₦airaland Forum

MissMeiya:
It's very frustrating. And utterly embarrassing. Imagine a non-Nigerian seeing this thread, with not one, not two, but several people claiming the US is "angry" about the "gay law", and "jealous" of Nigeria, or any number of "they want to get back at us". Like other governments behave like primary school children the way Nigeria's government does.

It's humiliating.

spenca:
It is obvious they are trying to check mate the corruption in the current government and give them no more oil dollar to embezzle.

WhiteTechnology:
I wonder how Buhari will achieve economic diversification when He and APC has rejected systems that makes our States LGAs and Private Sector the vanguard of national development.



Buhari will never eradicate corruption and poverty because he will never implement the following


Resource control

Fiscal federalism

Privatization

Political federalism

Decentralization of Nigeria

Restructuring of Nigeria

Institutions submitting their quarterly activities to public scrutiny


Which are the fastest route to economic diversification , citizenry prosperity and political stability



Buhari is not the Messiah


SW stop hanging to false hope

ttmacoy:
God bless.

I have always said Nigerians seem to have a bigger image of themselves on the international scene than is reality and are ready to believe every silly conspiracy theories rather than logical common sense.

You spend more on churches and pastors than science and education and you wonder why you are still so backward depending on others for everything.

ernieboy:
and has your gej done all these after 6 years?

MissMeiya:
It's very frustrating. And utterly embarrassing. Imagine a non-Nigerian seeing this thread, with not one, not two, but several people claiming the US is "angry" about the "gay law", and "jealous" of Nigeria, or any number of "they want to get back at us". Like other governments behave like primary school children the way Nigeria's government does.

It's humiliating.

panafrican:
This is nothing but a move meant to weaken Nigeria in the fight against Boko Haram. Nothing more,nothing less.

Tocheagle:
you must be a brainless fellow to think america cares for us

Abbey2sam:
If from what I understand is right, halting importation from Nigeria has also affected other oil exporting countries "drop in price of crude oil"

let's look for something else to export
let's deal with China, China will never treat nigeria like this

Obama never hid his hatred for nigeria, i don't know why it still suprise some people.......

Obama doesn't see himself as black man from Kenya
let's stop famzin him, Nigeria is bigger than one man

God bless Nigeria

spenca:
It is obvious they are trying to check mate the corruption in the current government and give them no more oil dollar to embezzle.

awenaibangbee:
So in your mind, we have been moving forward?

We have 10.5 million children out of school and we are moving forward?

The US is jealous of our millions of unemployed and unemployable youths?

The world's 6th largest oil producer imports 80% of its petroleum products and the US is jealous?

90% of Nigerians lack access to water or quality health care, and we are moving forward.

In 2015, FG has informed us that we will spend 70% of our income on salaries, allowances and other recurrent expenditure and only 30% will go to roads, health care, and other capital projects. Make we dey analyse this thing with common sense o.

vodkat:
Not true , they have more oil than they need now. Deepwater oil, Shale oil and Oil from canada.


When u start blaming ur customer from not buying market from you. whos problem is that

Meanwhile Nigeria keep sending them oil for refining

Akbee:
Barack Obama is not a true son of Africa cos if he was he wudnt introduce foreign policies which are against the interests of blacks..we supported him during his first n second term presidential bids n he won.Thank goodness he hasn't got a chance anymore..infact,nobody wishes he was there.Americans r dissatisfied with him n so are our people too..black man black heartso they say.
the reason is not far fetched..
1.nigerian government prohibition of gay acts
2.Nigeria's position as the biggest economy in Africa.
3.The inability of the US government to exert influence on Nigeria like before.
4.Nigeria's image has bn tarnished to an extent that outsiders stl believe that nothing good can come out from us..
5.corruption..

if no 1 is reversed the us govt wud likely mk a u turn... HOWEVER,I see that as a blessing in disguise.. this has really tot our leaders a lesson that we shud not put our eggs in one basket.cudnt we av sought for an alternative buyer at the right time?
must we keep exporting crude oil at cheap prizes to other countries n stl buy the refined products at exorbitant prizes while our refineries can handle it..wl local production of petroleum products not provide jobs opportunities for the teeming unemployed masses?

