facing more pressures. But producers recognise that the global economy is in need of some succour but differ on the best ways to go about it.
Noting that Nigerian service companies, who are the hardest hit by the crashing oil prices and provide about 650 value services across the industry, Ene insisted that Nigeria has the weapon in these companies to cushion the market turbulence but has not fully appreciated it.
According to him, “Nigeria has a thriving local oil industry, and if properly supported, can push down cost of production to $10 per barrel. About 10 to 15 years ago, industry cost was below $10 per barrel and nothing much had changed.
On his part, Omorodion believes that now is the time for oil companies to be at the most cost efficient by prioritising between wants and needs, while government becomes more fiscally disciplined and diversifying the economy.
But Ene argued that the solution is not in prescriptivism, like the majors calling for as much as 40 percent cuts in cost of services thereby killing off the companies, adding that government needs to identify and reduce unrealistic economic toll gates.
In his opinion, “The whole system is heated up, and cost of borrowing is very high. So far, conversation has been restricted to major operators and has not included the service companies driving operations in the industry.
“If we must produce oil at $10/barrel, government needs to be talking to Nigerian companies, who have invested in people and technology and are not repatriating their profits.”
Furthermore, he noted that a lot of the systemic costs being borne by indigenous firms contribute to the high cost of production, such as what he described as “Federal Government agents charging unrealistic charges like asking for $10million for permits need to be looked into.”
Vanguard
Oil prices, yesterday, resumed their free fall, with Brent crude, similar to Nigeria’s sweet crude grade, falling 2.6 per cent to $31.34 a barrel following a 10 per cent rise on Friday, while U.S. oil shed 95 cents to $31.24.
To compound the producers’ woes, a significant proportion of what is produced is lost to oil thieves and pipeline vandals, which they insist are even more dangerous than the bearish run oil prices
Industry chiefs, who spoke exclusively with Vanguard on phone, argued that the turbulence in the international oil market deserves urgent attention.
Specifically, they insisted that the Federal Government needs to be talking with Nigerian producers very fast, if it must save indigenous companies from running aground and plunging the economy into deeper crisis than it is in already.
Impact on producers
Speaking on the impact of the oil crash on the producers, Chairman, Petroleum Technology Association of Nigeria, PETAN, Mr. Emeka Ene, said:
“Current price is below Nigeria’s average of between $30 and $35 per barrel. Most marginal field producers are producing above $30/barrel, and with pipeline vandalism activities, costs will shoot up by another $10/barrel, so oil production now is not sustainable.”
Ene, who spoke against the backdrop of oil crashing to 13-year lows of below $28/barrel last week, noted that the bearish run may soon fizzle out, whether shale or conventional oil is being produced at above $25/barrel. As such, the southward run is not favourable to any producer.
He also revealed that “a lot of Nigerian companies are out of work because they cannot compete with the multinationals, so government needs to have a serious talk with stakeholders in the industry.”
Oil theft, pipeline vandalism
Whether oil prices go bullish soon or not, other stakeholders feel that the benefits of the rise will be lost on Nigeria, if the government does not deal decisively with the twin incidence of pipeline vandalism and oil theft.
The President, Nigerian Association of Petroleum Explorationists, NAPE, Mr. Nosa Omorodion, maintained that “government needs to address the issue of oil theft and pipeline vandalism very fast because, even if price stabilises tomorrow or whenever, we will still not be able to reap the full benefits of that rise.”
He further argued that “oil theft and vandalism remain recurring and very worrisome because these issues are much bigger than oil slide, which is mostly driven by speculation, while these activities affect planning and are more cankerous than price slide. Operators are risking their assets including human resources to produce the oil, only to have it stolen thereafter.”
Against this backdrop, Omorodion, whose association is responsible for finding and producing oil, revealed that NAPE is planning a national seminar this month end to holistically address the issue of oil slide.
He said: “We are going to assess the length and breadth of the oil and gas industry because the price slide is not only affecting petroleum, but also other sectors of the economy.”
Apart from the impact on cost of production, the NAPE boss noted that “The current price is affecting so many things, as nobody is drilling for exploration now, and no one is thinking about fancy technology to boost production. Also, exploration will suffer as no company is exploring for new wells to grow reserves, and many small scale producers, which are mostly Nigerians, will shut down.”
Going forward
Currently, most producers, both OPEC and non-OPEC including the U.S., Saudi Arabia, Russia, Iraq and a host of others are producing at optimal capacities, which indicates that the downward glide may not let up soon. Also, some analysts have predicted that price may glide to below $20 or even $10/per barrel before rebounding.
