The Naira ended last week on a positive note as it continued its appreciation against the US Dollar at the foreign exchange market.

FMDQ data showed that the Naira appreciated to N1,602.75 on Friday from N1608.98 recorded on Thursday.

This represents a N6.23 gain compared to the N1,608.98 recorded the previous day.

The development comes despite the USD transactions plunged by 44.7 per cent to $137.43 million from $248.75 million on Thursday.

At the parallel market, the Naira traded between N1,610 and 1,620 per USD.

DAILY POST reports that all through last week, the Naira had settled at an average of N1,608 per USD.

On Thursday, the Central Bank of Nigeria in a circular warned that commercial banks should desist from profiting through Naira revaluation.

Recall that between June last year and March 15 2024, CBN had floated the Naira twice which saw the Country’s currency trading at N1,602.75 per USD from N460 in May 2023.

A lawyer, Peniela Akintujoye, has reiterated that he was one of the victims defrauded by a Canada-based Nigerian, Kayode Oyedare, who allegedly collected millions of naira from Nigerians seeking a certificate of sponsorship to work in care homes in the United Kingdom, without getting them the document.

This, he said, was at variance with the sentiments expressed by some persons that he colluded with Oyedare to defraud the victims, following a media report.

Sunday PUNCH had on March 3, 2024, reported that Oyedare was contracted by his alleged victims to procure the document.

An accountant trainee based in the UK, Anjola (surname withheld), had told our correspondent that she paid Oyedare the sum of £12,000 for training as well as a CoS for her boyfriend, who was in Turkey

She also alleged that upon the completion of the training, Oyedare gave her boyfriend a fake CoS, which he submitted at the UK Embassy in Turkey in the course of seeking a visa, and was subsequently banned from entering the country for 10 years.

However, in a statement sent to City Round, Akintujoye said, “I cooperated with the writer of the story, and I was even the one who gave him the phone numbers of many of the people that were defrauded because I was the one that referred a lot of them to Oyedare.

“I also wrote petitions to law enforcement agencies, including the police, and the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission at my cost.

“I did not interfere with anything my clients had to say to him, because my conscience is clear. However, it was when I saw the publication that I realised that the attachment of my picture and that of Oyedare would be extremely injurious to me.”

Shedding more light on his relationship with Oyedare, the legal practitioner said, “My company has been involved in general travel consultancy, including for studying and working abroad, sometimes. And, we have had many successes in that area, long before I met Oyedare.”

He added that nine out of the 10 victims who sent money paid directly to Oyedare’s account (or those of his representatives).

He also noted that his company’s practice was for the work to be delivered first before it collected its agency fee.

“Only a single payment was paid to our company account in naira, and it was promptly fully forwarded to someone who changed it to pounds and sent the pounds equivalent to Kayode, who was still in the United Kingdom at the time. Both receipts of the transfers were presented to the particular applicant, who knows the truth but nevertheless alleged we were accomplices in the PUNCH report.

However, I harbour no ill feelings towards him, because he has gone through so much pain on account of this, so his anger is understandable,” he said.

The World Trade Organisation says Nigeria has lost its leading position in the agriculture export markets because its agricultural commodities do not meet the sanitary and phytosanitary requirements of the foreign markets.

According to WTO, despite the abundance of arable lands and increased investments, the nation has transitioned into a net importer of farm produce that was previously cultivated domestically, undermining efforts aimed at ensuring food sustainability.

The Director-General, WTO, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, disclosed this in Abuja at the launch of seven trade support programmes initiated by the WTO-ITC to boost the development of Nigeria’s trade and industry standards.

The initiatives namely the Standards Trade Development Facility, Digital Trade Initiative support, Women Exporters Entrepreneurship support, National Trade Portal and cotton development initiative aim to provide technical support to strengthen food safety, animal and plant health capacity in developing countries, address challenges of e-commerce digital trade divide and establish a world-class technology centre for all trade-related data and information in Nigeria.

