₦airaland Forum

She added that the venues of choice for weddings and receptions are up-market London hotels including The Dorcester, The Landmark Hotel and Claridges.

She added: 'Kensington Palace is another favourite for Nigerians now.'

According to the Historic Royal Palaces, prices for weddings at the Palace start from £12,500 exclusive of catering and VAT.

Elizabeth said after forking out to look her best, a bride will then spend a fortune wining and dining her guests - all three thousand of them.

She explained: 'They will spend the most money on Champagne as you have two to three thousand guests at a traditional Nigerian wedding and they will get a bottle of Champagne each.'

Every bride wants to look a million dollars when they tie the knot - and affluent women from Nigeria are spending just that to achieve it on their big days.

According to a London-based wedding planner, super-rich couples from the West African country can easily blow a small fortune on their nuptials, from spending £100,000 on a designer wedding dress to £150,000 on alcohol.

In-demand event maestro CEO and founder of Prive Luxury Events Elizabeth Aisien says London has become the destination of choice for Africa's wealthy elite when they tie the knot.

'It's a competition, people want something like "wow, she arrived by plane". The bride wants to look good and wear the best of everything.'

As a result, she said brides will pay around £100,000 for a bespoke dress by a designer like Vera Wang and £475,000 on diamond jewellery.

She added that it is not just the bride who will push the boat out on the gems they wear to accessorise an expensive outfit.

'The other women want to make a statement, "I wore this diamond, my diamond is bigger than yours",' Elizabeth explained.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-3289809/Million-pound-brides-Inside-extravagant-London-weddings-super-rich-Nigerian-couples-spend-150-000-bubbly-100-000-dress-6-000-favours.html


It is not unusual to spend a Million. One of the weddings I planned spent £50,000 just on flowers,' she reveals


This means at an average Nigerian wedding, £150,000 will be spent on booze.

And it's not just food and drink lavished on the guests. While at British weddings, attendees may get a token favour like a chocolate, at affluent Nigerian weddings, they will get a gift bag worth thousands.

Such a bag might contain a £345 perfume, a cashmere scarf worth £350 and a £5,000 watch.

With such luxuries being given out at weddings, it is perhaps no surprise that according to Tatler, every third pound currently spent in Harrods is by a Nigerian.

Nigeria is Africa's largest economy as the Niger Delta region in the south holds some of the world's richest oil reserves. A recent world wealth study found the number of millionaires in Nigeria has risen about 305 percent since 2000.

Many of affluent Nigerians are moving to London - helping the city become home to the most billionaires than any other city in the world.



This is why they say the Black Man is CURSED!!!

They might soon downsize to cover up these losses

LONDON Oct 23 (Reuters) - West African crude oil differentials stayed weak on Friday, as cargoes for December export competed with a large overhang of supply from November that had failed to attract buyers.

There were still more than 20 million barrels of Nigerian and Angolan crude due for export in November available, with nearly all of the December cargoes already on the market, traders said.

Traders said activity was particularly quiet as traders were waiting for the results of a number of tenders due next week before committing to selling certain vessels.

Freight rates have fallen this week, which could make West African cargoes more competitive for Asian buyers.

However a rising premium of Brent crude, against which West African oil is benchmarked, to both Dubai and U.S. crudes is acting as a deterrent from buyers from both East and West DUB-EFS-1M CL-LCO1=R.

Weak refining margins in Europe, particularly for diesel, were seen as limiting demand for crude oil in the run-up to the Christmas break in the region.

Adding to the bearish tone, China, one of West Africa's biggest buyers of crude oil, cut its interest rate in a bid to jump start its stuttering economy, underlining its fragile demand situation.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/10/26/us-markets-oil-idUSKCN0SK02O20151026

Crude oil prices remained weak on Monday as a slowing demand outlook implied oversupply will remain in place for months, prompting speculators to cut their bets on rising prices.

Front-month U.S. crude futures were trading at $44.62 per barrel at 2.59 a.m. ET, a mere 2 cents above their last close but more than 12 percent below their October peak.

[b]International benchmark Brent was down 1 cent at $47.98 a barrel, and over 11 percent below this month's high.

Goldman Sachs said that oil prices could drop "sharply lower" as refined product storage sites come close to filling, stoking a glut that has already seen crude prices fall by more than half since June 2014.

ANZ said it expected prices to remain low for the rest of this year, due to slowing demand and as speculators were cutting bets on higher prices.

On the demand side, Energy Aspects said that it "forecast a sharp slowdown in global oil demand across Q4 15 at 0.8 million barrels per day, which marks the slowest pace of growth in five quarters."

