₦airaland Forum

CNBC are wrong. She was a VP of the World Bank responsible for the Africa region. The bank has many VPs responsible for different responsibilities and hers was the African region.

Flets:
Another loose propaganda when this is pure economics.

Prior to this time, the FG through CBN provides buffer for the Naira using the reserves. This is done by financing foreign transactions at CBN fixed rates... and this includes importers, students, medical tourists, PTA etc. As such, Nigerians with proper documentations do not buy dollars from the black market as this is financed through the CBN

Fast forward to last few weeks, CBN has stopped financing imports for 40 staple items including rice, tomato paste etc. These were the bulk items that make up over 80% of the CBN foreign transaction financing. Unfortunately, these importers have had to go seek for foreign currencies in the black market.

Due to this happenings, The dollars that were hitherto available for buffering the naira through financing foreign imports have been re-channelled back to the reserves.

But unfortunately, this is also one of the major reasons a dollar is selling for 245 naira because these importers have increased the demand in the black market, a kilo of chicken has increased from 700 to 1200 and almost the price of every item in the market has risen by 20% or more.

The key question is now.... Do we have to grow our reserves at the expense of very high inflation? Of what benefit is it to the Nigerian masses that we have a huge reserve but the Naira is in a mess and the masses with a minimum wage of 18K cannot afford to eat.

The current increase in reserves is a farce and the bane of our current economic and financial troubles. This is why the country desperately needs the services of a finance minister/ economic adviser to check the activities of CBN

I agree it's pure propaganda. You won't expect anything less from the Nigerian media whilst the country's inhabitants suffer. However, I disagree with your implication that reserves should not be accumulated because this will cause inflation. I suspect most Nigerians are not heavy consumers of imported products so managing inflation by depleting scarce forex serves only a minority of Nigerians. For imported goods, if the Naira is left to find its true value, the resulting increase in import costs will help curb import and put the economy on a more sustainable path.

What the CBN should do is "merge" the official exchange rate with the parralel rate by allowing the Naira drop to its true value and stop this nonsense of trying to fix a rate. Let the market decide the rate not the CBN.

If the CBN outrightly refuses to supply foreign exchange to many importers, reserves will go up but the downside is that the Naira's value will plummet. That is essentially what we have seen as US dollars become scarce.

The persistent decline of the naira in the parallel market followed the introduction of new measures by the central bank last month, restricting access to hard currency at the interbank in a bid to conserve dwindling foreign exchange reserves.

http://www.punchng.com/business/money/cbn-adjusts-rate-as-naira-falls-to-244/

The accumulation of foreign reserves at the expense of the Naira's value is not new. Here is a quote from Wikipedia in respect of the Sani Abacha era

Despite the international shun his government endured, he oversaw an increase in the country's foreign exchange reserves from $494 million dollars in 1993 to $9.6 billion by the middle of 1997

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sani_Abacha. Was this because the Abacha regime was not corrupt? No. What happened to the Naira whilst all these reserves were accumulated? Naira went from 22 Naira to a $1 in 1993 to 84 Naira to $1 in 1998. https://www.nairaland.com/498412/nigeria-exchange-rates-dollar-history.

The true test of whether Buhari's anti-corruption measures are working will be a repatriation of stolen wealth to nation's coffers. We won't have to read between the lines as any refunded loot should be made public.

Dollyak:
The foreign reserve point is a bit misleading. I don't think the credit should be given to buhari who doesn't have any influence on cbn. Efforts to plug leakages and the forex demand management are solely down to cbn.

If the CBN outrightly refuses to supply foreign exchange to many importers, reserves will go up but the downside is that the Naira's value will plummet. That is essentially what we have seen as US dollars become scarce.

The persistent decline of the naira in the parallel market followed the introduction of new measures by the central bank last month, restricting access to hard currency at the interbank in a bid to conserve dwindling foreign exchange reserves

http://www.punchng.com/business/money/cbn-adjusts-rate-as-naira-falls-to-244/

The accumulation of foreign reserves at the expense of the Naira's value is not new. Here is a quote from Wikipedia in respect of the Sani Abacha era

Despite the international shun his government endured, he oversaw an increase in the country's foreign exchange reserves from $494 million dollars in 1993 to $9.6 billion by the middle of 1997

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sani_Abacha. Was this because the Abacha regime was not corrupt? No. What happened to the Naira whilst all these reserves were accumulated? Naira went from 22 Naira to a $1 in 1993 to 84 Naira to $1 in 1998. https://www.nairaland.com/498412/nigeria-exchange-rates-dollar-history.