She said, “We are launching today with STDF, ITC, and the NEPC, a project to help with international safety and quality certification for sesame and cowpeas or black-eyed peas. The agriculture sector in Nigeria has the potential to be a major driver of export diversification and job creation – but too much of this potential remains unrealized, due to a variety of barriers. In fact, Nigeria has not only lost out in agricultural export markets, it is a net food importer spending about billions a year on goods, many of which we can also produce here. Some of Nigeria’s unrealised potential has to do with trade-related problems on the supply side – and that is what this project is seeking to rectify.”

Specifically, the WTO DG said Nigerian cowpea and sesame exports were increasingly facing rejections in several destination markets due to non-compliance with international SPS requirements.

She said the failure to comply with regional, global and import country sanitary and phytosanitary standards has resulted in loss of sales, revenue, and hard currency due to export rejects.

Last week, the former finance minister charged Nigeria and other African countries to improve the quality of their shea exports to international standards.

She added, “Nigeria is the world’s largest producer and consumer of cowpeas. Sesame is primarily an export crop, and Nigeria is the world’s fourth leading producer, exporting to the EU, Türkiye, Japan, South Korea and other Asian markets. However, Nigerian cowpea and sesame exports have increasingly faced rejections in several destination markets due to non-compliance with international SPS requirements.”

She said for example, “Nigeria accounts for over a third of Japan’s sesame imports – but health and safety inspections during the past few years have found instances where pesticide residue levels were nearly double the maximum residue limits permissible from 2019 to 2021.

Hence to tackle the challenges, Okonjo-Iweala said the WTO was partnering with relevant stakeholders to build the capacities of stakeholders across the sesame and cowpeas value chains to better understand market access requirements and improve agricultural practices such as pesticide application, hygiene techniques, harvest and post-harvest methods, and food safety.

She said the project which would be implemented with $1.2mn funding would improve the country’s non-oil export.

On her part, the minister of Industry, Trade and Investment, Doris Aniete, said the ministry was putting in place policies and mechanisms that would facilitate and enhance trade, while also removing all the bottlenecks hampering trade and investment.

She further stated that the ministry had started rolling out the N50bn Presidential Conditional Grant Scheme through the Bank of Industry, targeting various economic players.

She added that a N150bn intervention through the FGN MSME and Manufacturing Sector Fund, providing low-interest loans that are pivotal for scaling businesses and spurring job creation would commence very soon.

“We are achieving this by facilitating a strong enabling environment for businesses to thrive, developing robust policies and reforms, increasing access to financing, widening access to global markets, driving investments, and creating job opportunities, all in line with the vision of Mr President.

“In 2024 we are focused on improving infrastructural capacity such as power and transport, as well as soft infrastructure such as transparent regulation, policy consistency, the rule of law, and a culture of efficient collaboration and synergy among various government agencies and offices. We believe this will facilitate an environment where business operations are not hindered by red tape but can continue to thrive.

Also speaking, the Executive Director of the Nigerian Export Promotion Council, Nonye Ayeni, explained that the project expected to last for three years would enhance the quality and standard of sesame and cowpea through the institution of good Sanitary and Phyto-sanitary conducts.

She disclosed that in 2022, the worldwide value of sesame exports and its value chain amounted to $7.35bn, projected to surge to $9.27bn by 2032. Similarly, cowpeas were valued at $7.2bn in 2023, with an anticipated rise to $9.43bn by 2028.

“This project, STDF 845, will therefore enhance the quality and standard of sesame and cowpea through the institution of good Sanitary and Phyto-sanitary conducts, Good Agricultural and Warehousing Practices, packaging/labelling and excellent storage systems. All these are expected to forestall frequent contract cancellations and loss of business opportunities while allowing a significant increase in global acceptance of the items and for better quality of these products consumed locally.

“This project is designed to last for three years to enhance the integrity of the cowpea and Sesame value chain from Nigeria. Therefore, the focus lies on improved practices that will enable Nigerian stakeholders to comply with Maximum Residue Levels of selected pesticides used in Cowpeas and Sesame and Microbiological contamination with Salmonella (Sesame). Overall, it will improve the regulatory and control system as well as farming and processing practices applied for Cowpea and Sesame,” she concluded.