₦airaland Forum

Nigeria’s middle class jumped six-fold in 14 years as economic growth spiked between 2000-2014 with the return to democracy and increase in private sector investments, according to Standard Bank in a new report.

According to the bank, middle class households in 11 leading sub-Saharan African economies, including Nigeria, are set to balloon to about 40 million by 2030 as the benefits of economic growth are more inclusively distributed.

The report notes that the phenomenal growth will be propelled by Nigeria, where the middle class grew six times since 2000 to its current level of about 4.1 million households.

This is equivalent to about 23 million middle class people, using the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) estimates of 5.7 individuals per household in Nigeria.

The report, entitled ‘Understanding Africa’s middle class’, found there are about 15 million of the 110 million households in Angola, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Mozambique, Nigeria, South Sudan, Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia, consuming from $15 to $115 a day. This is up from 4.6 million in 2000 and 2.4 million in 1990 – an increase of 230 percent over 14 years.

“Between 2000 and 2014, we have seen a tripling of middle-class households across these 11 countries,” says Simon Freemantle, a political economist at Standard Bank in Johannesburg, South Africa.

“It confirms the idea that Africa has structurally changed, that there has been real improvement in the last 10 years. Not just cyclical, it has been a structural change,” says Freemantle.

The emergence of a middle class was found to be most profound in Nigeria, Africa’s largest economy. About 4.1 million households or 11 percent of the Nigerian population consume $23 to $115 a day, according to the report.

However, of the total number of households across these focal economies, 86 percent of them remain within the broadly “low income” band, emphasising the nascent maturation of many of the continent’s markets.

The report also found that the combined GDPs of the 11 measured economies had grown tenfold since 2000.

Freemantle, author of the report, says the new report is cause for optimism among investors, as it suggests even greater scope for future growth, and indeed forecasts acceleration in the accumulation of middle-class households in Africa.

Commenting on the lower-than-anticipated total number of middle class households, Freemantle says any view concerning the undoubted ongoing improvement in Africa’s economic performance has to be tempered with the reality that the level of this growth and the nominal size of the continent’s middle class had not until now been adequately measured.

“Standard Bank has attempted to fill the knowledge gap by using comprehensive household income data and adopting our own measure of the middle class using South Africa’s LSMs as a framework in order to provide cross-quantifiable reference points for peer African economies,” he says.



http://businessdayonline.com/2014/08/nigerias-middle-class-jumps-six-fold-to-23m-in-14-years-standard-bank

What happened to the comments here

These are the same kind of people that would stage the kidnapping of 200 girls, all to achieve their needed political propaganda.

Islamist lying since Abraham slept with his maid.

By Abiodun Alade,@biodunpen
Former Minister of the Federal Capital Territory and chieftain of the All Progressive Congress, Mallam Nasir El-Rufai, has said that he will consider the option of defection to the People Democratic Party, PDP when satan repents and converts to Islam.
He made the assertion in reply to a question by one of his followers on twitter, stressing that he will hardly take the option. This is coming in the wake of the defection of his friend and former Presidential candidate of the Action Congress of Nigeria, ACN, Mallam Nuhu Ribadu.
El-Rufai is a former stalwart of the PDP and served the government during the Olusegun Obasanjo tenure.




- See more at: http://www.vanguardngr.com/2014/08/will-join-pdp-satan-converts-islam/#sthash.IquDtWLU.dpuf

Largas: Forgive my ignorance.

Can you list out the nine states in each zone?

The Map is right in front of you.