Energy Aspects said ongoing oversupply in crude oil was starting to spill into the market for refined products, with a product stock-build of 0.6 million barrels per day seen in the third quarter.

Rising inventories as well as a mild winter expected for Europe and North America as a result of an El Nino weather event would likely lead to reduced refinery production and lower use of crude oil by refiners, it said.

Global oil markets were "still some way from rebalancing", the research agency added.

Due to the low oil prices, investment in the sector in 2016 will likely decline further after sliding this year by more than a fifth,[/b] Fatih Birol, the executive director of the International Energy Agency (IEA), said on Monday.

http://businessdayonline.com/2015/10/cbn-freezes-jv-accounts-in-banks/

The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has frozen the accounts of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) and its joint venture partners in deposit money banks, creating panic among some companies in the Oil and Gas industry.

This follows on the heels of the Federal Government’s decision that all moneys accruing to its agencies .....
http://businessdayonline.com/2015/10/cbn-freezes-jv-accounts-in-banks/

http://nairametrics.com/caught-uba-first-bank-fined-n4-8-billion-for-concealing-tsa-belonging-to-nnpc/


UBA and First Bank has been fined a total sum of N4.8 billion for not remitting all Government funds in their coffers in line with the TSA requirements, Thisday reports. According to the paper, First Bank got a penalty of N1,877,409,905.12 and UBA a penalty of N2,942,189,651.45 for failure to comply. The fines were based on a ‘concealment’ of N37,548,198,102.41 and N58,843,793,029.05 both belonging to the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation’s (NNPC) by First Bank and UBA respectively.



The report quotes a source which explained that both banks did not deliberately fail to remit that instead the failure was due to a miscommunication and that both bank were still very much liquid. First Bank is yet to release their 9 months to September earnings. UBA released its earnings showing deposits was essentially flat between September 2015 and December 2014 at N2.17 trillion.

Bank workers need to pray hard because I predict massive job losses to counter the reduction in profitability due to the exit of this easy money from government.

Banks thrived on COT WHICH IS BEING PHASED OUT AND MULTIPLE HIDDEN GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTS FROM WHICH THEFT OCCURS.

They are all in serious trouble!!

Thereafter, the source said the CBN Director, Banking Supervision, Mrs. Tokunbo Martins, then wrote to the banks asking that they furnish it with information on any unremitted funds, after which it was established that FirstBank and UBA had failed to remit N58.8 billion and N37.5 billion respectively, leading to the imposition of the penalty of N4.819 billion on both banks.


The source explained that FirstBank and UBA were being recalcitrant by refusing to comply with the directive despite repeated efforts by the CBN to get them to transfer the concealed funds.


She however clarified that the concealment was not a reflection on their liquidity, as both banks are very liquid.



Please be careful on how much you have in these banks before they fold up suddenly on us!!

.

We are definitely in an Economic Recession and i advice all Nigerians to buckle up for Austerity. The CBN does not want to tell Nigerians the truth of how bad an economic mess we are in but slowly Nigerians will get to know when they start merging Federal Ministries, massive job losses and a spiraling hyperinflation takes hold due to a lack of foreign exchange for imports.

May we not enter a full blown economic catastrophe!!

Further to the earlier communication on "Reduction in annual spend limit on international transactions", please be informed effective Monday October 26, 2015, all Naira card transactions will have a monthly transaction limit of $2,000 subject to an annual limit of $25,000.

For customers requiring transaction spend above the limit, we advise you to obtain a dollar debit card by opening an individual domiciliary account funded by electronic transfer to ensure continued card usage abroad.

http://www.proshareng.com/news/Forex/Adjustment-of-FX-Annual-Limit-Proshare/28972

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http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3277402/Smoking-gun-emails-reveal-Blair-s-deal-blood-George-Bush-Iraq-war-forged-YEAR-invasion-started.html

Stunning memo proves Blair signed up for Iraq even before Americans - comment by former shadow home secretary David Davis
This is one of the most astonishing documents I have ever read.

It proves in explicit terms what many of us have believed all along: Tony Blair effectively agreed to act as a front man for American foreign policy in advance of any decision by the House of Commons or the British Cabinet.

He was happy to launder George Bush’s policy on Iraq and sub-contract British foreign policy to another country without having the remotest ability to have any real influence over it.

And in return for what? For George Bush pretending Blair was a player on the world stage to impress voters in the UK when the Americans didn’t even believe it themselves.

Blair was content to cynically use Britain’s international reputation for honest dealing in diplomacy, built up over many years, as a shield against worldwide opprobrium for Bush’s ill-considered policy.