Furthermore, with Iran’s oil also up in the market and expected to be ramped up systematically, compounded by the melt down in demand being fueled by the crisis in China, crude prices are facing more pressures. But producers recognise that the global economy is in need of some succour but differ on the best ways to go about it.
Noting that Nigerian service companies, who are the hardest hit by the crashing oil prices and provide about 650 value services across the industry, Ene insisted that Nigeria has the weapon in these companies to cushion the market turbulence but has not fully appreciated it.
According to him, “Nigeria has a thriving local oil industry, and if properly supported, can push down cost of production to $10 per barrel. About 10 to 15 years ago, industry cost was below $10 per barrel and nothing much had changed.
On his part, Omorodion believes that now is the time for oil companies to be at the most cost efficient by prioritising between wants and needs, while government becomes more fiscally disciplined and diversifying the economy.
But Ene argued that the solution is not in prescriptivism, like the majors calling for as much as 40 percent cuts in cost of services thereby killing off the companies, adding that government needs to identify and reduce unrealistic economic toll gates.
In his opinion, “The whole system is heated up, and cost of borrowing is very high. So far, conversation has been restricted to major operators and has not included the service companies driving operations in the industry.
“If we must produce oil at $10/barrel, government needs to be talking to Nigerian companies, who have invested in people and technology and are not repatriating their profits.”
Furthermore, he noted that a lot of the systemic costs being borne by indigenous firms contribute to the high cost of production, such as what he described as “Federal Government agents charging unrealistic charges like asking for $10million for permits need to be looked into.”
Vanguard
Monday, January 25, 2016
Video - Rat poison sales surge in Nigeria as Lassa fever spreads
Sales of rat poison have risen in Nigeria following an outbreak of Lassa fever that has killed at least 76 people and sparked fears of contagion across the country.
In the northern city of Kano, the capital of one of 17 states where the haemorrhagic virus has been recorded, there have been “unprecedented” purchases of the pest control product.
The head of the city’s chemicals traders, Shehu Idris Bichi, said sales have increased four-fold since the outbreak was announced this month.
“Traders are doing brisk business because people are making unprecedented purchases of the product to rid their homes of rats that cause the disease,” he said.
Abubakar Ja’afar, who works in Kano’s largest market, said he had never seen sales so high in his 20 years in the trade, with traders in other cities reporting similar increases.
“I used to get between five and 10 clients a day but now I get at least 30 customers … people you don’t expect because of their social status,” he said. “Lassa doesn’t discriminate between the rich and the poor.”
Vendors using megaphones and selling their wares on carts have become commonplace.
“I was making up to 500 naira [£1.75] a day but now I make between 2,000 naira and 4,000 naira every day,” said one, Awwalu Aminu, 40, in Kano.
Nigeria’s health minister, Isaac Adewole, said this week that 212 suspected cases have been recorded since November last year, when the first one was reported; the virus is endemic in rats in west Africa.
Outbreaks are not uncommon and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates there are 100,000-300,000 infections in west Africa every year, with about 5,000 deaths.
In 2012, there were 1,723 cases and 112 deaths in Nigeria. Last year, 12 people died out of 375 infected, according to the Nigerian Centre for Disease Control. The virus is spread through contact with food or household items contaminated with rats’ urine or feces.
Africa’s most populous country was praised for its containment of Ebola in 2014, despite initial fears it could spread rapidly in densely populated urban areas after the first case in Lagos.
But while the government maintains it has the spread of Lassa under control, specialists have voiced concern about under-reporting and Nigeria’s capacity to deal with the outbreak.
The first case dates back to August in the north-western state of Niger but was not detected until late last year. Public awareness campaigns have been mounted and surveillance ramped up of primary and secondary contacts of those with the disease.
The government has criticised a “culture of silence” and vowed sanctions against medical professionals who fail to inform the authorities of suspected cases.
Lawan Bello used to ignore rats in his home, bothering more about the damage the rodents could cause to clothing, furniture and food. But the latest outbreak – and the wider publicity about its spread – has changed his attitude.
“Every few days I buy rat poison and use it in my home to kill rats and I will continue until my house is free of them,” he said. “I’m scared of Lassa and that has made me hate rats the most.”
Killing rats may be one solution to the problem but effective waste disposal has long been a major problem in Nigeria’s big cities.
“Everywhere you turn you see heaps of refuse which provides a breeding ground for rats,” said Idris Musa, a community health worker in Kano. “Rats breed fast and it is very difficult to beat rats’ breeding rate with rodenticide.”
In 2007, Kano was producing 2,000 tonnes of rubbish every day but refuse collectors could only clear 800 tonnes, according to the city’s refuse disposal agency.
