₦airaland Forum

Lagos is putting structural changes in place, from agric cooperation with Kebbi, Niger and other states, to massive rice processing factories, to sustainable rail, water and road infrastructure, to car assembly plants, to Lekki deep sea port and all the massive developmental infrastructure within the Lekki Free trade zone and others too numerous to mention. The masterstroke is that it has its own as President with the massive benefits that will attract to Lagos - a case in point is the first phase of the Lagos-Calabar coastal road that will open up the entire Lekki corridor.

Are there more things to be done? Yes of course. Are the current steps in the right direction? Yes of course. Will it take time for the full impact to be felt? Yes of course. In the mean time, the vulnerable needs to be supported through food palliatives such as this and other short term poverty alleviation methods. It is an integral part of a total package designed to uplift citizens economically.

The previous Nigerian GDP estimates were based on artificially fixed exchange rates. The rates were artificial, arbitrary and bore no resemblance with reality. It encouraged roundtripping, massive corruption and discouraged investment and growth.

Now that the forex regime is liberalised and in tune with reality, watch how growth and investments will be unleashed. I am not concerned with short term slips from the summit but excited by the potential. The bigger picture is that we are chasing a $1trillion economy in 8yrs or so. Let us come back to this discussion in two year's time

Cardoso was clear. $10k to about 1500 BDCs that has been done twice or thrice comes to about $50million or thereabouts. That is a very small amount in the context of what is alleged to be 'Naira defence'.

When the Naira was floated, lack of liquidity was the main reason why Naira depreciated. With a rash of CBN policies that returned confidence to the market, liquidity started to improve dramatically and on a willing buyer willing seller principle, the Naira started finding its true level which is what the 'price discovery' term means.

What i like most about the forex market today is the collapse of the huge arbitrage between the black market and CBN rates which in the past fueled a lot of the shenanigans that ruined the Naira. As Cardoso said, most of the reduction in reserves in present times was due to paying our obligations such as settling forward transactions, paying maturing foreign debt obligations etc. We must do that as it will be disastrous to default in paying our debts as countries like Ghana, Ethiopia and Egypt amongst others have done with grave consequences that attracted the dreaded IMF interventions.

In the coming weeks and months, i expect the foreign reserves to keep rising. Already as Cardoso said, $600mln has accrued into it in the past few days. Let us see where we are in the coming weeks and months. We are surely on the right path in my own opinion.

Naira is recovering big time. Obi should at least acknowlege that. Thousands don't die everyday in Nigeria. These little things matter in the narrative he pushes out daily. If he wants to play responsible opposition politics which is very necessary, base it on facts. A little piece of advice.

Farooq employs emotional arguments in this piece, more pandering to the crowd than addressong key issues.

Firstly, only 15% of power customers are impacted by the tariff hike. This is the segment of our population that can afford it. The remainder 85% to which majority of the masses belong are not impacted. In fact, it is a proper Robinhood scenario where we 'rob' the rich to pay the poor.

Secondly, since the privatisation of the power sector in 2014, no meanigful progress has been made in the sector - in fact there has been decline across board in generation, transmission and distribution. This is despite trillions in subsidies paid to generate darkness. Will it be reasonable to keep doing the same thing yet expecting a different result? That will be the proper definition of madness. I would have expected an intellectual like Farooq to paint both sides of the picture if not for anything, for some debate.

Thirdly, this goes to incentivise the sector by reducing subsidies by more than half in the first instance. There is still subsidy in place for the vast majority of the masses. Those in Band A are mostly rich residents and manufacturing concerns. If they enjoy at least 20hrs of electricity daily, it will bring down their power costs significantly as the alternative power currently used by this same people costs more than twice the new tariff.

What I expect is for citizens to hold the feet of these discos to the fire by demanding the level of service for each banding group and in so doing getting more productivity out of the largely incompetent discos.

The courage to take the sort of decisions that this govt has been taking is unprecedented and though coming with short term pains, has significant long term benefits.

AustineE1:
With all these fantastic qualifications,look at the kind of low grade appointment they gave him,he deserve far better than this...anyway,since he accepted and they are privileged to have him on board,congrats.

Consumer credit is arguably Tinubu's most impactful and transformational campaign promise. Getting access to credit by majority of Nigerians will be one of the most impactful reforms in decades. It will reduce corruption and its tendencies as you don't need upfront cash to buy that house, car etc. If Engr Uzoma Nwagba applies himself to this role, he will easily be the stand out official of this administration.

NLC and these CSOs should stop raising unnecessary alarm. If manufacturers and businesses get at least 20hrs electricity daily, it will cut down on their generator maintenance and diesel spend. Overall, their cost of power consumption will be lower so why will there be extra cost passed on to consumers?

They should rather be fighting that NERC does its job of properly regulating discos to ensure they provide steady light and if not, tariffs should drop to the appropriate band commensurate with the average hours per day that electricity was supplied for that billing cycle.

This only affects band A customers who can pay because it is still cheaper than running generators. Majority of the masses are not affected. What should be done is holding these discos to account so they can deliver more power to homes and businesses.

These people are noise makers. They backed Atiku and lost, not sure when last they delivered a single candidate in an election in Rivers State or nationally. The same Sim they now back was delivered 100% by Wike. I am glad that Sim did not listen to them when they were urging him to reject terms of the peace deal brokered by President Tinubu.

Wike is trusted by Tinubu because he delivers. You think the President is a fool to ditch someone like Wike for all these people that can't deliver their wards. As far as Wike is alive, these guys won't have one over him. Sim is advised to make peace with Wike, trust in President's Tinubu's political abilities and watch how he will so prosper with second term guaranteed. If he wants to trust in these toothless fellows, he should be my guest.

HE Gov Alex Otti was once in the APC where he sought a platform to become Abia State Governor. He eventually got it under the Labour Party platform. I urge LP to do all it can to make him their National Leader else I won't be surprised if he defects to the APC at some point.

I think the President should continue doing his bit to lift our country into prosperity. Many, for all sorts of reasons will not agree with him and will continue in their maligning ways. They will soon have little to hang on to when things turn around for the better and our lives become much more meaningful

These are not a lot to be honest. Bilateral loans owed to individual countries are less than 20% of our total external debt.

The bulk of our external debt is owed to multilateral institutions like the World Bank, IMF and locked in Eurobonds.

Our total external debt is less than $40bln. To put it in context, we were earning about $60bln per year from oil during GEJ's time while this fell to less than $30bln per year during PMB's regime. CBN also just cleared about $7bln worth of forward contracts in less than a year. Point is, our external debt is roughly about a year's oil revenue. If we apply ourselves as a nation and boost our oil and gas revenues and export more non-oil products, we will clear our external debt in less than 4 years.

seguntijan:
Not within my purview but the Chief of Staff is my Leader, Boss and Mentor and I owe it as duty to fumigate the atmosphere of lies/half-truths and to defend his personal integrity.

Budget of the office of the Chief of Staff in the last 5yrs

2020: ₦24.35 million
2021: ₦76.55 million
2022: ₦526.47 million
2023: ₦517.95 million
2024*: ