Friday, March 29

Nigeria

floods
  • Climate Change-related flooding saw large swathes of farmlands and settlement areas in Nigeria’s coastal Niger Delta flooded by December 2022.
  • Boko Haram terrorists, bandits, and armed herders have forced at least 78,000 farmers to abandon their farmland.
  • Over the past eight years, an estimated 6,000 Benue people reported killed while two million farmers were displaced.

Nigeria is battling a perfect storm with a double whammy of climate change and conflict exacerbating the country’s food crisis. Currently an estimated 25.3 million people in Nigeria are facing food crisis partly worsened by the ongoing flooding throughout the country.

As of December 2022, large swathes of farmland and settlements in Nigeria’s coastal Niger Delta region flood. The flooding saw the closure of schools, leaving hundreds of children out of learning centres as the disaster took a toll.

Climate change worsening Nigeria’s food crisis

Nigeria, which with 222.2 million people is Africa’s most populous …

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Nigerian-election
  • At the beginning of February, Nigerians started complaining that commercial banks could not supply individuals with Nigeria’s physical fiat currency.
  • The currency situation in Nigeria escalated to an all out crisis this week when an impending deadline for the ban of the use of old notes.
  • The Supreme Court on Wednesday, suspended the deadline to ease the tension that has been building up exacerbated by heated campaigns and a looming fuel crisis. 

In the middle of intense campaigns that will see three main presidential candidates battle it out in Nigeria’s 2023 election, the country is experiencing a shortage of the new Naira notes that threatens to take centre-stage before the West African nation goes to the polls from 25 February.

All Progress Party (APC) candidate Bola Tinibu, People’s Democratic Party (PDP) Atiku Abubakar and outsider Peter Obi of Labour Party are considered the front runners to take over from outgoing

Nigeria's residential elections

Some have wondered whether Obi will manage to upset the status quo that has defined Nigerian politics since 1999. However, great support for Obi has been borne of the young generation’s apparent frustration with Nigeria’s political class.

More specific, many people view the presidential candidates from the two major political parties, APC and PDP, as representatives of status quo politics that have left Nigeria on the brink of economic shutdown.

In the run-up to Nigeria’s presidential elections in 2023, the electorate confronts the challenges of soaring inflation, a plummeting currency, and prevalent insecurity. Crude oil, Nigeria’s economic backbone, has seen its production slump to multi-decade lows. Moreover, the government has seen its debt service exceed the earned revenue in the first quarter of 2022.…

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Nigeria’s inflation rate has dropped. According to the consumer price index report released by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) on Monday May 17, 2021, the inflation rate recorded a slight drop in the month ending April 2021, shedding 0.05 per cent to close at 18.12 per cent in the month under review.

In the preceding month of March, the country’s inflation was 18.7 per cent.

According to the NBS inflation report, the Consumer Price Index, which measures inflation increased by 18.12 per cent (year-on-year) in April 2021.

“This is 0.05 per cent points lower than the rate recorded in March 2021 (18.17 per cent),” the bureau said.

The 0.05 per cent drop in April 2021 was the first time the country’s inflation rate would fall in about 20 months, as the last time it fell was in 2019 when the CPI shed 0.06 per cent, falling from 11.08 per …

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Shareholders at Dangote Cement Plc have all reasons to smile after the Company proposed a dividend payment of N16 per share on Tuesday when releasing its audit report for the financial year that ended on December 31, 2020.

Dangote Cement company said this in its audited financial reports released by the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) on Tuesday.

The audit report shows that, Over the sum of N50 billion recorded in the year 2019 the company will pay a tax charge of N97 billion during the period in review.

Dangote Cement’s Nigerian operations during the period sold 15.9Mt for the full year 2020, compared with 14.1Mt in 2019.

This sales are inclusive of both cement and clinker sales, which implies a 12.9 per cent growth for the full year 2020. Looking at the domestic sales alone, Nigerian operations sold 15.6Mt, up by 14.3 per cent year on year and resulting in …

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Nigeria’s unemployment rate has risen to 33.3% in Q4, 2020.

The rate rose from 27.1% recorded as of Q2 2020, indicating that about 23,187,389 Nigerians remain unemployed.

According to the recently released labour force report published by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), the underemployment rate decreased from 28.6% to 22.8%.

The statistics show a combination of both the unemployment and underemployment rate for the reference period gave a figure of 56.1%.

This means that 33.3% of the labour force in Nigeria or 23,187,389 persons either did nothing or worked for less than 20 hours a week, making them unemployed.

This is an additional 1,422,772 persons from the number in that category in Q2, 2020. Using the international definition of unemployment, the rate was computed to be 17.5%.

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Education

According to the report, those reporting A ‘levels as their highest qualification had the highest rate of unemployment with 50.7%, followed …

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On Friday last week, the Central Bank of Nigeria hit headlines after stopping banks and financial institutions from dealing in Cryptocurrency or facilitating payment for Cryptocurrency exchange.

People’s reactions

The move sparked outrage from mostly young people in a country that is the world’s second-biggest user of virtual currencies like Bitcoins.

CBN’s Position on Cryptocurrency 

CBN has, however, come out to explain why it banned cryptocurrency-related transactions in the country.

According to the apex bank, digital currency is used for money laundering and terrorism.

The regulator said this in a statement Sunday, days after affirming a 2017 directive to financial institutions to block cryptocurrency accounts.

In a statement issued by Osita Nwanisobi, acting director, corporate communications, the ban on such transactions will not have any negative impact on fintech.

Also Read: Why Bank of Tanzania is worried about cryptocurrencies

CBN maintained that its position on cryptocurrencies is not a peculiar …

Ngozi Okonjo Iweala e1595607363998

The US-Nigeria relations is expected to grow even stronger after the United States expressed its strong support for the Nigerian candidate in the contest to lead the World Trade Organization.

Former Nigerian finance minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala has attracted broad support from member countries in the race for Director-General, with US being the latest to throw her weight behind her candidature.

The endorsement paves the way for unanimous agreement on the post, which has remained vacant for months.

Former President Donald Trump’s administration had backed South Korean trade minister Yoo Myung-hee, preventing a consensus.

However, Yoo on Friday announced her withdrawal from the race.

The US Trade Representative then proceeded to issue a statement saying the administration respects her decision to pull out.

If it is approved, the appointment of Okonjo-Iweala will fill the top post of the global trade watch dog for the first time since last September, after the …

The World Bank, in 2020, announced that the Nigerian economic may see a dip into recession, the worst the African country has seen in 40 years. This was largely due to the effects of the fall in the global price of oil, a commodity the nation's economy is heavily reliant on, and the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, that nearly crippled not just Nigeria’s, but the global economy.  

But these challenges were not the only catalysts for Nigeria’s imminent recession, issues around insecurity, infrastructural deficit, trade barriers, and power supply challenges all form a crude mix that has managed to drive the country down this very path.  

Since the election of the Buhari’s administration in 2015, a lot more focus has been placed on driving local content and boosting local production, particularly in the agriculture sector. This was also in line to make the Nigerian economy

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