The true test of whether Buhari's anti-corruption measures are working will be a repatriation of stolen wealth to nation's coffers. We won't have to read between the lines as any refunded loot should be made public.

Of course, CNBC were wrong. The fact that it's a Western media organisation doesn't mean they know what they are talking about.

Oby does sound petty though as a simple congratulatory tweet would have sufficed.

Another "news" website looking for clicks with fabricated information. The mendacity of the Nigerian media reflects that of the Nigerian people.

The US is not selling Apaches to Nigeria. This is just a website looking for clicks. Buhari has already commented on the US's refusal to sell us arms:

The US has "aided and abetted" the Boko Haram Islamist militant group by refusing to provide weapons to Nigeria, President Muhammadu Buhari says.

[url]http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-33634607 [/url]

Apaches are costly and hard to maintain anyway.

This story is just hilarious, unless of course you were her patient. She asked for £2000 per hour and negotiated wages of £500 per day. For folks in Nigeria, that is 180 thousand Naira a day.

Can one say that the medical profession is overpaid? If a music graduate with no clue about medicine can manage to go through 91 patients before being caught, a more cerebral person with no medical background but with an internet connection could have lasted longer. Ok, just being provocative but it's bloody hilarious.

A music graduate with absolutely no medical background was given work as a doctor in a prison and a GP's surgery after stealing the identity of a fully-qualified doctor who had the same first name.

Oluwadamilola Opemuyi treated no fewer than 91 patients before being ousted as a fraudster.

The 39-year-old tricked employment agencies into believing she was Oluwadamilola Adeyo - a General Medical Council (GMC) registered GP - by providing false documents stating she was fully qualified, before supplying Mrs Adeyo's registration number.

She also used a fake driving licence, marriage certificate and passport as she found work treating patients in five separate locations.

Applying for a position at a surgery in Southend, she told the practice manager that both of her parents were doctors. When asked where she saw herself in five years time, she replied by saying she may retrain as a brain surgeon. She was not offered a job.

In January, Middlesex based agency Meddoc Locums were duped by her bogus documents, taking her word that she was a doctor and hiring her for jobs around Britain.

She was given a position working at Elmley Prison in Kent, where she'd negotiated a fee of £500-a-day. She'd previously asked elsewhere for £2,000-an-hour.

Working across both HMP Elmley and HMP Swaleside - where GP services are provided by Minster Medical Group - Opemuyi treated dozens of inmates, despite having no clue about the medical profession.

Before time, however, both prisons received complaints about her work. When she bypassed prison protocols by increasing an inmate's opiate-based drug, her contract was terminated

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3169604/Fantasist-jailed-stealing-identity-doctor-similar-treating-91-patients-despite-having-no-actual-medical-training.html#ixzz3gYgzcecZ

Make una take am easy with the lies. I know these lies are just to generate clicks for the website but it's funny seeing how gullible Nigerians are.

To be fair to Barcanista, Buhari fanboys and propagandists make it easy for him. When I saw that bit about Obama's cabinet, I couldn't help but chuckle with derision. US presidents usually make their key cabinet appointments within days of the inauguration. Indeed, that was what Buhari via Dr Fayemi promised at one point:

Nigeria’s incoming President, Gen. Muhammadu Buhari (rtd.), yesterday disclosed that his cabinet would be announced very quickly within one week of inauguration; and that “Anyone with a whiff of corruption or any kind of taint will not be in the cabinet. Our manifesto will reflect zero tolerance for corruption”.

http://dailypost.ng/2015/04/15/buhari-to-announce-his-ministers-one-week-after-may-29-inauguration/

They are both clueless.

It's not rocket science. Dasuki is associated with GEJ and PDP who were an obstacle to power returning to the North. He's engaged in a battle with Buhari who regained power to the North.

If the EFCC were to harass Okorocha or Ngige today, most of the Igbo PDP cheerleaders will applaud it not because they care about corruption or are not ethnic jingoist but because those 2, to them, represent a party that returned power to the North.

If you are looking for "my brother" syndrome, there was plenty of it at play when Buhari claimed, a few years ago, that Boko Haram should be treated a la Niger-Delta militants and that the military operations against Boko Haram was anti-North. Today no sensible person thinks that way but plenty of momentum was lost.

I don't believe that Gen Abubakar will ever be prosecuted.

French newspaper, Le Monde and the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) have released more details on the $182 million Halliburton bribery scandal in Nigeria that indicted several top government official.