[b]


Nigeria: The Economic Downturn, 2015 and the Crisis of Alternative


Written by Editorial Board of Workers’ Alternative - Nigeria

Monday, 13 October 2014



As a result of the increased domestic production of shale oil, the US has slashed crude oil imports from a peak of almost 14 million barrels per day in 2006, to slightly above 7 million barrels per day. Crude oil imports from Nigeria, one of the principal sources of light crude, were also slashed from more than one million barrels per day in 2010 to zero in July 2014. This figure is unprecedented since Nigeria started exporting oil about 40years ago.

India has now become the highest importer of Nigerian crude oil. Unfortunately for the Nigerian ruling elite, India too is aggressively pursuing the extraction of Shale oil domestically. Nigeria earns over 80% of its budgetary income and over 90% of its foreign earnings from oil. The aggressive search for new markets and the intense competition from new oil/gas exporting countries like the US is already significantly putting pressure on the international price of oil; as if the loss of significant markets were not enough for Nigerian economy.

The fact that the US is no longer importing oil from Nigeria does not signify an end to the tight relationship between the two countries that have always been that of master and slave for over 40 years of Nigeria’s absolutely dependent “Independence”. The importation of refined oil coming to Nigeria from the US rose from about 17% to over 50% currently. What we are witnessing is a reversal of the balance of trade in the oil sector; as crude oil to the US from Nigeria is reducing, the importation of refined oil from US is increasing. Nigeria is therefore currently experiencing a significant fall in income, that has already reduced the allocation to different States of the federation by half and, subsequently, many states cannot pay their Civil Servants’ salaries and others.

Despite this major fall in income, official corruption continues unabated. The Nigerian ruling elite has developed over the years into beast that can only survive on the basis of huge corruption and inefficiency. Capitalism and corruption are like sesame twins, in the case of Nigeria, oil wealth made it possible for the ruling class to institutionalize and consolidate corruption and make it an official component of the state machine.

Before now, Nigeria had been growing annually by over 7.0% for over a decade, thanks to high oil prices and relatively stable oil markets (aside from a brief disturbance in 2007/2008). So much money was made in this period, but at the same time we witnessed an increase in the poverty rate from 65% in 1999 to over 73% by 2012. This glaringly revealed the criminal nature of wealth distribution under capitalism.

After the last rebate, Nigeria is now classed as the biggest economy in Africa, but it is more like an elephant with chicken legs. While South Africa has been able to generate 41,990 MW as of March 2013 to power her economy, Nigeria is still struggling to raise her power generation to 4000MW. While the poor continue to get poorer, Nigeria is now home to the richest man in Africa, with the number of dollar billionaires rising from 0 in 1996, to 4 by the year 2014; out of seven black men who are dollar billionaires in 2014, seven of them are Nigerians. Massive privatizations, which resulted in mass lay-offs of workers and exacerbated the already bad unemployment situation, happen to be at the same time the booster of wealth for Dangote, the richest man in Africa. He benefited most from privatization and access to Government in power. While the overwhelming majority of Nigerians continue to suffer pain and poverty, a very small number of fat cats continue to grow fatter; this is what capitalism actually means.

http://www.marxist.com/nigeria-the-economic-downturn-2015-and-the-crisis-of-alternative.htm

[/b]

Boiling anger of the middle classes, a struggling working class and soldiers in revolt

Social inequality, amidst increasing corruption is already inducing social tensions. Beneath the apparent calm on the surface is an increasing anger of the oppressed strata of the society. January 2012, the mass movement of millions of Nigerians appeared like a thief in the night. It revealed how deep the anger in society has become. Though the movement was led by the trade union organizations, the involvement of very large layers of the lower middle class who turned up in very large numbers to demonstrate their anger against the Nigerian ruling class showed how revolutionary the period we have entered is.

Most Nigerians are well aware of the fact that the Nigerian state has degenerated significantly, but many were unaware of how rotten and to what extent it had degenerated, until it was tested in the encounter with the rag-tag insurgency called Boko Haram. The so called war against Boko Haram terrorists fully exposes the Nigerian state. It shows how low the morale of the rank and file soldiers is. How could it be otherwise? We heard that lower ranking soldiers have to lobby their officers before they can get bullets to fight, that when they die in battle their corpses are thrown into the bushes and the information kept from their families so that the next of kin will not ask for entitlements, while the officers keep collecting the allowances of the fallen soldiers. Rank and file soldiers have to pay for their medical treatment when they get wounded in battle. The last Chief of Army Staff (Inhejikira) is reported to be one of the richest men in Nigeria, with the wealth he made from embezzlement and outright stealing of the allocations to the Nigerian army.