Judging from this memorandum, Blair signed up for the Iraq War even before the Americans themselves did. It beggars belief.

Blair was telling MPs and voters back home that he was still pursuing a diplomatic solution while Colin Powell was telling President Bush: ‘Don’t worry, George, Tony is signed up for the war come what may – he’ll handle the PR for you, just make him look big in return.’

It should never be forgotten that a minimum of 120,000 people died as a direct result of the Iraq War.

What is truly shocking is the casualness of it all, such as the reference in the memo to ‘the day after’ – meaning the day after Saddam would be toppled.

The offhand tone gives the game away: it is patently obvious nobody thought about ‘the day after’ when Bush and Blair met in Crawford.
And they gave it no more thought right through to the moment ‘the day after’ came about a year later when Saddam’s statue fell to the ground.

We saw the catastrophic so-called ‘de-Baathification’ of Iraq, with the country’s entire civil and military structure dismantled, leading to years of bloodshed and chaos. It has infected surrounding countries to this day and created the vacuum into which Islamic State has stepped.
This may well be the Iraq ‘smoking gun’ we have all been looking for.

then i hope we dont have a REVOLUTION!!!

Please we need to prepare for austerity

Mr. Emefiele needs creativity from the incoming Finance Minister who is a Financial Genius!!!

This will definitely attempt to kill the middle class in Nigeria and the economy of Lagos.

http://www.vanguardngr.com/2015/10/more-forex-restrictions-coming-nov/

There were indications that foreign exchange market is on further squeeze as tougher measure to control utilization of foreign currency reserves has come on stream in banks.

Some banks’ currency dealers, who spoke to Vanguard yesterday, said that the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, has tightened noose on their foreign exchange transactions with customers by reducing amounts available to individuals.

According to them effective November 1, they will effect a reduction in the annual international spending limit on Naira debit cards from USD50,000 to USD25,000.

Consequently, for customers requiring transaction spending above the limit, they will be required to obtain a dollar debit card by opening an individual domiciliary account funded by electronic transfer to ensure continued card usage abroad.

This would effectively curtail usage of foreign exchange reserves by individual travellers as they would be required to fund such accounts from sources other than the official foreign exchange windows.

It would also track usage of the Naira debit cards for illicit funds movements out of the country.

http://www.vanguardngr.com/2015/10/abuja-bombings-police-arrest-two-suspects/

The Nigeria Police on Tuesday in Abuja said it had arrested two suspects in connection with the Oct. 2 bombings in Nyanya and Kuje, FCT. It would be recalled that 20 persons died and 21 others were injured in the blasts in the two satellite towns. The Inspector-General of Police (I-G), Mr Solomon Arase, who confirmed the arrest at the Conference of Senior Police Officers, said that the suspects aged 25 and 27 were from Kogi.


He said that the arrest had foiled an attempt by the suspects to undertake another attack in the FCT. Arase said that 12 already prepared and prime Home Made Explosives (HME) concealed in 12 Farouk soft drinks cans and 28 pieces of electric detonators were recovered from the suspects.

“The suspects are aiding detailed police investigations into their broad terror network and will be brought to deserve justice,”he said. The I-G assured that the police would continue to deploy its potentials to ensure public safety that could be attained by the cooperation of the public. He urged the media to continue to support the police in order to attain the national crime and security vision of the present administration.

Let us tighten our belts for AUSTERITY

Nigeria needs prayers

What will the new Finance Minister do? We need an Urgent Economic Summit!!

http://nairametrics.com/heres-how-much-fg-earned-from-oil-in-eight-months/


http://businessdayonline.com/2015/10/nnpcs-export-receipts-decline-by-67-percent-to-607-8m/


http://www.vanguardngr.com/2015/10/banking-sector-shrinks-in-second-quarter/

http://www.vanguardngr.com/2015/10/imf-urges-cbn-to-review-forex-policy/

http://dailyindependentnig.com/2015/10/foreign-exchange-inflow-falls-by-n678bn/

Oil and gas export receipts at the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) have witnessed a sharp decline of more than 67 percent from September 2014, when the receipts hit their peak, to July 2015, resulting in a relatively paltry remittance of $607.8 million to the Federation Accounts Allocation Committee (FAAC) in the year 2015.


A breakdown of the oil and gas proceeds showed that $0.61billion was remitted to the Federation Account as dollar proceeds while the balance of $2.815billion was used to fund the NNPC Joint Venture (JV) cash call (counterpart funding) within the period.

Kachikwu stated that the continued decline in oil price led to insufficient cash available to meet monthly JV cash calls obligations of about $615.8million as appropriated by the National Assembly.

