₦airaland Forum

Buhari's administration has just bitten the finger that feeds his country.

Nigeria has all she needs to commence the production of these drugs. Only God knows why we don't want to achieve this.

Drug distributors and importers have expressed concerns over the rising number of COVID-19 cases in India, which has inevitably led to a massive death toll and temporary closure of factories.

Among other things, they warned that patients, especially those with chronic ailments such as cancer, tuberculosis, human immunodeficiency virus, and diabetes, were at risk due to an impending drug scarcity.

This is just as physicians in the country called for understanding, adding that the situation could be managed without being panicky.

As of Friday, India’s coronavirus infection had hit 30 million cases, with around 4,000 deaths daily.

Worried by the development, the Pharmaceutical Wholesalers and Distributors Association of Nigeria on Thursday raised the alarm that Nigeria risked running out of its current stock of pharmaceutical and medical supply.

The association premised its warning on the rising cases of COVID-19 in India, which is arguably Nigeria’s biggest drug importing hub.

The President of the Nigerian Association of Pharmacists and Pharmaceutical Scientists in the Americas, Dr Anthony Ikeme, had also last year emphatically stated that the country expended an estimated $600m (about N276bn) annually on imported drugs from China and India.

Ikeme warned that unless the Federal Government developed and executed a blueprint for the economic development of the pharmaceutical industry, the country might pay heavily for its over-reliance on the South Asian country for most medical and pharmaceutical supplies.

Speaking with Sunday PUNCH, PWDAN Chairman, Dr Ernest Okafor, expressed concerns that with the temporary closure of some factories, shipping drugs from India was becoming a daunting task.

He said, “Now that COVID-19 is seriously ravaging the country, we cannot even call our Indian partners for products. They won’t answer you because they are not operating right now.

“The truth is, once you miss your source for water, that channel dries up. We are the feeder end, not the source. Among the world powers, it is said that when America sneezes, Africa catches a cold. The same thing is playing out. I am not a prophet of doom but I fear more is coming.

“I say that because we have more of Indian representation than Chinese in the products portfolio that we are importing into the country.”

According to the pharmacist, the pandemic has resulted in massive disruptions in global supply chains, adding that Nigeria, in particular, is vulnerable as over 70 per cent of its drugs supply is imported from India and China.

He said, “I may not have the proper statistics but, give or take, about 60 per cent of imported products being circulated in the country are from India. Just as we have PWDAN, Indian representatives also have their own association here in the country.

“That is why I said whatever affects that region will definitely affect Nigeria, not to talk of the scarcity of active pharmaceutical ingredients. Instead of giving incentives to manufacturers, what the government should do is put resources together to build a petrochemical industry.

“If the Federal Government can take care of electricity and the petrochemical industry, they will rev up the economy and create employment,” he said.

Another drug distributor, Ogheneochuko Omaruaye, also confirmed the development.

Omaruaye, who doubles as PWDAN Vice Chairman, said drugs like paracetamol or branded essential medicines were gradually leaving pharmacy shelves.

He said, “The generic drugs are becoming scarce as a result of the pandemic ravaging the Indian population. It is naturally expected that things like this might happen.

“However, when the drugs become available again, our responsibility in PWDAN is to make them available in the same way and manner that they have been manufactured to retailers with patients as the end-users. We are hoping to properly address this matter.”

A pharmacist and the National Chairman, Association of Pharmaceutical Importers of Nigeria, Nnamdi Obi, also said most factories in India were functioning below optimal level because of the situation in the Asian country.

“Once we exhaust the stock we have presently in the market space and the situation in India doesn’t improve, the reality will dawn on Nigeria,” he said.

Another pharmacist, Olabanji Obideyi, said certain drugs had already been out of stock due to the situation in India.

“For HIV, TB and diabetes patients, they are going to be badly hit, because there is no drug security. Some drugs have been scarce in recent times. There is no way the situation in India won’t affect us. Most of the drugs we consume in Nigeria are from India,” he said.

Doctors allay fear, eye China, Europe

However, some doctors have allayed the fears of Nigerians over how the situation in India affects the importation of drugs into Nigeria.

The doctors said the drugs usually imported from India could also be purchased at European countries and China, though at higher prices.


A consultant clinical oncologist at the Federal Medical Centre, Abeokuta, Dr Alabi Babatunde, said the drug importers who would be affected were those procuring their drugs from pharmaceutical representatives and hospital pharmacies.

He said, “They procure their drugs from pharmaceutical representatives and hospital pharmacies. It is likely they will be affected, especially when the products are coming from India. As it were, I know that Indian drugs are usually cheaper than those from European nations.

“What it means is that most patients would be left with no choice but to buy the expensive ones available. I understand that India’s human capital is seriously affected by the pandemic. When that happens, a nation will have no choice but to close shops.”

Also, a clinical oncologist at the College of Medicine, University of Lagos, Prof Francis Durosinmi-Etti, said there was no cause for alarm.

He said the probability of the country running out of cancer drugs, for instance, was low.

His optimism was equally shared by the Director of the Federal Medical Centre, Ebute Metta, Dr Adedamola Dada.