The military inevitably reflects the situation in society as a whole; just as society is rotten, so also is the military; just as the working class and the poor in the society are revolting, so also is their uniformed counterpart in the army. There are now up to five different reported cases of mutiny in the army, this is apart from the last protest of wives and children of soldiers in the barracks, where the protesting women prevented the armoured vehicles from leaving the barracks.

The military court has already sentenced 12 soldiers to death by firing squad and 97 others are awaiting their judgment, but rather than this repression cowing down the extremely angry soldiers, it has only increased tension in almost all the barracks. According to the reported interview of one of the soldiers:

“We are rather very loyal soldiers of the Nigerian Army and the behaviour of those sentenced to death is just a signal that they, the officers will not be safe if they kill our people unnecessarily. How many do they want to kill? We have a common enemy Boko Haram inside this very state, instead of them to rally round the soldiers and the people to get to the root, they are using oppression. We are waiting to see who will fire the shots at the firing range and where they will get the soldiers from to do the job."(National Daily)

This is important evidence that we have really entered a pre-revolutionary situation in Nigeria and highlights the need for Nigerian Marxists to speed-up their preparations for a major revolutionary upheaval.

http://www.marxist.com/nigeria-the-economic-downturn-2015-and-the-crisis-of-alternative.htm

millionaireman:
Some believe that crude oil money shall be there for ever for Nigeria - and they refuse any restructuring to fiscal federalism. All the political mergers and drive to send away the Otuoke man, is to take control of cheap and sweet crude oil money from his backyard.

Is the US no longer entitled to buy or stop buying from any market?

The day crude oil money stops completely, some groups are most likely to pull out of Nigeria.

[b]Deep split within Nigerian ruling elite

When the wind blows, it blows first the top of the tree; this statement is also true of class society. The unease and restlessness that pervades society has found its expression in the deep split with the ruling class. While the ruling party is desperate to continue in the old way, not minding the growing anger and loss of social support, having been in power for 15years, we are also witnessing the desperation of the so-called opposition party to unseat the incumbent party through deception and camouflaging. As the anger of the oppressed masses intensifies, this division among the ruling class is expected to get deeper.

The political atmosphere is dominated by these two tendencies for now, organised around the PDP (the ruling party) and the APC (the bourgeois opposition party). It is this painful fact that sects of all shades in Nigeria has been unable to come to terms with. These sectarians who shamefully call themselves Marxists are accusing the masses of allowing themselves to be limited to only two useless bourgeois options. “How can the masses be so gullible as to allow themselves to be pushed around by two sides of the same coin?” they lamented, not taking into consideration that the masses do not learn from books but from the greatest teacher: experience. Their extreme impatience has led them to form a political party with five human beings and plenty of dogs. Their actions confirmed more strikingly that sectarians are activists with very small brains and small ambitions. Some of them who are not prepared to go through the rigour of party registration are struggling to raise a dead and buried sectarian organization to stand for election. Some of them even ask why Marxists bother to pay so much attention to the splits among the ruling class, forgetting that in some instances, it is the battle within the ruling class that eventually drags the masses into political movement. Those promising youths who unfortunately enter these sectarian organizations have been miseducated, overused and in many cases they have dropped out of the struggle, tired and disillusioned after several futile attempts at useless adventures.

The independent party of the working class and the challenges of building one

The future of Nigeria’s economic situation is very grim. Governments of either the PDP or the APC will have no other option than to remove the subsidy on oil, to increase school fees in our institutions, continue freezing wages, continue cutting funding on health; that is, they will put the burden of this crisis on the head and shoulders of ordinary Nigerians. This is mainly because these two parties rule on the basis of the capitalist programme and with slogan of “government has no business doing business”. None of these bourgeois political parties will retrieve our collective wealth from the private individuals who are currently controlling it: our oil will still be controlled by Shell, ExxonMobil and a host of them. Our banks will still be in the hands of the fat cats who continue to speculate with huge wealth in their care and continue shunning investing in productive exercises that can generate employment.