By Elliot Uko
NIGERIANS are amused to no end once again as a section of the northern elite who despise President Goodluck Jonathan passionately, have once more embarked on their usual campaign for Jonathan albeit unwittingly, as usual.
The vituperations of both the Northern elders forum and the Northern delegates to the confab to wit that Jonathan should not run in the February 2015 elections. This is déjà vu is of the 2010/2011 Northern faux pas.
This excessive display of paranoia does not only suggest that the north has run out of ideas and arguments but it confirms that the Boko Haram madness is political.
Are our Northern brothers treading this familiar road because of their love for Nigeria? Or just a last ditch effort in the desperate battle for central power and insatiable hunger for eternal domination of the rest of Nigeria.
This is déjà vu, the last time our northern brothers took this road four years ago they only succeeded in frightening the rest of the country and forcing them to gather behind Jonathan. A mere repeat of the same road that didn’t pay any dividend. They terrorised him endlessly, gave him seven days to resign, chose a consensus candidate, and campaigned ferociously on religious and regional pedestal, all these failed. Then they promised to make Nigeria ungovernable. Jonathan is still trucking on.
The strategy of threat of soaking dog and baboon in blood is not capable of snatching power from Jonathan as only Nigerians will decide on 2015.
It’s amusing that those who are threatening to reject a new constitution cannot see that they would only be making a bigger mistake than their GREAT MISTAKE at the Jos PDP convention 15 year ago.
Fifteen years ago, the same people who are fiercely resisting restructuring Nigeria through a new constitution stormed Jos, to stop, a former vice president and the only man who would have handed over power to the North after four years. Instead they brought out from Yola prison their Northern choice who dealt them a blow the north is yet to recover from. Once again as the world watches, the North is about to seal her fate as she opposes the only open route to a peaceful stable and functional Nigerian a new constitution adopted at a referendum.
Their parochial mind tells them, that they would seize power and keep it forever, hence their preference for the unworkable status quo. A mistake for which they could pay dearly, sooner than later.
Reminds us of the great Northern mistake at the Jos PDP convention 15 years ago. What a déjà vu.
*Mr. Uko, a social critic, wrote from Enugu, Enugu State.


- See more at: http://www.vanguardngr.com/2014/08/2015-north-treads-familiar-path/#sthash.xDqEGayy.dpuf

CastleandGreen: Which resources are they going to use to develop these states? Mad delegates.

Which resources did we use when Nigeria was 12,19,21,27 then 36 states. That's the same resources Nigerians will use with their 54 states.

More states will only democratise our infrastructural growth and human development. Look at palaces like Osogbo, Ado ekiti, Asaba, Gombe, Duste Jalingo and Abakaliki without state creation, the level of development we see in these places would never be there today.

karfe: As long as we maintain the current political elite remain influential, I don't see any mergers taking place. I may be wrong though. I was one of those disappointed they did not consider the regional option

That is if any of these will even be implemented

I listened to Bakare on Sunday monrning during the sunrise program on channels. He said they did and quickly discarded it, because almost everybody did not want it.

Femi Akintunde, MD/CEO, Alpha Mead Facilities and Management Services Limited (AMFacilities), has observed that the country is in dire need of engineers that would provide the backbone for the rapid development it desires.

Akintunde disclosed that sectors such as power, manufacturing, infrastructure, real estate, agriculture and transportation, are critical areas that requires engineering expertise, adding that engineers must rise to the occasion to boost the nation’s economy.

He disclosed this while delivering a paper titled: “The Engineer as the Prime Mover of Economic Development,” at the 2014 inductees of the Nigerian Society of Engineers (NSE) held at the University of Ibadan.

According to him, “Today, the world and indeed Nigeria is in dire need of engineering solutions. This simply means that, if the simple economic rule of demand and supply is anything to go by, then there are limitless opportunities for engineers in the pool of problems that confront our nation.

If you consider Nigeria’s current economic indices and realities, one common denominator of our challenges is that none can be solved outside the scope of engineering principles and practices.

These challenges therefore place a huge responsibility on the shoulders of engineering stakeholders; and as you join the league of this noble profession today, it is only ideal that we provoke your thinking to imbibe a solution mentality towards our nation’s economic problems.”

He further advised the young engineers to keep fate with Nigeria, even in the face of the pool of challenges that confront the nation. “You cannot afford to join the bandwagon of those complaining about Nigeria. The Nigerian Industrial Revolution Plan is a document that highlights key areas of the economy that can take our economy through the maturation circle of Vision 20:2020. You should make such documents a companion,” he charged.

The AMFacilities MD, who is also an alumnus of the faculty, further tasked stakeholders such as government, educational institutions and employers of labour to present the right environment to help the engineering profession thrive.

He charged the government to implement laws that can protect investment and investors, and stem the tide of corruption plummeting the nation’s resources, explaining that such laws will raise the interest of investors, thereby encouraging the required activities that will provide employment for engineers to help the economy grow.

“Our lecturers must also understand that, as the society advances, its challenges also advance, and the only responses that can contain such advancements are new researches. The new breed of engineers has to be equipped with contemporary knowledge to be able to move the economy forward,” he noted.