“It’s true a large volume of pharmaceutical products comes from India, and the ongoing pandemic would affect drug supply and prices all over the world. But we are coping, and we will continue to cope. I am convinced Nigerians would continue to get all necessary drugs,” he stated.

LASG converts COVID-19 wards to TB, HIV sections

Meanwhile, the Lagos State Government has officially decommissioned the remaining volunteer health workers managing COVID-19 patients at the Infectious Disease Hospital in Yaba.

The decommissioning became necessary after the isolation facility discharged the last set of COVID-19 patients, according to the state Commissioner for Information and Strategy, Gbenga Omotoso.

Omotoso also confirmed that many of the previous ICUs that accommodated infected persons had been converted to admission wards for TB and HIV patients.

The commissioner told our correspondent that he did not see anything strange in readmitting TB and HIV patients in the former isolation wards because the facilities were originally established to accommodate infectious disease patients.

The development at the isolation facilities had taken a twist last week when some of the decommissioned volunteers, in separate interviews, accused the state of subtly throwing them out of the facilities without paying their three-month remunerations.

“How fair is it to decommission people who had worked from January to March, taking care of COVID-19 patients, without paying them?” one of them identified only as Bimpe had queried.

When our correspondent visited the facility to verify the claim, it was gathered that only a few volunteers recruited from the private sector were paid two of their three-month remunerations.

One of the workers who spoke on condition of anonymity disclosed that IDH started admitting HIV and TB patients on April 30, which was their last day at the facility.

“They have wards A, B and C. The TB and HIV patients were admitted at wards A and B while Ward C was reserved for suspected and confirmed COVID-19 cases. As of the time we left, they no longer had COVID-19 patients again. They were only taking care of HIV and TB patients,” the worker said.

Mortality rate for ‘very’ sick COVID-19 patients in Africa higher than normal –Study

Meanwhile, a new groundbreaking study on COVID-19 by Africa-based professors has indicated that adult mortality from 30 days of the coronavirus, after being admitted to critical care with suspected or confirmed infection, appeared considerably high in Africa.

A critical factor in these excess deaths may be a lack of intensive care resources and underuse of it, the researchers noted in the study, published on Friday in the British medical journal, The Lancet.

The News Agency of Nigeria reported that the study focused on 64 hospitals in 10 countries – Egypt, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Libya, Malawi, Mozambique, Niger, Nigeria, and South Africa.

Prof Akinyinka Omigbodun of the University College Hospital, Ibadan, Oyo State, and Prof Adesoji Ademuyiwa of the Lagos University Teaching Hospital were the leads in the Nigerian study.

The researchers said the challenges faced by critically ill Nigerian COVID-19 patients could be partly mitigated by ensuring the availability of the human and material resources needed for their care.

“It can be demoralising for health personnel to watch helplessly as patients succumb to the shortage of oxygen needed to keep them alive till the body can tackle the virus,” they said.


https://punchng.com/india-factories-closure-tb-cancer-patients-others-face-risk-over-looming-drug-scarcity/

Indigenous investors to follow in like manner. I wonder what will be left of the NSE after that.

• Operators lament effect of social unrest on equities investment
• Capital flights will persist unless FG prioritises security, job creation, economists warn

The prevailing insecurity in the country and other macroeconomic challenges have continued to hamper investment in the stock market, with foreign investors pulling out N1.64 trillion from the market in three years. In 2018, N642.65 billion in foreign portfolio investment outflow was recorded, while foreign investors withdrew N523.42 billion and N481.93 billion during the corresponding period in 2019 and 2020.

Latest data from the Nigerian Exchange Limited (NGX) show that foreign investors withdrew N30.79 billion in January, N39.05 billion in February and N20.28 billion in March 2021, while domestic investors pulled out N86.35 billion in January, N69.28 billion in February and N93.31 billion during the same period.

Foreign inflow within the same period in 2018, 2019 and 2020 stood at N576.45 billion, N419.13 billion and N247.27 billion, totalling N1.24 trillion.

This huge outflow of capital has led to concerns about impact on the economy, as operators predict the precarious state of the stock market could worsen if factors impeding the nation’s economic growth were not tackled soon. Operators said that given the increasing level of insecurity, kidnapping, recurrent farmers-herders clashes, unemployment, weak naira and GDP growth, rising inflation and dwindling revenue, government has to evolve new strategies to stop investment outflows.

The Guardian gathered that fund managers, Pension Fund Administrators (PFAs) and other investment companies were already pulling their funds from the stock market to fixed income market to ensure guaranteed investment return and avoid erosion of capital.

Nigeria is currently ranked 147th globally, according to the Global Peace Index (GPI) report released in November 2020, making it the third most terrorised country in the world for the second year running after Afghanistan and Iraq.

Head, FSL Securities, Victor Chiazor, noted that fears around investments had become visible in the equity space, going by the NGX foreign portfolio report, which shows the inflows and outflow of foreign investments as well as the percentage of both foreign investment and domestic investment for each month.