Those whose names have being mentioned that received bribes includes former military head of state, General Abdulsalami Abubakar, his then chief of staff, Major-General Chris Garba (rtd), his wife, Rita, and Andrew Agom, a senior government official who is late.

The bribe was reportedly given to the officials by a Britisha lawyer, Jeffrey Tesler,who served as the middle man between Halliburton and Nigerian officials who were responsible for approving the $6 billion contract for the Nigerian

READ MORE: http://www.naij.com/454286-abdusalami-fingered-in-halliburton-bribery-case.html

There is something galling, perhaps even comical about all this. The security organ of a state finds "incriminating" evidence against an individual, but has filed no charges against that individual. All we are left with are insinuations, some of them extremely wild, but nothing concrete has come out of those insinuations. It's a bit like those online spats you read about between celebrities, John Fashanu versus his ex-wife for instance, only this time it is the country's security service doing the finger-pointing.

Volksfuhrer:
Why would a sane investor then put his money in naira denominated bonds when the naira is almost in free fall? Of course he would not, unless he gets higher interest rates!

This is not central to the point I am making but there is a valid counter argument to what you just posted. The market is a forward discount mechanism. GEJ's economic mismanagement is "known" information and is already priced in or should be. Yields should represent not just present economic conditions but future aniticipated economic conditions.

If investors believe that the new Govt will manage the economy properly and that future economic conditions will improve as a result, investors will price yields accordingly. If they are still demanding higher yields than even when Jonathan was president, it suggests that they do not share a lot of Nigerians' optimism.

Volksfuhrer:
Economic mismanagement in itself is not the issue but the loss of confidence in the economy because of it. Yes, certain looting might have stopped, but investors confidence will take time to reach previous peak levels.

You seem to be missing the point. We hear 2 things: loot is being returned and that the GEJ era looting has stopped. If both of these are true, the Govt's borrowing need will reduce and with it FGN yields.

Take the claim linked to Sanusi that $20bn was "looted" in an 18 month period. Even if you take into consideration the halving of oil prices, why is it that such gigantic revenue previously looted is not now available to the Federal Govt's coffers?

Volksfuhrer:
Economics is a balancing subject. The abuse of an economic policy tool sooner or later invites distortions into the economy. The Nigerian economy has been badly managed in the past year.

The mismanagement of the economy in the past still does not explain why borrowing continues apace, despite claims that loot is being returned and that looting, which occurred at ginormous levels in the past, has stopped.

LAGOS: Nigeria's latest bond auction fell short of its target as low yields deterred investors worried about the naira currency's weakness and rising inflation in Africa's biggest economy.

In yet another worrying sign for the government, which is already facing a funding crisis due to the decline in oil revenues, Nigeria raised 44 billion naira ($221 mln) at the bond auction on Wednesday, short of its target amount of 70 billion naira, the Debt Management Office (DMO) said on Thursday.

"For them to sell more bonds, the DMO would have had to increase its stop rate (yield ceiling), which it did not want to do," one trader said.

The naira has hit a series of record lows on the parallel market after the central bank three weeks ago curbed access to hard currency on the official interbank market for importers of a wide range of goods. Total subscription stood at 119.53 billion naira, the DMO said, down from 130.85 billion last month.

A total of 28 billion naira was sold in 5-year bonds at 15.28 percent, from 14.42 percent at the last auction in June.

The 20-year bond was issued at 15.29 percent to fetch 16 billion naira, compared with 14.24 percent last month.

Investors asked for yields as high as 16.745 percent for the 5-year paper and as much as 17 percent for the 20-year bond, the debt office said.

Nigerian inflation rose by 0.2 percentage points to 9.2 percent in June, its highest since February 2013, and above the central bank's targeted upper limit, after disruptions to fuel distribution affected food prices.

http://www.brecorder.com/business-a-finance/managed-funds/248738-nigerian-bond-sale-misses-target-investors-seek-higher-yields.html

In summary, the Federal Government tried to borrow 70 billion Naira but only managed to borrow 40 billion Naira as investors are demanding higher interest rates from the FG before lending to it. There are a few takeaways from this article and other articles in the past few weeks if one reads between the lines.

There have been stories of officials in the Jonathan administration returning their loot. If this is the case, why is the Federal Government still borowing on the scale that it is borrowing and why are yields rising?

