₦airaland Forum

The headline of story should be about how southern women sleep around.

Liberian President, George Weah, has called on the Nigerian government to provide 6000 teachers to his country as part of the Technical Assistance agreement between the two nations.

Speaking Monday shortly after a closed-door meeting with President Muhammadu Buhari at the State House Presidential Villa in Abuja, Mr. Weah said his government inherited many problems which can only be tackled with assistance from countries like Nigeria.

Mr. Weah was inaugurated into office on January 22 after defeating immediate past vice president Joseph Boakai of the Unity Party.

Addressing journalists after his meeting with Mr. Buhari, the Liberian leader identified some of the urgent problems facing his country as youth unemployment, as well as the need to revive the education, agriculture, mining and health sectors.

“Your sustained technical assistance for capacity building in these sectors is most welcome. For example, Nigerian teachers and medical volunteers to Liberia, under the Technical Assistance Corps TAC) Agreement with Liberia, have been very crucial in boosting capacity development in Liberia, and it is my hope that this assistance can be considerably increased to address with urgency our most pressing socio-economic needs at this time.

“More specifically, under the Bilateral Teacher Exchange programme, we are seeking 6,000 plus teachers to make up for the shortage of good teachers in our educational system,” he said.

Mr. Weah thanked Mr. Buhari for the invitation extended to him and said his delegation was on a mission of “gratitude and respect for the extraordinary and exceptional role that you, our Nigerian brothers and sisters, have played and continue to play in maintaining peace and stability in the West African sub-region, and more particularly, in Liberia”.

He said although Nigeria is the largest economy in Africa, “with the most powerful army in our sub-region, you have never used your wealth and military prowess to expand your territory, threaten your neighbours, or destabilise any sovereign nation in the region”.

He also said the prices of Liberia’s two basic export commodities, rubber and iron ore, continue to fall on the world market, which have diminished the country’s foreign exchange earnings from the export of the commodities.

He asaid most export earnings of Liberia is used mainly to import food and other commodities, causing massive trade deficits while youth unemployment is at an all-time high, and prices of basic commodities continue to increase.



“Our people have voted for change, and for hope. And change is finally here. But mere political change is meaningless without development, prosperity and growth.

“Your Excellency, we need Nigeria’s help to jump-start our economy. You played a major role in bringing peace to Liberia, you reformed our Army and today it is performing its duties to the highest professional standards. As we speak, they are serving in a peace-keeping mission in Mali.

“You have also built and expanded the capacities of Liberians in so many ways. For example, during our recent observance of Armed Forces Day in Liberia, we were informed that two of our military personnel will soon be graduating as pilots from one of your esteemed institutions.

“We would like to see a continuation and expansion of that programme, for both men and women,” he said.

Liberia is open for Nigerian businesses

Mr. Weah also declared that Liberia is now open for business to the Nigerian private sector.

He said there is a need to address the current volume of trade between the two countries, which is very low and does not exceed five million dollars, by some estimates.

“Yet, the Liberian banking sector is dominated by Nigerian banks, and I am made to understand that their Head offices in Nigeria may be considering reducing their support or even shutting them down because of the recent downturn in our economy.

“If this is true, I urge them not to do so, as l am optimistic that trade and commerce will increase in the near future.



“ There are also major shortcomings in the electricity and power sectors, in road construction, in housing, in mining, and in fisheries, to name a few, that could be of serious interest to Nigerian investors, either as individuals or companies, or through joint-ventures or public-private partnerships.

“ We invite all of you to come to Liberia and explore the many new opportunities for investment that abound to increase under this new political dispensation. I promise you that you will find a government that is not only business friendly, but ready to do business.

“ On a personal note, President Buhari, it is my intention, with all due respect and affection, to frequently seek your wise counsel and advice as we embark upon this arduous task of nation-building, reconstruction, and transformation of my country.

“ Nigeria’s historical benevolence towards Liberia cannot be quantified. And once again, we seek your urgent and critical assistance,” he said.

Source :https://www.premiumtimesng.com/news/headlines/260735-liberia-seeks-6000-teachers-nigeria.html

Dangote Business School (DBS) of Bayero University Kano has been commissioned to serve as an incubation centre for entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial development in the country.
The building complex, comprising lecture theatres, Libraries, offices and cafeterias among others was unveiled by the Emir of Kano, Muhammadu Sanusi II.