He said activities in January and February 2021 have shown significant increase in foreign investment outflows while domestic investments have dominated activities in the market. “Despite investment opportunities in the Nigerian equity market, given the relatively low prices of stocks, 2020 saw a total foreign outflow of N481.93 billion against an inflow of N247.27 billion while the month of February 2021 saw foreign outflow of N39 billion from the equities market compared to an inflow of N23 billion.”

He insisted that if the investment climate did not change in relation to the government’s monetary and fiscal policies as well as improvement in economic conditions, investments inflow into the country might eventually dry up.

Vice President of Highcap Securities Limited, David Adonri, said the primary market for equities, which is tied to the fundamentals of the economy, has been comatose since 2015, while capital formation is paltry, due to weak macroeconomic fundamentals of the economy.

The primary market is the essence of the capital market. It forms equity capital, which the Nigerian economy direly needs to create wealth and generate productive employment for youths.

He argued that for issuers to approach the market to raise capital, there must be some reasonable level of recovery in the economy to sustain the current bull-run.

Specifically, he charged the Federal Government to restrategise and address current macroeconomic concerns, promote issues of national development, tackle prevailing stock market volatility, restore the market to sustainable rebound, and attract new issues to the nation’s bourse.

He said the late rally in equity market in last quarter of 2020, which took the secondary market to a high level, was not a yardstick to gauge investors’ confidence but a mere fallout from monetary policy adjustment.

“In May 28, 2015, a day before President Muhammadu Buhari assumed office, the size of the Nigerian economy, measured by GDP was $594.76 billion. The foreign exchange rate per dollar was N197 and foreign debt was $15 billion. Inflation rate was 8.7 per cent. After five years, the economy as at December 2020 had shrunk to $487 billion, official foreign exchange rate per dollar is now N411, Inflation rate is 18.35 per cent and foreign debt has ballooned to almost $40 billion.”

Adonri noted that for the greater part of the past five years, no week passed without some horrifying insecurity experiences and calls by various stakeholders on the Federal Government to put a stop to the escalating crises. “When manufacturers will produce and find it difficult to market their goods, how would listed companies do well? Banks have closed most of their branches in some of these regions where these killing are persistent. Beverage and confectionery companies are the most affected by insecurity and killings.”

Adonri said stock inventories of the firms were high because they could not deploy their staff to areas prone to attack. He argued that war, insecurity and social disorder are disincentive to investment, adding that no investor will stake his fund to a country where his investment cannot be protected.

According to analysts, the overall weak macroeconomic scenario sustained negative market sentiments in the past few years, coupled with the tensed socio-political space, has not encouraged successful primary market activities. It is also on record that some planned IPOs have remained on hold due to prevailing negative market sentiments, driven by growing uncertainties fuelled by unstable oil prices, and other macro-economic challenges

Since the global financial crisis of 2008 till date, no fewer than six companies have approached the market for IPO issuance. However, the listing of Seplat Petroleum Development Company Plc. and Transcorp Hotels Plc., in 2015, ended several years of IPO drought in the capital market. While Seplat, a global IPO, was 100 per cent successful, Transcorp Hotels recorded only 50 per cent subscription.

After four years of zero record from 2015, hope of a return of the era of IPOs was rekindled with the offer for sale of SAHCO Plc’s 406,074,000 ordinary shares of 50 kobo each at N4.65 per share in 2018. Since then, no company has approached the market for a new listing.

Sheriffdeen Tella, a professor of economics at Olabisi Onabanjo University, Ago-Iwoye, said profit-taking and capital flights will persist in stock market unless government prioritises issues of insecurity and unemployment in Nigeria.

Tella pointed out that when an economy faces downturn, potential investors are scared to invest while existing ones develop apathy and engage in profit-taking. He argued that the level of security in a particular jurisdiction is a major factor that attracts or lures foreign investors to the market before the issue of return on investment is considered.

Director-General of Lagos Chambers of Commerce and Industry, Muda Yusuf, said investors’ confidence has been adversely affected by the worsening security situation, coupled with other macro-economic challenges bedeviling the country in the past few years. “The stock market has been facing multiple headwinds in recent times. The immediate causal factor is the rebound of money market yields and the positive trajectory of returns in the fixed income market. The economy is still struggling to recover from the shocks of the COVID-19 pandemic. The reality is that the stock market typically reflects the health of the economy,” he said.

Aligning with other experts, Segun Ajibola, Professor of Economics, Babcock University, noted that one of the key considerations in taking investment decisions is the state of security and other macro-economic variables of the country under consideration. The don noted that if existing and prospective investors are not sure of the extent the negative impact of insecurity, hostile environment, uncertainties in government policies, banditry, economic lockdown, among others, could have on their returns on investment, they take the easy way of divesting existing investments.

“For the stock market, a key inducement to invest is the ability of the business operators raising funds through that market to conduct their businesses without restraints. Insecurity is a major clog on business operations, which may restrict companies’ performances and hence returns on investment and dividend payout. I believe this is part of what the country is going through.”

https://m.guardian.ng/news/foreign-investors-pull-out-n1-64tr-from-stock-market-over-insecurity/

The security situation in Nigeria will get worse. Politicians are the reason behind the worsening insecurity in our nation. No matter the type of solution we put forward to steer the tide, dubious politicians will go around it and instigate more crisis in the system.