Only a mass workers’ political party with a socialist programme can be committed to the nationalization of the key sectors of our economy and responsible enough to put our collective wealth in the service of all, a party that will decide on its investment not on the basis of profit, but for the good of the overwhelming majority. It is only such a party that can actually lift the working class and the poor from the current sorry state that the inept and ruinous ruling class has sunk us all in. But such a mass party cannot come into being on the basis of mere proclamations as the sects thought; such a Party will only evolve on the basis of the life and death struggle between and within the oppressors and the oppressed class. The only revolutionary class in a bourgeois society like Nigeria remains the working class, and the fact that they are currently under reformist and compromising leadership does not in any way negate this fact.

Fortunately, the working class had built its fighting organizations even before Nigeria was proclaimed in 1914. The Nigerian working class has built its Unions, the NLC and TUC, with almost 10 million workers organized within them and enormous resources under their control. With these human and material resources under its control, the Nigerian working class is capable enough of building a mass party that could immediately become a force and commence the process of overthrowing these inept and useless ruling elite.

We are obviously in a pre-revolutionary situation here in Nigeria, the wind is blowing the top of the trees; but it will not stop at the top of the trees, the shoots and even the roots will be touched. The mass organization of the working class will also be affected, one way or the other, by this wind of pre-revolution.

http://www.marxist.com/nigeria-the-economic-downturn-2015-and-the-crisis-of-alternative.htm
[/b]

spenca:
It is obvious they are trying to check mate the corruption in the current government and give them no more oil dollar to embezzle.

queenbesha:
Oh come on.....who in the world told you that I meant 'Queen Sheba?' Pls dear my precious username 'Queenbesha' is purposely coined and not a mistake of any form....GOT THAT

Quit making SILLY ASSUMPTIONS...for your own good.

kk besha. hope yur queendom is in proper condition compliments of the season btw

[b]Can Nigeria Endure Falling Oil Prices?

Author: John Campbell, Ralph Bunche Senior Fellow for Africa Policy Studies
December 11, 2014

Nigeria has benefited from an oil boom since the end of military rule in 1999. Prices rose from $10 per barrel that year to $140 per barrel in 2008. As late as June 2014, they remained above $100. However, since June oil prices have fallen by more than 30 percent. It is unlikely that they have reached bottom. The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) has declined to mandate a cut in production. It would seem that only a major cut in production, probably led by Saudi Arabia, could cause oil prices to recover to the $100 per barrel level.

This plunge in prices is generating alarm in a number of oil-dependent states, none more so than Nigeria. Despite nominally high growth in the non-petroleum sectors, Nigeria remains a petro-state. More than 90 percent of the profits from the petroleum industry go to the Nigerian government. Petroleum accounts for up to 80 percent of all government revenue (government revenue was an estimated $20.7 billion in 2014) and more than 90 percent of the country’s exports.

That dependency is now stirring serious concern throughout the country’s political class. Among other things, a whole array of government expenditures associated with petroleum play a major role in sustaining the cooperating and competing patronage networks that run Nigeria. Absent this political lubricant, the country’s already unstable political situation promises to get worse just two months ahead of national elections.

With by far the largest population in Africa, 177 million, Nigeria is also the continent’s largest economy. It is the political and economic hegemon of West Africa. Its economic and political challenges have consequences outside its borders. Already there are hundreds of thousands—some estimates exceed one million—of internally displaced persons within its borders, and there are Nigerian refugee flows into Cameroon and Niger associated with the Boko Haram insurgency. In a region still reeling from the economic consequences of Ebola, Nigeria’s tremors can be felt throughout West Africa .

An Oil-Based Budget

The Nigerian federal budget is based on a conservative estimate of the world price of oil. The federal government distributes oil revenue by a set formula to the states and to local government authorities, which are mostly dependent on it because they can raise little through local taxes on their own impoverished and under-developed local economies. (Lagos state is the exception, in part because it is the heart of Nigeria’s modern economy.) “Bunkered,” or stolen, oil may amount to 10 percent of total production.

Oil production may also be falling. It is estimated that Nigeria could produce 2.5 million barrels of oil per day, however actual production seems closer to 1.9 million barrels, reflecting low investment in the industry and political uncertainty. A petroleum industry bill that would redefine the relationship between the government and the oil companies remains in limbo. In addition, the major international oil companies have been cutting back their operations in Nigeria for a variety of market, political, and security concerns.