Guardian
Video - Nigerian government struggling to resettle people affected by Boko Haram
The Nigerian Government is busy reconstructing the region after years under the Boko Haram insurgency. Authorities are trying to resettle millions of people displaced by the violence, with refugees trying to build a new community.
iROKO to start financing Nollywood productions after raising $19 million
iROKO, an online entertainment platform that targets audiences in Sub-Saharan African countries, plans to strike more deals in Nigeria’s booming movie industry after securing $19 million in funding from French premium cable company Canal+ and Kinnevik, a returning investor.
That amount is divided into $12 million of capital funding, which will be used to develop iROKO’s business and technology; and $7 million that is not from equity or debt financing and earmarked solely for several years of content development deals with studios. iROKO has now raised $34 million since it launched in September 2011.
Founder Jason Njoku tells TechCrunch that this is likely iROKO’s final fundraise. The company doesn’t make its subscriber numbers public, but it expects to generate positive cash flow by the end of this year.
“We want to stay disciplined in this current funding environment to achieve that, but at the same time not limit how we grow our product engineering teams in New York and Lagos,” says Njoku. The platform, which is accessible through a website or Android app, currently has about 2,500 to 3,000 titles and plans to increase its catalog rapidly over the next month.
Njoku was inspired to create the platform after he moved into his mother’s London home and saw that she had switched from watching British soap operas to Nollywood movies. Nollywood is a nickname for the hundreds of small studios in Nigeria that create thousands of movies a year. According to Fortune, Nollywood was a $3 billion industry in 2014, putting it ahead of Hollywood in terms of volume, and just behind India’s Bollywood.
Despite its massive output and popularity, Nollywood movies and shows were hard to find—in London, Njoku had to hunt down VCDs for his mother in small stores.
“I went to Lagos and realized that this was a cottage industry and saw a big opportunity,” he says. “Our first distribution platform was YouTube and once we were funded it made sense for us to build our own platform.”
Warding Off Netflix
Netflix recently launched in South Africa, so the obvious question is how iROKO will compete against the streaming giant if it continues expanding throughout the continent. Its key difference is focusing on Nollywood movies, but iROKO is also focusing on tailoring its tech platform for the needs of mobile users in Africa.
While the most popular online entertainment platforms in the U.S. and Europe stream digital content, iROKO offers downloads. In fact, iROKO’s Android app—its primary product—got rid of streaming last year and replaced it with subscriptions that allow users to download unlimited films and keep them for up to a year. The company’s decision was based on how slow and expensive data is in many African countries.
“It didn’t work. It was a massive challenge. We don’t have the same engineering capability as Netflix, but the cost of streaming data was unimaginable to our customers, so we are in the process of re-encoding all our files to be between 50 to 100 megabytes,” says Njoku.
Though most movie downloads now take between two to three minutes, iROKO wants to compress them even further because many Android smartphones sold in Nigeria only have about three to four gigabytes of storage.
Furthermore, Nigeria suffers from an unreliable power grid, with blackouts a part of daily life (Njoku claims he’s never had 24 hours of uninterrupted electricity). This makes smartphone owners careful about their battery usage, another problem for iROKO to tackle.
“We are thinking about how to encode files in a way that reduces the amount of battery power used,” says Njoku. “It’s still very much a work in progress and we’re still figuring out the best approach. Dealing with significant Android fragmentation—there are phones from all sorts of Chinese and Southeast Asian OEMs, as well as a big secondary market and jailbroken phones—creates its own degree of complexity, which we are also trying to solve.”
Just as crucial as iROKO’s technology platform is the quality of entertainment. Last year, the company financed and produced about 100 hours of content with Nollywood studios and with its new funding for content deals, plans to collaborate with up to 20 studios, using data from its platform to decide what types of movies and shows (romantic comedies, high drama, and shows with Christian themes tend to do well) to produce.
Njoku wants to give Nollywood movies an organized channel for financing and distribution, since it’s often difficult for studios to secure loans from banks and government initiatives to support the industry haven’t taken off yet.
“Nollywood is incredibly fragmented, with hundreds of mini-studios, some of which have just two to three men working for them,” says Njoku. “We have dealt with a huge array of them over the past few years and our view is to bring some sort of structure to that fragmentation.”
Another of iROKO’s goals is to make Nollywood content accessible to viewers throughout Africa, even if they don’t speak English (the official language of Nigeria is used in most Nollywood films). iROKO was named after a type of tree with many branches that grew next to Njoku’s grandparents’ house in Nigeria.
As it turns out, the tree wasn’t actually an iroko, but it’s called by the same word in many Nigerian languages and symbolic of iROKO’s goal to grow throughout Africa by offering the same content in multiple languages. Njoku notes that dubbing helped Nollywood gain an audience in French-speaking African countries, so iROKO will use voiceovers in addition to subtitles to expand in West Africa. It will take the same approach for Swahili and Zulu.