•Atiku, Obi: Nigeria needs leadership with political will

•Christians, Muslims go spiritual in Niger

•UNIJOS directs immediate vacation of students from hostels

•Protesters block Abuja-Kaduna expressway over kidnapping

Chuks Okocha and Olawale Ajimotokan in Abuja, Segun James in Lagos, Laleye Dipo and Seriki Adinoyi in Jos

Eminent Nigerians, yesterday, stated that government needed the to summon the political will to act decisively to end the insecurity and criminalities going on in the country.

Former vice president and Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) presidential candidate in the 2019 general election, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, and his running mate, Mr. Peter Obi, said what Nigeria needed most to overcome the present state of insecurity was leadership and political will.

Pastor of Trinity House church and convener of Africa Leadership Group (ALG), Pastor Ituah Ighodalo, in a State of The Nation address held at the church’s premises in Victoria Island, Lagos, maintained that more decisiveness on the part of the government can end, the insecurity in the country.

Similarly, Bishop of Sokoto Diocese, Matthew Kukah, said the Buhari government should show more empathy in the wake of mindless killings of innocent Nigerians across the country. Kukah said rather than just issue statements, the president should act like one who felt the pain of the people.

In a related development, Christian and Muslim faithful in Niger State have resorted to seeking divine intervention in the problem of kidnapping in their communities. Adherents of the two major religions fixed special prayers for today, Sunday May 2.

In Plateau State, the management of the University of Jos directed all students to vacate the hostels in the university.

An internal memorandum signed by the university’s Deputy Registrar, Information, Mr Abdullah Abdullahi, said the development followed an emergency meeting of the university’s management with the Dean of Students Affairs, Chief Security Officer, and President of Students Union Government (SUG), and external security agencies on April 30.

Meanwhile, a massive protest, yesterday, led to the disruption of traffic along the busy Abuja-Kaduna Road. Scores of people lined up the roads protesting against the spate of kidnappings, which had created a sense of insecurity across the country.

A barricade was reportedly set up at Goni Gora in Chikum at the Kaduna end of the strategic road, which connects the northern part of the country with the south.

Atiku, who took to his verified Twitter handle, said the challenges currently facing Nigeria were enormous but surmountable.

According to him, “Yes, the challenges we face are enormous, but they are surmountable. What we need is the leadership and the will to do what is right for our country and its people.”

He explained that it is political sagacity and the right attitude that could drive investors’ confidence to tackle poverty and unemployment in the country.

“But for as long as we do not address this worsening state of insecurity, the investments needed to lift our nation out of its current abyss shall continue to elude us, unemployment will worsen, and poverty rife,” Atiku said.

On his part, Obi advised Nigerians, irrespective of party affiliation, to join hands in tackling the challenges facing the country, the major ones he listed as insecurity, poverty, and unemployment. He said Nigeria was fast becoming a failed state, adding that the downward spiral should not be allowed to continue.

The former PDP vice presidential candidate posted on his Twitter handle, “All Nigerians, irrespective of party and other affiliations, should immediately join hands to tackle the spectre of insecurity, poverty, and unemployment that are now ruling and ruining our dear country. We are fast becoming a failed state.

“We cannot allow the downward spiral to continue. The government should also urgently seek foreign help.”

Speaking on his conviction that if Buhari rose to the challenge, insecurity would be defeated, Ighodalo stated, “Insecurity across Nigeria is a clear and present danger to the wellbeing of the country.

“Terrorists and bandits and kidnappers and ritualists are on the prowl. No one is safe. Not on the road. Not in your home. There appears to be no hiding place. The chicken is home to roost. For years, the country had been planting in the wind. Now it is harvesting in the whirlwind.”

He warned, “It is only a fool, who does the same thing the same way and would expect a different result. The way Nigeria is right now is not working. A sensible thing is to course correct and save Nigeria from shipwreck.”

The pastor also had hash words for politicians, whom he accused of selfishness, greed and wickedness, saying: “Our politics is broken. There’s little doubt about this. Our political parties do not approximate the aggregation of interests and they are not driven by any discernible ideology.”

Lamenting that the experience of Nigeria had been the case of serial bungling, Ighodalo said, “A combination of many factors including lack of vision and leadership has made Nigeria a sorry case.”

He urged the people to work hard at changing the personality, character, attitude and the mind of the average Nigerian.

Kukah, who spoke at the 2021 edition of The Platform, an annual conference organised by Senior Pastor of the Covenant Christian Centre, Lagos, Poju Oyemade, said Buhari should have spoken with his American counterpart, Joe Biden, last week, and not US Secretary of State, Anthony Blinken.

According to the Catholic priest, “Of course, all of us are angry but in my view, the challenge therefore is what kind of palliative do we need to calm our nerves and I am not talking here of the palliatives in the way and manner that we understand them but something needs to happen to send out a signal to Nigerians that things are under control.