The project, Daily Trust gathered was in fulfillment to a promise the multi-national business tycoon made at a convocation ceremony of the institution some years ago during the administration of Professor Attahiru Jega as the Vice Chancellor of BUK.

Speaking yesterday at commissioning of the project, Alhaji Aliko Dangote expressed satisfaction with the way the project was executed and urged staff and students of the institution to reciprocate the gesture by contributing to the economic integration of the country through quality training and research on best ways to do business in Africa.
He identified quality education as panacea for vibrant economic development, emphasizing the need for the school to be a reference point in grooming world class entrepreneurs.
‘’My interest for supporting higher education in Nigeria stems from the belief that we can and we should provide the same quality of education here in Nigeria like anywhere else in the world. Good quality education is fundamental in breeding a vibrant economy and society.
‘’My goal for this business school is for it to become a reference point when it comes to learning how to do business successfully in Nigeria and in Africa. This means that this business school should carry out studies and research that are specific to our needs and ways of doing business which would allow more information to be shared globally on how Africans can do business.
‘’I believe that this business school can and should foster relationship with other business schools across Africa and the globe and I am sure they already have affiliation with other three universities and we are working to make sure that they also have with the Harvert business school.
‘’This business school will be training and preparing future African leaders in business, who will understand how to develop, and also train others to become visionary businessmen. I also see this business school playing a role in accelerating the economic integration of our continent’’ Dangote said.
The Emir of Kano, Muhammadu Sanusi II called on the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to complete the ‘centre of excellence project’ it has started in the BUK, saying the project if completed would complement DBS to achieving its set objectives.
The royal father commended Dangote for his contributions to the development of the economy in various facets and appealed to the government to partner with the private sector to create enabling environment for business and entrepreneurship development.
The Vice Chancellor BUK, Professor Muhammad Bello Yahuza commended Dangote for his numerous interventions in the institution, assuring that “with the new ultramodern Dangote Business school and its facilities, the university is now more poised to serve the society even better through training research and service provision.”
Dangote Business School was established in 2015, conducting programmes at the initial location inside the new campus.
The school currently offers post graduate programmes, however, its doctoral degree program in Business Administration will commence soon, and thus will be the only school in Nigeria to offer doctoral degree program in Business Administration.
Daily trust learnt the school was constructed at the cost of N1.2 billion naira.

Source :https://www.dailytrust.com.ng/dangote-business-school-commissioned-at-buk.html

rano1:
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Nigerian Graduates employment survey 2000-2017(millennial survey)

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Nigerian Graduates employment survey 2000-2017(millennial survey)

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Nigerian Graduates employment survey 2000-2017(millennial survey)

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Nigerian Graduates employment survey 2000-2017(millennial survey)

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Nigerian Graduates employment survey 2000-2017(millennial survey)

Please fill The Survey from the link below

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Nigerian Graduates employment survey 2000-2017(millennial survey)

Please fill The Survey from the link below

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President Muhammadu Buhari inaugurated a 30-member tripartite National Minimum Wage Committee for the negotiation of a new National Minimum Wage. This has produced a lot of expectations and hope among Nigerians. The committee, which includes cabinet members, governors, labour leaders, and executives from the private sector, is expected to upwardly review Nigeria’s minimum wage from its present monthly rate of N18, 900. Now, Nigerian workers are demanding N56, 000 new minimum wages. The question is, is that realisable given the current comatose economy where the extant N18, 000 minimum wage is not paid as and when due? Correspondingly, given an unemployment rate of 18 %(NBS Q3 2017) which is equivalent to roughly 18 million people and a youth unemployment rate of 33.10% NBS Q3 2017).

The general thesis that makes increasing the minimum wage attractive to the electorate, which makes it attractive to presidential candidates, can be summed up in two propositions: 1) Increasing the minimum wage lifts poor people out of poverty, while having no noticeable impact on unemployment, and 2) Raising the minimum wage is necessary now because so many minimum wage workers are the only means of financial support for their households. It turns out that every part of this thesis is founded on bad economic analysis, a disregard for economic facts, and misleading government pronouncements.