Akintunde also implored employers to actively invest in measures that will enhance the quality of graduates from Nigerian higher institutions, inviting them to join in the quest to ensure that the required competencies are developed.

Emmanuel Ajav, dean, Faculty of Technology, University of Ibadan, on his part described Akintunde as an illustrious alumnus of the faculty. He charged the new inductees to emulate the virtues of hard work and focus, “which have made Femi a shining example of an engineer and entrepreneur.”

A total of 249 young engineers were inducted at the ceremony, which is an annual practice of the Faculty of Technology.

Highlight of the event was the endowment of an annual N500, 000 cash prize, in honour of his late parents, for the ‘best graduating female engineering student’ and the ‘best graduating industrial engineering male student’ respectively.

KELECHI EWUZIE

http://businessdayonline.com/2014/08/nigeria-is-in-dire-need-of-engineers/

karfe: Oops, you are right. That's 9 for each zone. But looking at the map, some states may agitate to be 'reassigned' to a different zone. #guraraonmymind

The conference created a process for state merging,If the people and state assemblies so choose.

karfe: 10 for north-central! Then we will start creating one more each in another conference for the zones with 9 states!

where is the tenth state? I hope you are not counting Abuja.

Keneking: You seem to have issues with comprehension...

Is that what you wrote, abi you are trying to redefine the meaning of comprehension.

Keneking: You don't understand English?

Is that what you wrote?

No more confusion, each zone with 9 states each.

Keneking: This creations usually happens after huge fraud has taken place in some of the states to be recreated.
Look at Akwa Ibom, Delta, Abia, Cross River in the south south region of the present 36 states.the plan is to recreate part of them.
EFCC be on the lookout....all these thieves won't go free

what are you saying

With the abolition of local government from the constitution States creation is well in order by me. Remember, states that want to merge will be allowed to merge as long as their state assembly and the people within that state approve via a referendum.

HAH: I know most people on nairaland are young people but in all modesty am not a youth again, I don't know you but I don't want to open my cover to you,

And I can tell you in all confidence that the problem with the Nigerian military in its war against Boko Haram is morale, No one want to die for Nigeria

Fair enough, we are both not youths. I remember clearly, when troops were sent to Liberia, the same thing happened. These were men that fought in the civil war. They started resigning from the army, because they were not ready to return in coffins as many that went there.. Most people never heard about it, because it never made the news. There is always desertion in the army, but this level of propaganda is what I dislike.

HAH: Yes there work was jus check points and basically as it name says peace keeping, infact most soldiers that go to liberia and sierra leaon lobby to be included because of the UN allowance, and when they come back they buy cars and looking fresh with toned skin.

So my bother peace keeping is totally different from war, peace keeping is like separating two people fighting and is never offensive.

Our major problem in the war against BH is morale not weapons or allowances just morale.

Sorry, if I may ask how old are you? Seek out a Liberian and ask them, if Nigerian army came there as peace keepers. They fought for the peace and kept it. The problem with boko haram is sabotage and not morale, look at Cameroon and chad, why are they containing boko haram? How many wars has Cameroon fought? Are they better equipped than us? Are they better paid than us?

You guys need to stop the propaganda its only demoralizing the troops. A very effective tool by boko haram. You don't have to be in Sambisa to propagate their agenda.

HAH: It is not hardware that fights my brither it is the Morale of the soldiers. There is high morake among chadian army that was why when ansaruddin took over northern mali it was only the chadian and french army that confronted and defeated them, the Nigerian army were left doing check point at the outskirt of Bamako along the way to the timbuktou.

The last time Nigerian army were involved in an offensive war was biafra and no serving personel that went to biafra is in service now, all they were doing was peace keeping which is totally different from war.

So what did our army do in Liberia and Sierra lone? Were they carrying out check points duties too?

sweetgala: The fact they gloat at our failure does not disqualify the fact of such a failure.
Our boys are ill equipped and do not want to die for corrupt politicians and generals

So your boys are ill equipped when compared to cameroon and chad armies? Keep blaming corrupt politicians and Generals for a problem that does not exist

No problem, the army has enough guard rooms to house you people.

Mynd44: Which of them are as prepared as the LASG in terms of isolation, identifying and swift response?

Lagos is ground zero, some people are currently isolated in Enugu state. How did that happen, without identifying them and a swift response from both the state and federal governments.. I know Delta state already has isolation units ready to go, if the case arises, we are hoping they are never put to use.