“Language is the largest barrier to bringing content to people, so we are doing everything we can to localize,” says Njoku.
Tech Crunch
That amount is divided into $12 million of capital funding, which will be used to develop iROKO’s business and technology; and $7 million that is not from equity or debt financing and earmarked solely for several years of content development deals with studios. iROKO has now raised $34 million since it launched in September 2011.
Founder Jason Njoku tells TechCrunch that this is likely iROKO’s final fundraise. The company doesn’t make its subscriber numbers public, but it expects to generate positive cash flow by the end of this year.
“We want to stay disciplined in this current funding environment to achieve that, but at the same time not limit how we grow our product engineering teams in New York and Lagos,” says Njoku. The platform, which is accessible through a website or Android app, currently has about 2,500 to 3,000 titles and plans to increase its catalog rapidly over the next month.
Njoku was inspired to create the platform after he moved into his mother’s London home and saw that she had switched from watching British soap operas to Nollywood movies. Nollywood is a nickname for the hundreds of small studios in Nigeria that create thousands of movies a year. According to Fortune, Nollywood was a $3 billion industry in 2014, putting it ahead of Hollywood in terms of volume, and just behind India’s Bollywood.
Despite its massive output and popularity, Nollywood movies and shows were hard to find—in London, Njoku had to hunt down VCDs for his mother in small stores.
“I went to Lagos and realized that this was a cottage industry and saw a big opportunity,” he says. “Our first distribution platform was YouTube and once we were funded it made sense for us to build our own platform.”
Warding Off Netflix
Netflix recently launched in South Africa, so the obvious question is how iROKO will compete against the streaming giant if it continues expanding throughout the continent. Its key difference is focusing on Nollywood movies, but iROKO is also focusing on tailoring its tech platform for the needs of mobile users in Africa.
While the most popular online entertainment platforms in the U.S. and Europe stream digital content, iROKO offers downloads. In fact, iROKO’s Android app—its primary product—got rid of streaming last year and replaced it with subscriptions that allow users to download unlimited films and keep them for up to a year. The company’s decision was based on how slow and expensive data is in many African countries.
“It didn’t work. It was a massive challenge. We don’t have the same engineering capability as Netflix, but the cost of streaming data was unimaginable to our customers, so we are in the process of re-encoding all our files to be between 50 to 100 megabytes,” says Njoku.
Though most movie downloads now take between two to three minutes, iROKO wants to compress them even further because many Android smartphones sold in Nigeria only have about three to four gigabytes of storage.
Furthermore, Nigeria suffers from an unreliable power grid, with blackouts a part of daily life (Njoku claims he’s never had 24 hours of uninterrupted electricity). This makes smartphone owners careful about their battery usage, another problem for iROKO to tackle.
“We are thinking about how to encode files in a way that reduces the amount of battery power used,” says Njoku. “It’s still very much a work in progress and we’re still figuring out the best approach. Dealing with significant Android fragmentation—there are phones from all sorts of Chinese and Southeast Asian OEMs, as well as a big secondary market and jailbroken phones—creates its own degree of complexity, which we are also trying to solve.”
Just as crucial as iROKO’s technology platform is the quality of entertainment. Last year, the company financed and produced about 100 hours of content with Nollywood studios and with its new funding for content deals, plans to collaborate with up to 20 studios, using data from its platform to decide what types of movies and shows (romantic comedies, high drama, and shows with Christian themes tend to do well) to produce.
Njoku wants to give Nollywood movies an organized channel for financing and distribution, since it’s often difficult for studios to secure loans from banks and government initiatives to support the industry haven’t taken off yet.
“Nollywood is incredibly fragmented, with hundreds of mini-studios, some of which have just two to three men working for them,” says Njoku. “We have dealt with a huge array of them over the past few years and our view is to bring some sort of structure to that fragmentation.”
Another of iROKO’s goals is to make Nollywood content accessible to viewers throughout Africa, even if they don’t speak English (the official language of Nigeria is used in most Nollywood films). iROKO was named after a type of tree with many branches that grew next to Njoku’s grandparents’ house in Nigeria.
As it turns out, the tree wasn’t actually an iroko, but it’s called by the same word in many Nigerian languages and symbolic of iROKO’s goal to grow throughout Africa by offering the same content in multiple languages. Njoku notes that dubbing helped Nollywood gain an audience in French-speaking African countries, so iROKO will use voiceovers in addition to subtitles to expand in West Africa. It will take the same approach for Swahili and Zulu.
“Language is the largest barrier to bringing content to people, so we are doing everything we can to localize,” says Njoku.
Tech Crunch
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