Raising the minimum wage is a formula for causing unemployment among the least-skilled members of society. The higher wages are, the higher costs of production are. The higher costs of production are, the higher prices are. The higher prices are, the smaller are the quantities of goods and services demanded and the number of workers employed in producing them. These are all propositions of elementary economics that government should well know. A minimum wage leads to a reduction in the demand for labour and increases in the supply of labour in the relevant market — usually, the market for low-skill workers. It removes the ability of some workers to compete by accepting lower wages and shuts them out of the labour force. As a result, it reduces job opportunities for these workers. A condition I call “compulsory unemployment” for this group of workers.

But there are additional, hidden costs of these interventions, which are more difficult to detect but perhaps more insidious. For example, one effect of a minimum wage is to reduce the availability of on-the-job training, since more resources are required simply to hire and retain a workforce. And further interventions in the labour market (for example, safety regulations and payroll taxes) make it still more costly to employ labour. These burdens together reduce a firms willingness to hire labourer's and — in the long run — must reduce the number of opportunities for those labourers to acquire valuable job skills. Far from increasing opportunities for the working poor, a minimum wage actually restricts their mobility. Moreover, these wage increases do not take into account the opportunity cost, i.e., the cost of the next best option. The higher the minimum wages, the more lucrative other options such as automation appear.
It is true that the wages of the workers who keep their jobs will be higher. They will enjoy the benefit of a government-created monopoly that excludes from the market the competition of those unemployed workers who are willing and able to work for less than what the monopolists receive. The payment of the monopolists’ higher wages will come at the expense of reduced expenditures for labour and capital goods elsewhere in the economic system, which must result in more unemployment. Those who are unemployed elsewhere and who are relatively more skilled will displace workers of lesser skill, with the ultimate result of still more unemployment among the least-skilled members of society.

Competition for labour insures that people are paid according to what economists call the value of their marginal product, which is a fancy way of saying that wages will tend to reflect the value to the employer of the worker’s productivity. If an employer underpays the worker he runs the all too real risk of having that employee leave for another employer who would likely outbid him. This also means that an employer will not pay any worker more per hour than the value of what that worker is producing per hour. Simply put, the cost associated with employing a worker — that is wages, plus benefits, plus employment-related taxes — has to be less than the benefits that are received by employing the worker.

Furthermore, the higher the minimum wage is raised; the worse are the effects on poor people. This is because, on the one hand, the resulting overall unemployment is greater, while, on the other hand, the protection a lower wage provides against competition from higher-paid workers is more and more eroded.

Of course, the minimum-wage has been increased repeatedly over the years since it was first introduced, and there has continued to be at least some significant room for the employment of such workers. What has made this possible is the long periods in which the minimum wage was not increased. Continuous inflation of the money supply and the rise in the volume of spending and thus in wage rates and prices throughout the economic system progressively reduce the extent to which the minimum wage exceeds the wage that would prevail in its absence. The last time a minimum wage was set before the current one being reviewed was in 2000 with effect from May 1, 2001. Then, the wage was set at a N5, 500. To reduce and ultimately eliminate the harm done by today’s minimum wage, it needs to be abolished or left unchanged.

Government needs to understand that the standard of living is not raised by arbitrary laws and decrees of imposing higher wage rates, but by the rise in the productivity of labour, which increases the supply of goods relative to the supply of labour and thus reduces prices relative to wage rates, and thereby allows prices to rise by less than wages when the quantity of money and volume of spending in the economic system increase. If raising the standard of living of the average worker is the government’s goal, it should abandon its efforts to raise the minimum wage. Instead, it should strive to eliminate all government policies that restrain the rise in the productivity of Lab and thus in the buying power of wages. If government’s goal is to raise the wages specifically of the lowest-paid workers, it should strive to eliminate everything that limits employment in the better-paid occupations, most notably the forcible imposition of union pay scales, which operate as minimum wages for skilled and semi-skilled workers. In causing unemployment higher up the economic ladder, union scales serve to artificially increase the number of workers who must compete lower down on the economic ladder, including at the very bottom, where wages are lowest (This is practised mostly in the medical and petroleum sector). To the extent that occupations higher up could absorb more labour, competitive pressure at the bottom would be reduced and wages there could rise as a result.

For the consumer or ordinary citizen, the impact of minimum wage laws on the consumer is felt through an increase in prices, as firms attempt to recover some of their raised production costs. Since employees are also consumers, they are to be impacted by the boost in prices, which reduces what their money can actually buy. Price increases that accompany minimum wage hikes thus lower the real wages of those who are lucky enough to keep their jobs as new minimums are imposed. Additionally, as minimum wages force cash-strapped small business out of business, consumers enjoy fewer choices.