“With the fact that we have the US Secretary of State speaking to us virtually, we would have preferred that our president spoke to the president of America rather than the Secretary of State, but anyway, half bread is better than nothing.

I want to assure that this is a sign that we are going somewhere but we need to quickly get our people together, the need to rally our people together both to support government and otherwise is very urgent. We cannot do this if our country is divided between those who love the party and those who don’t love the party. We are in a democracy and we want to believe that this democracy has to be nurtured and the best we can do is not to subvert the process but to continue to uphold the ideals before those who are in power.”

Kukah continued, “On the issue of Nigerians dying, government has come very short and this is what is increasing the pain, the agony, the sorrow of people that we are dying alone, burying our people alone and all we get are just simple statements that really say nothing to us. The lack of empathy and the deployment of empathy have consequences.

“Government must have a sense of empathy and I have said this severally and I do not mean anything negative and everywhere you turn, this is what Nigerians are saying that people are dying and you do not get a sense that those who govern us understand our pain because we have not seen them on condolence visits.

“Empathy is not sympathy, empathy is at the heart of who we are as human beings; it is the feeling of the sorrow, of the pain of the other person, indeed, entering the skin of the other person. It does not bring healing immediately but there is a certain kind of psychological comfort that it gives.”

In Niger State today, adherents of the two major religions in the country – Islam and Christianity – are gathering for special prayers for the state and the country. The prayers are to be simultaneously held in churches and mosques across the state, according to directives given to church leaders by the state chapter of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) and the League of Imams in the state.

The CAN statement was signed on behalf of the state chairman, Reverend Mathias Echioda by the Assistant Secretary Pastor Raphael Opawoye, while Malam Umar Farouq Abdullahi, Secretary, Imams forum and Director General, Bureau for Religious Affairs, initialled the document for the Muslims.

The statement by the Imams forum read in part: “Following the activities of bandits, kidnappers, terrorists and all other vile entities, which have ravaged and displaced tens of thousands of persons across villages, communities and towns in the state, the Imams’ Forum of Niger State in collaboration with traditional councils and other Islamic organisations in the state invite the Muslim Ummah to special prayer gatherings for restoration of peace to the state holding across the eight Emirate Councils”

CAN, in their statement, stated, “CAN, Niger State, is calling on all churches to set a particular time of the coming Sunday service (2/5/21) and pray for both the state and our Nation against our insecurity challenges”.

CAN further announced joint three days of prayer and fasting, commencing on Wednesday, to end on Friday.

UNIJOS Directs Immediate Vacation of Students Hostels

The management of the University of Jos, Plateau State, has directed all students to vacate the hostels in the university following security threats to the institution. An internal memorandum by the university’s deputy registrar, information, Mr Abdullah Abdullahi, said the development followed an emergency meeting of the management of the university with the Dean of Students Affairs, Chief Security Officer, and President of Students Union Government (SUG), and external security agencies on April 30.

Abdullahi said the meeting deliberated on a security report regarding threat to the university staff, students and their property, adding that the report alleged that soft targets, like the hostels, were at great risk.

The statement said, “In the light of the above, the hostels are to be closed with immediate effect. This is in the interest of the safety of students until all security measures have been perfected to protect the campuses as well as the hostels.”

The school directed that all ongoing examinations continue unhindered, though it did not indicate where the students that are vacating the hostels would put up while the exams last.

Protesters Block Abuja Kaduna Expressway over Kidnapping

People staged a massive protest yesterday along the busy Abuja-Kaduna Road against the spate of kidnappings, which has increased insecurity across the country, leading to the disruption of traffic along that axis.

The barricade was set up at Goni Gora in Chikum at the Kaduna end of the strategic road, which connects the northern part of the country with the south. The blockade on both sides of the road totally cut off traffic from Abuja and those originating from Kaduna.

The atmosphere was charged, as the youth were joined in the protest by other members of the community, including women with babies strapped on their backs.

Security operatives appeared helpless as the boisterous protesters, who shunned all entreaties to remove the barricades, interrupted the flow of traffic.

Many commuters, trucks, and articulated vehicles carrying goods to Kaduna and other parts of the country were stranded and spent several agonising hours in the traffic.

 https://www.thisdaylive.com/index.php/2021/05/02/fg-needs-political-will-to-end-growing-insecurity-say-eminent-nigerians/

This present administration makes promises they can never implement. That N98billion can be said to be "the more you look, the less you see it".

A great advice for the clueless politicians occupying the seat of power in Aso rock.

What kind of support does he think he will get from the US that has its own domestic problems?

When it comes to voting rights, NIN is not necessary.

Who else can see the handwriting on the wall?

Lol

This is a very sad situation. May his soul rest in peace.

The father of one of the 39 students kidnapped from the Federal College of Forestry Mechanisation in Mando, Kaduna, Ibrahim Shamaki, died yesterday of what sources called anguish.

News of Shamaki’s death came on a day when other parents of the kidnapped students met with the state government on the fate of the abduction victims.

The Nation gathered that Shamaki died apparently  of anguish caused by the abduction of his daughter, Fatima Ibrahim.

Fatina was identified as the girl with hijab in the video released by the bandits barely 24 hours after the abduction of the 39 students.