To mitigate this effect, the Corporation was compelled to sweep all the export receipts to JV cash call funding implying a zero dollar proceed remittance to the Federation Account since April.

We need to diversify our economy ASAP!!

Our oil is the same grade type with shale oil produced in America so they will be in direct competition with us and they will have a greater advantage of penetrating Asian Markets due to the shorter shipping time from the West Coast to Asian economies.

They are really about to turn our economy upside down. God please save Nigeria!!

Breaking News - We now have stiff competition to market our crude, just see what the United States has done:-


WASHINGTON–The House of Representatives passed Friday afternoon a bill lifting the crude oil export ban by a bipartisan 261-159 vote.

Texas Reps. Joe Barton, R-Arlington, and Henry Cuellar, D-Laredo, spearheaded the effort to tear down the 1970s-era ban with a coalition of industry interests behind them.

House Majority Whip Steve Scales, R-La. praised Barton for pushing ahead on an issue some considered a non-starter.

“About a year ago this time, nobody was talking about lifting the ban on crude oil exports except Joe Barton,” said Scalise. “Joe continued to beat the drum, but he also continued to build a wide bipartisan team to say this relic of the 1970′s has to go.”


Supporters claim lifting the ban will bolster the United States economy and let international allies dependent on Russian and Iranian oil switch over to American crude.

“The House’s vote today to overturn the crude oil export ban is a strong step toward a more prosperous U.S. energy sector,” said Cuellar in a statement. He expects crude oil exports to increase GDP by $134 billion and raise government revenues by $29 billion.

“Can you imagine more American made energy coursing through a stronger U.S. economy and flowing to our allies around the world?,” said Rep, Kevin Brady, R-The Woodlands. “This is [Russian President Vladimir] Putin’s worst nightmare and a dream for one million American families still looking for a good, paying job.”

The bill now goes the Senate, where it would need six Democratic votes to beat a filibuster. Sen. John Cornyn praised the House for taking “a long overdue step in the right direction” and said he’s eager to push the bill along in the upper chamber.

“Eliminating the de facto ban on crude oil exports is long past due,” added Sen. Ted Cruz in a statement. “This ban is a relic of 1970s price controls, and like most of the 70’s fads, this one is far past its prime.”

But President Barack Obama said Wednesday he’d likely veto the bill, and Republican supporters panned him for threatening to kneecap an effort they believe bolsters the American economy and national security

“There is really a simple question: You stand with America or you stand with Russia,” said Brady. “The answer from the House today is we’re standing with America.”

Four of the 20 Texan co-sponsors are Democrats, including Fort Worth Rep. Marc Veasey, who said the bill will have an outsized impact on Texas.

“This bipartisan bill grows our Texas and national economy while simultaneously positioning the United States as a global supplier of energy,” said Veasey in a statement. “Texas is leading our country in energy production and we should be working towards strengthening our nation’s energy independence and lowering costs at the pump for our families and businesses.”

But handful of Texas Democrats, including co-sponsor Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson of Dallas, voted against the bill, citing environmental concerns.

Rep. Joaquin Castro, D-San Antonio, said he’s supported crude oil exports before, but said Republicans didn’t give Democrats a chance to fix the bill.

“Republicans took a ‘my way or the highway’ approach and rejected the inclusion of provisions that would improve the legislation,” said Castro in a statement, citing funding for environmental protections. “I look forward to seeing how the Senate handles the issue, and am hopeful they pass a more balanced, complete bill.”

http://trailblazersblog.dallasnews.com/2015/10/texans-celebrate-house-passage-of-bill-lifting-crude-oil-export-ban.html/

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2015/10/09/house-oks-lifting-40-year-old-us-ban-on-crude-oil-exports/

Venezuela did not invest in the future. Now its oil infrastructure is rotting. Production is in serial decline. And the oil price has collapsed to boot.

This is bad news for a government that generates a huge proportion of its revenue from oil exports.

And just like how the United States and most of the West can’t balance their budgets without going even further into debt, Venezuela’s government also spends far more than it generates in revenue.

Especially now. With the government’s budget deficit at 14% of GDP, they’re barely able to make their debt payments this month without defaulting.

In fact, Venezuela is so screwed up that the government doesn’t have a hope of balancing its budget unless the oil price is between $100 and $120 per barrel.

Thus, they’ve had to resort to even more destructive ways of making ends meet.

Like most governments, that means printing money.

The problem is: the Venezuelan bolivar isn’t used as a reserve currency around the world like the US dollar or euro.

That is what has enabled the US to get away with its relentless printing so far, as much of the resulting inflation is simply exported abroad.