In truth, there is only one way to regard a minimum-wage law: it is compulsory unemployment, period. The law says, it is illegal, and therefore criminal, for anyone to hire anyone else below the level of X Naira an hour. This means, plainly and simply, that a large number of free and voluntary wage contracts are now outlawed and hence that there will be a large amount of unemployment. Remember that the minimum-wage law provides no jobs; it only outlaws them; and outlawed jobs are the inevitable result. All demand curves are falling, and the demand for hiring labour is no exception. Hence, laws that prohibit employment at any wage that is relevant to the market must result in outlawing employment and hence causing unemployment.

Yes, it’s hard to make ends meet with a minimum wage job and such jobs certainly aren’t enviable. That being said, cutting out the bottom rung from people just makes it all the harder to get by. A bad job is better than no job and it is often the first step to something better.The principle here is that we need to look to greater economic freedom, not greater government intervention, as the path to economic improvement for everyone, especially the poor. Ending poverty and giving people additional income are praiseworthy goals, but there are no free lunches in this world. And trying to force prosperity through an increase minimum wage simply creates a whole host of negative and unintended consequences especially for those who are the most vulnerable.

Source : http://economicfreedomnigeria..com.ng/2018/02/compulsory-unemployment-in-nigeria.html

If people in the media cannot decide whether they are in the business of reporting news or manufacturing propaganda, it is all the more important that the public understand that difference, and choose their news sources accordingly.

Disgusting!!!

rano1:
For instance, Hausa call N5 naira biyar; N10, naira goma; N20, naira ishirin; N50, naira hamsin; N100, naira dari; N200, naira dari biyu; N500, naira dari biyar; and N1,000, naira dubu daya. Naira is added at the beginning of each local name to identify the denomination./

Doesn't make sense, these are just Hausa Numbers.

Epositive:
Nigeria needs serious birth control agency.

OAM4J, Mynd44

Luckianti:
Good for them. We need trading reserve also that should accomodate at least 100 million free shops all accross the states in the federation

OAM4J, Mynd44

President Mohammadu Buhari has directed the National Universities Commission (NUC) to mobilize the university community to engage their intellectual prowess to make their highly valued input in providing answers to impending boost in Nigeria’ s population.
Buhari who noted that by 2050, Nigeria will be the third most populous country in the world, said it is incumbent on Nigerian universities to begin research into and analyse the implication of the impending development.
The president as the Visitor disclosed this yesterday at the 22nd convocation ceremony of the University of Abuja.
Represented by the deputy director of NUC, Prof Chiedu Mafiana, he said he recognizes the unparalleled role of universities as catalyst of industrialization and as such urged the institutions to key into the activities of his government through the conduct of cutting edge research.
The university also awarded honorary degrees to the late Dr. Yusuf Bala Usman, Pastor W. F Kumuyi and Alhaji Dikko A. Aliyu, for distinguishing themselves in their respective endeavours and contributing greatly to the progress of the nation

Source: https://www.dailytrust.com.ng/buhari-urges-research-into-nigeria-s-population-growth.html

The Kano State Government says the proposed grazing reserve in Falgore Game Reserve has the capacity to cater for over five million cows.
Commissioner for Agriculture and Natural Resources in the state, Dr. Yusuf Gawuna, made the disclosure in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Kano.
Gawuna said the reserve would accommodate herdsmen and their cattle thereby discouraging them from moving to other states in search of pasture.
According to Wikipedia, Falgore Game Reserve lies in the northern Guinea Savanna Ecological Belt, adding that the ecosystem is bisected by River Kano.
Falgore started as Kogin Kano Forest Reserve, which was developed during the colonial period in the 1940’s. The reserve was upgraded into a game reserve in the 1960’s.
The commissioner said, ‘‘Falgore Game Reserve can take care of millions of herdsmen and their cattle.
‘‘The location has been designed to accommodate markets, recreational centres, ultra-modern abattoirs, tourism centres and factories that would make herdsmen transact business without hindrance.’’
The commissioner disclosed that the state government had engaged the services of a consultant and that a document had been submitted to President Muhammadu Buhari on the need to convert the forest into a grazing reserve.
He said from the assessment of the consultant, the modern grazing reserve would gulp about $30m to develop.
‘‘The place is too big, we are in talks with private organisations that are coming in to invest and see how we can develop the forest.
‘‘We are also in talks with professional partners from South Africa for Public Private Partnership (PPP) arrangement. They will also assess the forest and submit their report to the governor,’’ Gawuna said.
He said the modern grazing reserve would generate revenue to the state and create job opportunities for the people of the area.
He added that a committee on farmers/herdsmen clashes, under his chairmanship, sat every month with traditional rulers, security agents, heads of agriculture departments and other relevant stakeholders to ensure peaceful co-existence.
The commissioner urged farmers and herdsmen in the state to always resolve grievances through dialogue. (NAN)