In the video, Fatima speaking in Hausa, said the bandits threatened to kill all of them in the event of the government sending troops to rescue them.

They had urged Governor Nasir El-Rufai to negotiate with the bandits to secure the safe release of their children.

The bandits are demanding a N500 million ransom for their release.

https://thenationonlineng.net/father-of-kidnapped-kaduna-college-student-dies/

Aconomist:
why are you looking for problems?

Abeg help me ask the guy.

Vulcanheph:
Story for the gods.

Ameachi won't lie to Nigerians, especially when it has to do with infrastructural development of the southern part of Nigeria where he hails from.

This project is of utmost importance to his future political plans and pursuits.

meobizy:
There’s nothing to fear. I’ll create a study to disprove this study.

Hope your study subjects won't lose their manhood at the end of your study?

Who would have thought that face mask can be harmful to our manhood?

This will be great if the project is not only commenced, but also completed before he leaves office in 2023.

"SAY NO TO ABANDONED PROJECTS" - We the people.

No worries at all.

The students will pay for the destruction they caused when they return for their clearance.

agwom:
https://dailytrust.com/why-nigerias-maternal-mortality-amongst-highest-in-the-world

Great article

Liverpool 4; 3 Leeds

THE worse is yet to come. By then, most states with armed miscreants who are also grossly uneducated and frustrated by their poverty stricken lives will make your states ungovernable.

helinues:
The rubber stamp voters now

Lol

The generations yet unborn will pay our debts. This is the wicked legacy and inheritance we are leaving behind for them.

......Continued

It was former vice-president Atiku Abubakar’s intervention earlier this month that raised the tempo in the discussion and analysis of the country’s unbridled debt acquisition non-strategy. He had warned in a statement he personally signed that Nigeria’s increasing debt profile, which stood at 99 percent of the nation’s revenue profile in the first quarter of 2020, would drive the country towards economic precipices. “Nothing has shocked me in my entire life in public service as the revelation from Nigeria’s First Quarter 2020 financial reports in the Medium Term Expenditure Framework and Fiscal Strategy from the Federal Ministry of Finance, Budget, and National Planning, which shows, alarmingly, that whereas Nigeria spent a total sum of #943.12 billion in debt servicing, the federal government’s retained revenue for the same period were only #950.56 billion.

“This means that Nigeria’s debt to revenue ratio is now 99 per cent. This is a crisis! Debt servicing does not equate to debt repayment. The reality is that Nigeria is paying only the minimum payment to cover our interest charges. The principal remains untouched and is possibly growing.”

In order to hide the depressing reality of the debt problem, debt-to-GDP, which is not regarded as the best indicator of debt sustainability, especially in a country where tax-to-GDP is low, is now widely touted by government officials including the DMO to explain away the deepening malaise.

As noted by nairametrics, “Oftentimes, the government discards the debt servicing to revenue ratio and instead, adopts the debt to GDP ratio to dissuade concerns on growing indebtedness. They persuade citizens with the narrative that Nigeria’s debt portfolio currently stands at 19.03% of the GDP and still below the 25% threshold set by the government on medium-term 2018-2020, insisting that there is no cause for alarm.

“But that logic seems to be a clever approach to dodge genuine concerns. The simple truth is that, as long as the country’s debt mount, so would revenue prospect slump and the unborn generation would be thrown into an uncertain financial situation. Already, the effect of past debt binge is limiting revenue availability and this is obvious from the N1.859 trillion deficit in the 2019 budget proposal, which the Debt Management Office (DMO) had hinted would be sourced from external loans.

“With the worrisome trajectory of debt, it seems Nigeria has failed to draw from the hard lesson of the pre-2005 debt crisis”.

Mr. Egie Akpata, Ag. MD/CEO of UCML Capital Ltd, told THISDAY earlier in the year that, “If you use the bulk of your money to pay off debts, then it is because you owe too much. There is no need talking about countries that have high debt to GDP and low borrowing costs. If you go to Japan, where the debt to GDP is about 140 per cent, the government just like many countries in Europe can borrow money at literally zero per cent. So if the Nigerian government can borrow 30-year money at zero per cent, then you would have technically, a very low debt servicing.

“We have to understand that the countries that DMO try to compare us with in their documents have high revenue to GDP. You can’t have low revenue to GDP and expect to have high debt servicing problems, the type Nigeria has. Secondly, these countries tend to owe almost all their debts in local currencies. I am not aware that the U.S government has material debts in foreign currencies, same for Canada, same for U.K. Most of these countries owe almost all their debts in their local currencies. We are at the opposite end and that is why we have constraints. These constraints are the outcome of our poor foreign currency earnings.

While the debt level has sparked fears that the country is heading towards a crisis, the reality is that debt itself is not a problem as long as it can be transferred into valuable and productive assets. The problem has been how the country has invested the tens of billions of dollars it has borrowed under this government. With an unalluring business environment unable to attract FDIs and interest rates too high to stimulate investments, the Buhari administration’s economic management strategy leaves little room for credible and sustainable economic growth to take place, thus deepening the country’s debt challenge.