The market for Nigeria’s oil is also shifting. Over the past decade, about half of Nigeria’s petroleum production went to the United States. However, the United States imports of Nigerian oil are negligible due to the increase in its own production associated with hydraulic fracturing and the greater availability of oil closer to home. Conventional wisdom, often articulated by Petroleum Minister and newly elected President of OPEC Diezani Allison-Madueke, is that Nigeria’s production will find other markets, especially in Asia. However, there will be a time lag caused by the need for new customers to meet new requirements, such as revamping or expanding their refining capacities to accommodate Nigeria’s Bonny Light crude oil.

In response to falling government revenue, the administration of President Goodluck Jonathan has recalculated its budget twice from an initial estimate of $78 a barrel to $65 a barrel. (On December 10, 2014, Bonny Light crude had fallen to $61 a barrel.)

With the fall in oil prices the naira, Nigeria’s national currency, has fallen dramatically, eroding foreign reserves. In response, the Nigerian government has devaluated the naira by 8 percent. The government’s new target range for the naira is 160 to 175 to the U.S. dollar. However, the naira remains under siege. According to Reuters, it closed on December 10 at 180 to the U.S. dollar.

Continuing Political Volatility?

The bottom line is that the Nigerian government’s revenue is falling, which means it has less money with which to manage political problems. Finance Minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala is calling for austerity, and Godwin Emefiele, the governor of the Central Bank, has raised the possibility of cutting the highly popular subsidy on public consumption of fuel. A 2012 effort to end the subsidy provoked a serious crisis and forced the government to back down. In the end, the subsidy was cut by about 50 percent, but the government was shaken.

The decline in government revenue comes at a time of general political instability, and will likely make it worse. Boko Haram, the radical Islamist insurgency in northeast Nigeria, continues to expand. Last week, there were attacks in Gombe state, outside of the group’s usual areas of operation. At President Jonthan’s request, in November 2014 the National Assembly authorized him to borrow $1 billion for the struggle against Boko Haram.

Boko Haram now occupies territory estimated to be as large as the state of Maryland, and has free range over a larger area. In some areas both secular and religious authority has broken down. In large swaths of northeast Nigeria there has been no planting or harvesting, raising the specter of hunger in the coming months. Nobody knows how many have died in the war between the Boko Haram and the Nigerian government. CFR’s Nigeria Security Tracker estimates that as of November 2014, deaths related to the Boko Haram insurgency and the government’s response to it topped twenty thousand. Kidnapping and hostage taking have now become commonplace, with the notorious Chibok schoolgirl kidnapping in April 2014 unique only because of the number of victims.

Meanwhile, the performance of the army and the security services continues to be dismal and marked by human rights abuses. Amid the oil slump, there will likely be less money available to revamp them.

In general, public confidence in the federal government appears to be low, making it unlikely that there will be willing acceptance of an austerity policy. However it is hard to see how the Jonathan administration can avoid one.

National elections are scheduled for February 14, 2015. Elections are the occasion and the venue for competition, often violent, among Nigeria’s fractured political elites. In the past, abundant oil money provided a means to resolve numerous conflicts, to literally “grease the skids.” Now, there is less money available.

Beyond Boko Haram and the elections, falling oil prices poses a new challenge to the patronage networks that run Nigeria because for the first time since 1999, government revenues are shrinking and the naira is falling. Should the government pursue policies of austerity, there could be a sharp public reaction. An effort to do away with the fuel subsidy could provoke popular unrest in Lagos, which has been relatively free of political or sectarian violence.

In the short term, the government could continue to draw down its sovereign wealth fund (established with oil profits during the fat years), but that account would be quickly exhausted. It could also approach international financial institutions for help, though it would be reluctant to do so because of the likely requirements they would impose.

The confluence of declining oil prices and government revenue, a failing effort against Boko Haram, and contentious national elections in two months is making it harder for Nigeria to pull back from the brink.

http://www.cfr.org/nigeria/can-nigeria-endure-falling-oil-prices/p33967

[/b]

prettyboi1989:
Have u heard of the us shale oil boom? Read wide so u can come up with a comment having insight

vodkat:
Not true , they have more oil than they need now. Deepwater oil, Shale oil and Oil from canada.


When u start blaming ur customer from not buying market from you. whos problem is that

Meanwhile Nigeria keep sending them oil for refining