Source :https://www.dailytrust.com.ng/kano-to-create-grazing-reserve-for-5m-cows.html

Every year around the world, about 2.6 million babies die within their first month of life -- and some countries see more of those tragic deaths than others.
A UNICEF report released Tuesday ranks countries by their newborn mortality rates in 2016.
The report found that the country with the highest newborn mortality rate was Pakistan, which saw about one in every 22 infants die before turning 1 month old.
The country with the lowest newborn mortality rate was Japan: only one death in every 1,111 births.
A baby born in Pakistan was almost 50 times more likely to die during his or her first month than a baby born in Japan -- or Iceland, which ranked second lowest, or Singapore, which ranked third lowest, according to the report.
The report also showed that the United States and the United Kingdom had higher mortality rates among newborns than several other countries, including Cuba, Germany, Israel, South Korea and Singapore.
Top 10 countries with the highest and lowest rates
The UNICEF report was based on data from the United Nations Inter-agency Group for Child Mortality Estimation. The data was from 1990 (or earlier, depending on the country) to 2016.
Based on those data, the 10 countries with the highest newborn mortality rates in 2016 were:
1. Pakistan
2. Central African Republic
3. Afghanistan
4. Somalia
5. Lesotho
6. Guinea-Bissau
7. South Sudan
8.Côte d'Ivoire, or Ivory Coast
9. Mali
10. Chad
Many of those countries are war-torn, have limited access to clean water at health facilities or have been affected by natural disasters, said Dr. Stefan Peterson, chief of health at UNICEF, who helped conduct the technical analysis and review for the report.
"That is a tremendous challenge for these countries to begin with. Then they also face challenges of not investing sufficiently in health services," he said. "Some of them only spend 1% of gross domestic product on health, while the national recommendation is to spend at least 5% of public resources on health."
The 10 countries with the lowest newborn mortality rates in 2016, according to the report, were:
1. Japan
2. Iceland
3. Singapore
4. Finland
5. Slovenia
6. Estonia
7. Cyprus
8. The Republic of Korea, or South Korea
9.Norway
10. Luxembourg
"These are countries that have for a long time had political will to tackle the quality of maternal and newborn care," Peterson said.
"They've educated women," he said. "They've tackled adolescent pregnancy, and they have quality health services centered around midwives who actually are able to wash their hands in health facilities and have access to the basic treatments and drugs."
These are the states where infant mortality is highest
These are the states where infant mortality is highest
The UNICEF report notes that newborn survival appears to be closely linked to a country's income level.
On average, high-income countries have a newborn mortality rate of about one in 333, compared with low-income countries' newborn mortality rate of about one in 37, according to the report.
Babies born to the poorest families are more than 1.4 times more likely to die during this newborn period than those born to the richest families, according to the report.
Yet income is only one of the factors influencing newborn mortality.
In Kuwait, the newborn mortality rate is about one in 227, and in the US, it's about one in 270. Though those are both high-income countries, their newborn mortality rates are only slightly lower than those of lower- to middle-income countries such as Sri Lanka, which has a rate of 1 in 189, and Ukraine, which has a rate of 1 in 185.
Among 20 wealthy nations, US child mortality ranks worst, study finds
Among 20 wealthy nations, US child mortality ranks worst, study finds
"For all countries, it's about giving people access to good quality health services," Peterson said.
"Obviously, money helps in that regard, but in respective of income level, it's also a question of how you organize that access and the quality of health services," he said. "For any country that has discrepancies between poor people and well-to-do people, that will of course pull the average down" when it comes to the newborn mortality rate.
Last month, a separate study published in the journal Health Affairs ranked the overall child mortality rate among the United States and comparable nations in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, a group of 35 countries founded to improve economic development and social well-being around the world.
In that study, the US ranked worst, falling behind Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom.
UNICEF's new report is "credible," said Lindsay Stark, an associate professor of population and family health at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health.
As she has noted in response to previous reports, such as the Health Affairs study, the United States appears to lag behind other nations in terms of child and newborn mortality because of perinatal mortality, or mortality specifically around the time of a baby's birth, including maternal conditions affecting a fetus or newborn.
So by focusing on improving maternal health, the US and other countries could improve infant health, she said.