The IMF has at varied times warned the Nigerian government that continued foreign-exchange restrictions are among the factors that dampen long-term foreign and domestic investment and keep the economy reliant on volatile oil prices, arguing that the elimination of exchange-rate restrictions and multiple-currency practices would “remove distortions and help economic diversification.”

In addition, Nigeria’s debt management strategies are not properly aligned with the country’s financial capacity. For example, while most developing countries take advantage of concessionary financing from the World Bank or other international institutions, Nigeria’s debt profile is now increasingly made up of commercial debt. Its recent Eurobond issuances in London, for example, came at a relatively high yield, which makes its economy especially vulnerable to external shocks, such as a sustained drop in oil prices.

The IMF agrees that African countries have been on a Eurobond issuing spree with half of them being near or at distressed levels. The fund posits that African governments are piling on debt without evaluating the exchange rate risks and the real costs of repaying the debts.

No doubt, one of the most significant challenges facing the country at this stage is the absence of operational independence by the DMO, the agency set up to coordinate the management of the country’s debt. The DMO is expected to be separate from the Ministry of Finance and from monetary policy as well as autonomous from political influence. However, that independence is suspect as there is strong evidence of political interference in the coordination and management of the country’s debt.

In addition, important economic decisions regarding whether to borrow, where to borrow and how to borrow have become political decisions fundamentally taken outside the advice of responsible institutions including the Ministry of Finance and the DMO. This leaves the country working asymmetrically information wise and operationally when best judgement is dismissed for political expediency.

What is clear is that unless there is a rethink of the way Nigeria borrow and why she borrow, the country would face an existential debt problem that would leave no room for infrastructure-driven development in the next few years.


https://www.thisdaylive.com/index.php/2020/06/21/who-pays-back-nigerias-debts/

Once again, Nigeria has a debt problem. Fourteen years after former President Olusegun Obasanjo and his economic team led the country to exit the debt trap of the 1980 and 1990s, Nigeria is once again wallowing in a second debt trap with absolutely no idea of how to exit. Nosa James-Igbinadolor looks at how and why Nigeria got there

There was a time when Nigeria was relatively free of foreign debts. Looking back now, one would be hard pressed to remember those halcyon years of relatively good economic management under former President Olusegun Obasanjo driven by an erudite economic team led by Dr. Ngozi Okojo Iweala, but, the government paid back Nigeria’s debts.

“Nigeria will not owe anybody in the Paris Club one kobo,” the President Olusegun Obasanjo had said in a statement after Nigeria paid a final installment of $4.5 billion to the Paris Club of creditors in a deal that allowed the country to pay off about $30 billion in accumulated debt for about $12 billion, an overall discount of about 60 per cent. The country committed to using foreign reserves, salted away as oil prices soared, to cancel its debt, which had been racked up during decades of military rule.

Debt relief championed by the former President had become a central issue in the fight against poverty. Nigeria, which owed about $36 billion in overall debt, was at that time, one of the most indebted nations in the world. But we did pay back in 2006 and ended the debt trap, with just a little over $3 billion hovering around as external debt.

That was until 2015 when President Muhammadu Buhari assumed office. According to statistics published in March 2020 by the Debt Management Office (DMO), Nigeria’s total external debt stock as at December 2019, stood at $27.676 billion. In May 2015, when the President took office, the total debt profile of the country stood at $10.316 billion. Thus, in less than five years, the country’s debt has tripled in size with little to show for it except higher spending on recurrent expenditure, limited capital expenditure and a lot of stolen wealth.

Ike Brannon, a Senior Fellow with the Jack Kemp Foundation, in a 2019 analysis for Forbes, posited that “Nigeria’s biggest economic problem, though – and the issue that requires real political acceptance from Buhari’s government – is the country’s growing public debt. Since assuming office in 2015 President Buhari’s government has added considerably to the nation’s debt, which now exceeds $85 billion. In essence, the nation’s debt is about where it was in 2005-06, just before Nigeria benefited from massive debt relief as part of a program coordinated by the Paris Club, IMF, World Bank and the African Development Bank. To have squandered the debt reduction in just 14 years and have no tangible economic progress to show for it is beyond disappointing.”

Nigeria’s Eurobonds accounted for $10.86 billion or 39 per cent of external debt as at April 7, 2020. The country paid $771 million in interest on its Eurobonds last year compared with $329 million in debt service to multilateral creditors, according to the DMO. Total borrowings from China as at March 31, 2020 stood at $3.121 billion, which the DMO asserts to be concessional loans with interest rates of 2.50 per cent per annum, 20 years tenor and seven years grace period (moratorium).

“The $3.121 billion loans are project-tied loans. The projects (eleven – 11 in number as at March 31, 2020), include: Nigerian Railway Modernisation Project (Idu-Kaduna section), Abuja Light Rail Project, Nigerian Four Airport Terminals Expansion Project (Abuja, Kano, Lagos and Port Harcourt), Nigerian Railway Modernisation Project (Lagos–Ibadan section) and rehabilitation and upgrading of Abuja–Keffi–Makurdi Road Project,” the agency stated.