Given what we have been told about the scale of looting in the GEJ administration, $20bn in an 18 month period per Sanusi to cite one example, even taking into consideration the fall in oil prices, why isn't there any substantial improvement in the Federal Government's fiscal position now that the looting has presumably stopped?

I am sure all these matters will go over the heads of most Nigerians but it does raise serious questions as to the health of our economy.

bogs4real:
From your insightfulness how fast is this regime supposed to move?

It found time and money to bailout state governments, yet soldiers' morale is collapsing due to the lack of supply of adequate ammunition as the Economist notes in its article. You may dismiss this, probably by calling the Economist Tanoid, but a government that prioritises security should ensure that our soldiers are adequately equipped and lack for nothing. That is the minimum you would expect.

WombRaiders:
Buhari is behind Boko Haram.

Make sure you tell him that for me.

I don't know why you guys insist on seeing everything though the prism of partisan politics with your elaborate conspiracy theories. Boko Haram is an Islamist group that is not interested in partisan politics. It will continue to terrorise Nigerians whether APC, PDP, APGA, Labour, e.t.c is in power. The political affiliation of the occupant of Aso Rock is it immaterial to its objectives.

The way to fight Boko Haram is by improved military and intelligence gathering capabilities aligned to an economic programme to revitalise the North-East. There might be a few Boko fighters amenable to an amnesty programme which would need to be explored. However,
before any non-military solutions are explored, our security capability needs to be seriously upgraded. My disappointment with the current regime is that it is moving too slow and seems to be almost as tone-deaf as the previous regime.

DaBullIT:
Last struggle by a snake that lost its head

Ostrich mentality. Bury your head in the sand and proclaim to all and sundry that the upsurge in bomb attacks is "good" news.

The jihadists have switched from holding towns to waging guerrilla war
Jul 11th 2015 | LAGOS | From the print edition

Timekeeper

POLITICIANS often promise more than they deliver, but those in Nigeria bit off more than most when they campaigned on a pledge to “defeat Boko Haram”. Six weeks after the inauguration of its new president, Muhammadu Buhari, the government must be wishing it had promised something less ambitious.

Boko Haram seemed to be on the ropes a few months ago. Despite its threats to disrupt the election at the end of March, the vote was largely peaceful, and the militants had been pushed back from many of the towns they had captured. Yet in recent weeks the group has struck back from its remote redoubts, killing more than 200 people in the week to July 5th (and more since then) in a series of attacks across the north.

Bombs were detonated in the major cities of Jos and Kano, neither of which had been attacked since February. Boko Haram also showed that it can still operate across borders: two suicide bombers struck Chad’s hitherto unscathed capital, N’Djamena, in mid-June, blowing themselves up outside police headquarters, killing 34 people. Horseback and motorbike-mounted raiders attacked another neighbour, Niger, twice in two weeks.

The recent attacks suggest that since their ejection from urban areas, Boko Haram jihadis have regrouped in the forests and mountains along the border with Cameroon, or have melted into local populations disguised as merchants or beggars. Many of its 6,000 fighters are still active and its leadership is intact. The group may lack the sophistication to administer territory, but it has been honing its skill at hit-and-run attacks since 2009.

Nigeria’s army, by contrast, is finding counter-insurgency far more difficult than merely liberating captured towns. It has also lost much of the support that contributed to its victories earlier this year. Mercenaries who helped turn the tide in the north-east have been sent home and Chadian soldiers have pulled back over the border. Morale among poorly equipped Nigerian troops is plummeting again. “[It is becoming] the way it used to be before—[when] one man [was issued with just] one bullet [per target]—it’s just the same now,” says one military man.

http://www.economist.com/news/middle-east-and-africa/21657386-jihadists-have-switched-holding-towns-waging-guerrilla-war-bombs-are

That last quote struck me as deeply troubling. It seems we have run out of money to fund adequately our men and women risking their lives in the war against Boko Haram, though we managed to find funds to rescue our inept state governments.

That Boko Haram will resort to bomb attacks was predictable and predicted. I made that only 3 months ago in this thread: https://www.nairaland.com/2296667/end-boko-haram-reuters/1#33463895

Boko Haram is not a Fulani organisation nor is it a partisan political organisation. I will concede that, at most, there could have been elements who assisted them out of frustration with the GEJ regime but the group itself is an Islamist group with no partisan preferences.

This is not the end of Boko Haram. It will simply morph into what it used to be: a terror group capable of staging bomb attacks but incapable of holding large swathes of territory.