Source : https://edition.cnn.com/2018/02/20/health/unicef-newborn-deaths-by-country-study/index.html

President Muhammadu Buhari inaugurated a 30-member tripartite National Minimum Wage Committee for the negotiation of a new National Minimum Wage. This has produced a lot of expectations and hope among Nigerians. The committee, which includes cabinet members, governors, labour leaders, and executives from the private sector, is expected to upwardly review Nigeria’s minimum wage from its present monthly rate of N18, 900. Now, Nigerian workers are demanding N56, 000 new minimum wages. The question is, is that realizable given the current comatose economy where the extant N18, 000 minimum wage is not paid as and when due? Correspondingly, given an unemployment rate of 18 %(NBS Q3 2017) which is equivalent to roughly 18 million people and a youth unemployment rate of 33.10% NBS Q3 2017).

The general thesis that makes increasing the minimum wage attractive to the electorate, which makes it attractive to presidential candidates, can be summed up in two propositions: 1) Increasing the minimum wage lifts poor people out of poverty, while having no noticeable impact on unemployment, and 2) Raising the minimum wage is necessary now because so many minimum wage workers are the only means of financial support for their households. It turns out that every part of this thesis is founded on bad economic analysis, a disregard for economic facts, and misleading government pronouncements.

Raising the minimum wage is a formula for causing unemployment among the least-skilled members of society. The higher wages are, the higher costs of production are. The higher costs of production are, the higher prices are. The higher prices are, the smaller are the quantities of goods and services demanded and the number of workers employed in producing them. These are all propositions of elementary economics that government should well know. A minimum wage leads to a reduction in the demand for labor and increases in the supply of labor in the relevant market — usually, the market for low-skill workers. It removes the ability of some workers to compete by accepting lower wages and shuts them out of the labor force. As a result, it reduces job opportunities for these workers. A condition I call “compulsory unemployment” for this group of workers.

Government needs to understand that the standard of living is not raised by arbitrary laws and decrees of imposing higher wage rates, but by the rise in the productivity of labor, which increases the supply of goods relative to the supply of labor and thus reduces prices relative to wage rates, and thereby allows prices to rise by less than wages when the quantity of money and volume of spending in the economic system increase. If raising the standard of living of the average worker is the government’s goal, it should abandon its efforts to raise the minimum wage. Instead, it should strive to eliminate all government policies that restrain the rise in the productivity of labor and thus in the buying power of wages. If government’s goal is to raise the wages specifically of the lowest-paid workers, it should strive to eliminate everything that limits employment in the better-paid occupations, most notably the forcible imposition of union pay scales, which operate as minimum wages for skilled and semi-skilled workers. In causing unemployment higher up the economic ladder, union scales serve to artificially increase the number of workers who must compete lower down on the economic ladder, including at the very bottom, where wages are lowest (This is practised mostly in the medical and petroleum sector). To the extent that occupations higher up could absorb more labor, the competitive pressure at the bottom would be reduced and wages there could rise as a result.

Competition for labor insures that people are paid according to what economists call the value of their marginal product, which is a fancy way of saying that wages will tend to reflect the value to the employer of the worker’s productivity. If an employer underpays the worker he runs the all too real risk of having that employee leave for another employer who would likely outbid him. This also means that an employer will not pay any worker more per hour than the value of what that worker is producing per hour. Simply put, the cost associated with employing a worker — that is wages, plus benefits, plus employment related taxes — has to be less than the benefits that are received by employing the worker

Of course, the minimum-wage has been increased repeatedly over the years since it was first introduced, and there has continued to be at least some significant room for the employment of such workers. What has made this possible is the long periods in which the minimum wage was not increased. Continuous inflation of the money supply and the rise in the volume of spending and thus in wage rates and prices throughout the economic system progressively reduce the extent to which the minimum wage exceeds the wage that would prevail in its absence. The last time a minimum wage was set before the current one being reviewed was in 2000 with effect from May 1, 2001. Then, the wage was set at a N5, 500. To reduce and ultimately eliminate the harm done by today’s minimum wage, it needs to be abolished or left unchanged