According to DMO, the impact of these loans is not only evident but visible, adding for instance, that the Idu–Kaduna rail line has become a major source of transportation between Abuja and Kaduna.

According to a November 2019 report by PwC Nigeria, “the widening budget deficit necessitates the government’s resolve to borrow to cover its revenue shortfalls. The government has reiterated that the existing debt level has not breached the internationally acceptable threshold of 30% debt-to-GDP ratio. As of 2018, the federal government’s total debt stock stood at N20.5 trillion, a 12% increase from N18.4 billion in 2017.

Consequently, debt-to-GDP rose to 29% from 27% recorded in the prior year. By H1 2019, the debt-to-GDP ratio surged to 61%. With a slowing economic growth rate and a spiraling debt growth rate, the debt-to-GDP ratio may pass the 30% threshold by year end 2019. However, the debt-to-GDP ratio paints just half of the picture. The issue bordering on debt sustainability is the ratio of debt service to government revenue on one hand, and the ratio of government debt to government revenue. Since 2011, debt service-to-revenue ratio rose consistently from 21.2% to 51.9% in 2015 peaking at 86.6% in 2016. It declined thereafter to 78.6% and 67.7% in 2017 and 2018 respectively. This significantly exceeds the international acceptable threshold of 20 – 25%. The continuous decrease in debt service-to-revenue ratio over the last two years is underpinned on revenue growth which outpaced growth in debt servicing within the period under review”.

In the 2019 budget, an elephantine N2.140 trillion was set aside to settle debt obligations, indicating that about a quarter of the budget provision for that fiscal year went to debt repayment. This moved up by N130 billion when compared with the N2.010 trillion that supposedly went into debt servicing in the 2018 fiscal year.

According to PwC, despite sluggish output growth recovery, low domestic revenue mobilization and the unsustainability of the current debt level, the government intends to borrow more to plug the revenue shortfall of N2.2 trillion in the proposed 2020 budget.

What this simply means is that the federal government, faced with heavily depreciating income from crude, will have to borrow to pay interests on its external debt.

The spiking cost of Nigeria’s debt profile reached a new high with the country’s debt service as a percentage of revenue rising to 99% in the first quarter of 2020. Figures contained in the Medium-Term Expenditure Framework and Fiscal Strategy (MTEF/FSP) report released recently by the Federal Ministry of Finance, Budget, and National Planning show that in Q1 2020, the country chalked up a total sum of N943.12 billion in debt service while the federal government retained revenue was put at N950.56 billion, implying Nigeria’s debt service to revenue estimate to be 99% during the period. This is the highest on record and posits that virtually all the revenue generated from both oil and non-oil sources was used to meet debt service obligations.

The growing debt profiles of the federal and sub-national governments continue to raise concerns among policymakers and analysts. From within the government, Central Bank Governor, Godwin Emefiele, had in a January 2019 Monetary Policy Committee meeting cautioned the Federal Government against Nigeria’s rising debts profile. Emefiele said the country’s debts profile is alarming. According to the CBN Governor, “On external borrowing, the committee noted the increase in debt level advising for caution, noting that it could fast be approaching the pre-2005 Paris Club level.”

An economist, Mr. Bismarck Rewane, who is the CEO of Financial Derivatives Company (FDC) and member of the Federal Government’s Economic Advisory Council constituted by President Muhammadu Buhari, together with other analysts in the FDC, warned in their bi-monthly economic update in January that the country’s debt had grown by 214.90 per cent over the past six years, from N8.32trillion in June 2013 to N26.2trillion as of September 2019. “It is vital to employ proactive measures to reduce the current debt level,” they said.

The report added that, “as a result, the ever-increasing government spending is yet to yield any notable results; poverty is on the rise and health and educational facilities remain inadequate amid the fast-growing population. Debt service has become a significant portion of the expected revenue in 2020. It accounted for over 60 per cent of the government’s independent revenue in 2019.

“The total debt has been increasing ($85.39billion) but total factor productivity growth has been declining (-0.4 per cent). This implies that the FG borrowings are hardly used for productive purposes. The debt service, after a while, becomes a burden on the government and its fiscal balance.”

“Nigeria’s mounting debt profile is a major concern despite the country having about $900bilion worth of dead capital in properties and agricultural lands (PwC Nigeria, 2019),” the Nigerian Economic Summit Group, a private sector-led think-tank, also warned in its 2020 Macroeconomic Outlook.

Financial resource firm, nairametrics notes that, “Most of these debts were borrowed in the first four years of the President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration via multilateral, development, bilateral and commercial loans (Eurobonds and Diaspora bonds). The government claims it had no choice, seeing its oil revenues failed to meet up with the target and thus is unable to fund Nigeria’s huge infrastructural deficit required to propel economic growth.”

https://www.thisdaylive.com/index.php/2020/06/21/who-pays-back-nigerias-debts/

LIES everywhere

FAKE NEWS

Obaseki is very much confused at the moment. Anyways, time waits for nobody. He should make his decision fast and do so smartly too.

Well death cant be hidden forever if it is true. Let us wait and see what happens