If we are not careful, Boko Haram will soon start seizing territory in large scale again. There was an attack on Buni Yadi recently, which is remarkable for it demonstrates their renewed confidence.

Change2015:
The one thing you don't mention is the most obvious result of the policy. The price to the consumer of such imported goods will rise, and unless they are inelastic re demand, the market for such goods will shrink and there will be some import substitution that will be more net positive for our economy. I'm sorry but I have little sympathy for frivolous imports when we have the labour and land mass lying unused because of our own incompetence and lack of foresight.

#change

If imported goods become pricier, that is generally good as it serves to curtail imports and to rebalance the economy.

This obsession with maintaining a strong Naira results in an urban bias to policy making. Most Nigerians are rural dwellers for whom imported goods constitute a negligible proportion of their consumption. By maintaining Naira strength at great cost, we expend a great deal of resources to assuage the minority Nigerians who live in cities and for whom imported goods are a daily staple. We do this at the long term expense of having a viable and productive local manufacturing economy.

That Godwin Emefiele is the most inept CBN Governor I have ever seen. To go from Sanusi to this numpty is a tragedy.

The problem is amplified by Nigerians' obsession with maintaining a strong Naira which he is trying to serve by these ad hoc idiotic measures. The sooner he is sacked, the better. That GEJ appointed this buffoon in the first place speaks volumes.

989900:
I was just gon' say the info on cenbank.org does not correlate, and that should have give some little push to the Naira.

I don't get it.

There are 3 possibilities:

He misspoke; he was misquoted or he is quoting present reserves undistorted by the moving average parameter.

We will see in a few weeks if the reserves info on the CBN's website shows an increase in balance to +$30bn.

It's possible for reserves to increase even with falling Naira particularly given the divergence of the official and parallel rates. Left to me, that man is not qualified to be a central bank governor. He is obscenely inept and his policies are leading to a loss of credibility and from the quotes on this thread, if true, he sounds more like a politician than a technocrat.

According to the CBN's website, as of 7 July 2015 reserves were $29.6bn. See here:[url]http://www.cenbank.org/IntOps/Reserve.asp?MoveDate=7/8/2015%201:48:44%20PM[/url]

The figure on the site is a 30 day moving average so it's possible reserves have moved to $31bn but data from Nigeria is so opaque it's difficult to tell propaganda from the truth.

LRNZH:
You need to take reading comprehension lessons.

Joda, a very respectable administrator stated that the budget deficit of N7 Trillion has been piled up by GEJ. Nowhere did it mention this was all in 2015 as you claim.
Joda was referring to year on year deficit accumulation and we know GEJ was in power for over 5 years.

Please think before you counter. All these baby analysts on NL sef....mtchew

This your post is depressing because it illustrates the obscene levels of dishonesty characteristic of Nigerians. There is nothing in that article that says GEJ claimed Nigeria ran a cumulative 1.3 trillion Naira budget deficit over 5 years. Anyone with a modicum of interest in economic matters would instantly recognise the untruthfulness of your post.

We have always known about the deficits and no one, certainly not Joda, would have any reason to believe that it summed to 1.3 trillion Naira over 5 years. Here is an excerpt from an article a few months ago:

Between 2011 and June 30 2014 we have spent N4.5trillion in fiscal deficits funding compared to N3.64trillion that was budgeted as Fiscal deficit.

http://nairametrics.com/its-deficit-upon-deficit-analysis-of-nigerias-budget-vs-actual-since-gej-last-won-an-election/

Here is NOI in 2013 on previous years budget deficits:

Government has further reduced annual domestic borrowing to finance the budget deficit from N852 billion in 2011, to N744 in 2012, and now to N577 billion in 2013!

That's 2.1 trillion Naira acknowledged in that speech alone. http://www.premiumtimesng.com/business/123650-overview-of-nigeria-2013-budget-by-ngozi-okonjo-iweala.html

Personally, I suspect Joda has been misquoted by the journalist. However, it is telling to observe how Nigerians' knack for dishonesty is reflected in our political discourse.

django1:
The man can't even get fired anyways since he owns his practice, those ignorant fools were just wasting their time.

He doesn't have to be fired. They damage him by sullying his reputation and reducing the number of patients he gets. The fact that he denied making those statements shows he knows this.

@OP

You are so fraudulent. You purposely took out the bit that said that Shagari's panel investigating an alleged $4bn scam by the NNPC in the late 70s found the allegation baseless.

The report did conclude that the NNPC was inept, which is my key worry about Buhari, but you don't have to mislead people to make your point.