Instead, here when they print bolivars, Venezuelans are stuck with all of it. Zimbabwe style.

Inflation in Venezuela has been among the highest in the world, with some private estimates as high as 800%.

Once that became a problem, their solution was to introduce price controls, which failed miserably. Venezuela infamously tried fixing prices in the grocery stores and ended up with crippling shortages of everything from beef to toilet paper.

Then they decided to try capital controls by forcing a completely absurd ‘official’ exchange rate to the local currency.

And that’s what makes this country so expensive.

The official rate of the bolivar is 6.3 per US dollar. But the black market rate is over 60x higher.

Last night I met up with a local guy who had sacks of cash hidden all around his house, and I changed $50 for 20,000 bolivares. That’s a rate of 400 per US dollar.

It’s an unbelievable difference. 6.3 under the official rate. 400 in the black market.

My taxi ride yesterday really cost me 1,000 bolivares. Using the black market rate, that’s a pittance at just $2.50. But using the official rate, it’s $158.

So depending on which exchange rate you use, Venezuela can either be one of the cheapest countries in the world, or the most expensive.

But as you can imagine, exchanging currency in the black market carries SEVERE penalties.

And that’s not all they’re doing to prevent people from protecting themselves against a rapidly depreciating bolivar.

They’ve even tried blocking access to Bitcoin-exchange websites to prevent people from purchasing crypto-currency.

(Though these efforts are easily defeated by using a VPN.)

Desperate to make ends meet in an environment where they see their savings and standards of living deteriorate by the day, many people have been driven to crime.

Caracas used to be a paradise; now it’s one of the most dangerous cities in the world.

It’s a damn shame too, because this is a really wonderful country. And were it not for the crime, Venezuela would be a top retirement destination, attracting many an expat looking to live like royalty on $1,000 per month.

But that’s not the case. Instead, Venezuela is sinking to rock bottom, and people here are suffering immeasurably.

All of this was brought on by yet another experiment in ‘central planning for the greater good’ gone dreadfully wrong.

Too much spending created too much debt and too much money printing, which in turn created too much inflation.

Inflation then led to price controls. Capital controls. Media controls. Destroying people’s standards of living. Appalling levels of violent crime.

They say the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Venezuela is a case in point, and shows just how short that road can actually be.

Westerners always think that these sorts of consequences can’t happen where they live, as if the laws of the financial universe only apply south of the border.

http://debka.com/article/24929/With-Russia%E2%80%99s-Dep-Army-Chief-due-in-Israel-Moscow-posts-64-S-300-ship-to-air-missiles-off-Syria-N-Israel


The presence of the wide-ranging S-300s means that the Turkish, British, Israeli and Jordanian air forces will need to coordinate their aerial operations in Syrian or Lebanese airspace with Russia, or face the risk of their planes being shot down.

In the view of DEBKAfile’s military sources, the only aircraft capable of evading those advanced missiles are stealth planes. Neither the Israeli, British, Jordanian or Turkish air forces, nor the US squadron in Turkey consisting of F-16 fighters, have such aircraft at their disposal.
The S-300 has a range of 150 kilometers and can shoot down any type of missile, including cruise missiles, as well as planes.

If US President Obama truly wanted to deal effectively with Moscow’s military moves in Syria, besides saying that Russia is bound to fail, he would have ordered the deployment of US stealth fighters to Turkey and Israel. However,may have been held back from this step by fear of antagonizing Iran, which has so far delayed sealing the nuclear agreement with the world powers by putting it to vote in parliament.

The presence of Moskva off the shores of Syria and close to northern Israel creates a new situation that will very likely be discussed in the talks that start Tuesday in Tel Aviv between Russia’s deputy chief of staff and his Israeli counterpart, IDF Gen. Yair Golan.

Although Russian President Vladimir Putin promised Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu during their summit in Moscow on September 21 not to allow S-300 missiles reach the hands of the Syrian military, he made no promises about positioning them on a Russian warship in the Mediterranean facing Syria and northern Israel.
.
Our military sources point out that Russian air strikes have not been confined to any single area so far, but the injection of S-300s into the war arena widens the Russian air force's options.

In an interview with CNN on October 4, Prime Minister Netanyahu described how the Russian operation in Syria had affected relations with Moscow. "We don't want to go back to the days when, you know, Russia and Israel were in an adversarial position,” he said. “I think we've changed the relationship. And it's, on the whole, good.” He added that Israel’s close relations with the US were in a completely different and special category.

When asked whether he thought Russia’s intervention would cause instability in the region, he seemed to avoid giving a detailed response, only saying, “I don't know. I think time will tell”.