₦airaland Forum

BERLIN, July 1 (Reuters) - Boko Haram's insurgency will slow Nigeria's economy again this year, knocking half a percentage point off growth like last year, the finance minister said on Tuesday, adding that her 6.75 percent 2014 growth forecast took this into account.

Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala told Reuters that while the violence in the northeast might put off some potential foreign investors, those who were in Nigeria for the long term seemed to be holding their nerve, as did portfolio investors in its government debt.

"We are expecting about 6.75 (percent growth in 2014) and we have accounted for the impact of the insurgency which we will think will take half a percentage point off GDP growth," she said in an interview during a visit to Berlin.

Nigeria overtook South Africa as the continent's biggest economy this year, following a rebasing calculation that almost doubled its gross domestic product. The economy grew about 6.4 percent last year, the minister said, with the Islamist rebels having most economic impact on agriculture in the northeast.

The economist and former World Bank vice-president said her talks with German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble emphasised "our strong fundamentals despite the challenges that we face".

She sought his support for the creation of a new Nigerian development bank to improve financing to small and medium-sized private enterprises which could become an "engine for growth" as the country seeks to diversify its economy away from oil.

Rebasing GDP had revealed hidden strength in sectors such as services and telecoms, which had "gone to 0.7 percent of GDP to 7 percent" and was seeing strong growth, said the minister.

She said the creation of a secondary mortgage market could help kick off growth in housing, another sector that she hoped could "help to make up for some of the lost growth".

The minister cited government bonds yields of 4-5 percent as evidence financial investors were not panicking: "The prices are quite reasonable which is an objective assessment that investors may be looking at the long-term underlying fundamentals of the economy, which are strong."

Some potential foreign direct investment might be affected negatively by the Islamist insurgency, she said, but existing investors - especially those from emerging powers such as South Africa, China and Brazil - were proving resilient.

"Part of our turbulence may also be linked to the upcoming election (in 2015)," she said. "Whenever we have elections there is always some increase in violence and disturbance."

Boosting the regional economy is part of President Goodluck Jonathan's response alongside counter-insurgency efforts and attempts at dialogue with Boko Haram, which was hampered by the fact that "they have not articulated any political demands".

She was due to meet former British prime minister Gordon Brown in London on Wednesday to discuss a "safe schools initiative" aimed at avoiding a repeat of the still-unresolved kidnapping of more than 200 Nigerian schoolgirls by Boko Haram in April.

The hope is to raise $100 million for infrastructure such as solar-powered lighting, sanitary facilities, walls or alarm systems and to coordinate with local communities to make girl students especially "feel safer", the minister said. (Editing by Alison Williams)

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/07/01/nigeria-economy-boko-haram-idUSL6N0PC51N20140701?rpc=401&feedType=RSS&feedName=rbssFinancialServicesAndRealEstateNews&rpc=401

What can the FG do?

Western population reduction strategies at play . . . ..

As Nigerians we should 'breed' more to counteract the effect of the virus.

This seems consistent with the support for APC/PDP

(Very unfavorable = PDP in 2015)

Muslims love terror deep down,

[img]https://www.nairaland.com/attachments/1520953_pg-2014-07-01-islamic-extremism-04_pngd15af668595543929f3e3d8b4481cfb7[/img]

BLOODY IDIOTS - IF MY 'YAM-PO' DEY UNDERCOOKED.........

I don't know who to believe - Suarez or Charly Boy?

So is this now a law?

I don't think so . . .therefore is can never be enforced.

A poorly though out initiative . . . . .and a clown making statements with his mouth as if he can make up laws.

IMF2

THE JUJU IS WORKING -

Elementary mistakes....

Why can't you host your site yourself? How much for a server?

Fellow Nairalanders,

On Sunday, the 22nd of June, at exactly 1:00PM, we lost access to Nairaland's server. I immediately asked our web host to fix the problem. They refused to discuss the situation with me until very early on Monday morning, when they told me that someone hacked their server management system and used it to gain access to our server. The hacker deleted everything on our server, including our backups which we kept in a separate disk on the same server.

At that point, I knew that we had failed you in two ways: by relying on a web host which didn't follow security best practices, which led to their systems being hacked, and by storing our backups in a location where anyone who hacked our primary server would be able to access them and delete them. "Luckily", we recovered 8 years and 10 months of data out of the 9 years and 3 months of data that was lost, from a remote backup made in January.

All topics and posts created in the last 5 months are gone. All users who registered within the last 5 months will have to register again. It's awful.

The attackers probably downloaded our entire database including your usernames, email addresses, and password hashes. As a result of our use of hashing, salting, and key stretching, it won't be so easy for the attackers to steal your passwords if they are strong. However, we advice every Nairalander to please change his/her Nairaland password immediately. Please logout and then visit https://www.nairaland.com/login to use the password reset form.

You can recover your most important data using the technique below (we could not apply it automatically due to data consistency issues)
1) Search Google for the title of your thread, e.g. (title of thread site:nairaland.com)
2) Copy the URL of the page on Nairaland where the information used to reside from the search results, e.g. www.nairaland.com/123456/title-of-thread
3) Search Google's cache for that URL, e.g. enter this into google: (cache:www.nairaland.com/123456/title-of-thread)

Here's how we plan to secure your data in the future:
1) We've moved away from the host that lost our data to a very reputable host which is less likely to get hacked.
2) We've started storing our backups in remote location(s) that are completely independent of our primary server.
3) We're doing a full review of all our operations in order to greatly improve security in every way that we can.
4) We're trying to set up comprehensive disaster recovery plans so that Nairaland will survive no matter what happens.

Nairaland is no longer just Seun Osewa's lucrative hobby. It is a vital resource that Nigerians and corporate bodies rely on. It must be protected and kept alive at all costs. It deserves to be managed, not by one feeble individual, but by a robust enterprise staffed by professionals who are the best at what they do. A robust enterprise that can defend Nairaland against all threats. I will devote the rest of my year to building such an enterprise.

If you had some advertising credit in your account before the attack, please send an email to the usual address so we can sort things out.

Sincerely,
Seun Osewa.

Nigeria - Africa is praying

[img]http://media1./media/A4N9BELRdduoM/200.gif[/img]

Chaii.....


[img]http://media0./media/DXza8W99nfniM/200.gif[/img]

Giroud looks like he's been 'shagging' before the match again....

France dey fear - Nigeria to take advantage.

Final score 2nil Naija

Soldier - Wey your 'papa'

Kid - him no dey house; he travel go 'Sambisa forest' since january.

https://www.ap.org/Images/African-unrest-french-soldier-children_tcm28-15126.gif

goldwaters: I think u guys should take it easy on seun. He must be going through a lot.

No way - If Seun is a hard 'Dude' he will take the 'criticism' on the chin and 'mend his slack ways'.

What happened was as disgraceful as 'Iran vs Nigeria'

flying dutchman: Nairaland has become an important aspect of my life. The loss of data was bad. But you guys should back off the Owner's neck! Haba! Where were you all when he was building Nairaland Instead of showing sympathy for the young man, you are here running your mouths over a bottle of 'shekpe'!

Building what?


Nairaland is just a template (standard forum) with a catchy name.

enigmang: Seun was caught napppinngg...... its amazing how there was no backup for over 6months.... Anyone can suffer Dataloss... How you recover from it shows your competence....

You cant be running the "largest site in nigeria abi africa" and not expect to be attacked..

Kudos to the hackers.. a wonderful job they did....

If Seun learns from this then its a welcome development - but to me nairaland has lost some of my respect.