For the consumer or ordinary citizen, the impact of minimum wage laws on the consumer is felt through an increase in prices, as firms attempt to recover some of their raised production costs. Since employees are also consumers, they are to be impacted by the boost in prices, which reduces what their money can actually buy. Price increases that accompany minimum wage hikes thus lower the real wages of those who are lucky enough to keep their jobs as new minimums are imposed. Additionally, as minimum wages force cash-strapped small business out of business, consumers enjoy fewer choices.

In truth, there is only one way to regard a minimum-wage law: it is compulsory unemployment, period. The law says, it is illegal, and therefore criminal, for anyone to hire anyone else below the level of X Naira an hour. This means, plainly and simply, that a large number of free and voluntary wage contracts are now outlawed and hence that there will be a large amount of unemployment. Remember that the minimum-wage law provides no jobs; it only outlaws them, and outlawed jobs are the inevitable result. All demand curves are falling, and the demand for hiring labour is no exception. Hence, laws that prohibit employment at any wage that is relevant to the market must result in outlawing employment and hence causing unemployment.

Yes, it’s hard to make ends meet with a minimum wage job and such jobs certainly aren’t enviable. That being said, cutting out the bottom rung from people just makes it all the harder to get by. A bad job is better than no job and it is often the first step to something better.The principle here is that we need to look to greater economic freedom, not greater government intervention, as the path to economic improvement for everyone, especially the poor. Ending poverty and giving people additional income are praiseworthy goals, but there are no free lunches in this world. And trying to force prosperity through an increase minimum wage simply creates a whole host of negative and unintended consequences especially for those who are the most vulnerable.

source : http://economicfreedomnigeria..com.ng/2018/02/compulsory-unemployment-in-nigeria.html

Lagos State Governor Mr. Akinwunmi Ambode 2015 vs 2018

Okechukwu Nnodim, Abuja

The proposed rail line from Kano in Nigeria to Maradi in Niger Republic is going to cover a track length of 248 kilometres and will pass through seven senatorial districts in the North.

According to information gathered from the Federal Ministry of Transportation in Abuja on Monday, the rail line, which is already budgeted for in the 2018 Appropriation Bill currently before the National Assembly, will connect at least seven cities in Nigeria and one city in Niger Republic.



The rail line, which will start from Kano, is to pass through Dambatta, Kazaure, Daura, Mashi, Katsina, Jibia and terminate in Maradi, Niger Republic.

It will connect at least three states in the North, which are Jigawa, Kano and Katsina.

It was also learnt that the rail line, when completed, would assist in the supply of crude oil from Niger Republic to the refinery being built in the border town between both countries.

The border town is close to Katsina State and a mutual agreement for the construction of the refinery was reached between Nigeria and Niger Republic last week.

However, senior officials at the Federal Ministry of Transportation could not tell the actual cost of the project.

They also did not reveal if the facility would be solely funded by the Federal Government or if it would be jointly financed by both countries or by private investors.

It was further gathered that the line would serve in the transportation of mineral resources from Nigeria to Niger and back.

Explaining why crude will be moved by rail to the refinery, sources at the ministry stated that the measure would be temporary, as both countries were also planning to construct pipelines to link the refinery.



On Friday, The PUNCH had reported that Nigeria and the Republic of Niger had agreed to construct a refinery in a border town located between both countries and close to Katsina State.

According to the Federal Ministry of Petroleum Resources, the agreement was reached between both nations to build the facility and for the construction of a crude oil pipeline from Niger Republic to the new refinery.

The FMPR in several Twitter messages had said, “The Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Ibe Kachikwu, met with the President of the Republic of Niger, Mahamadou Issoufou, and the Energy Minister of the Republic of Niger, Mr. Foumakoye Gado.

“Mutually beneficial agreement was reached for the construction of a refinery in the border town between the Republic of Niger and Katsina, Nigeria, and a crude oil pipeline from the Republic of Niger to the new refinery. Bilateral/technical agreements to be signed in coming days.”

Source :https://punchng.com/kano-to-niger-republic-rail-line-to-cover-248km/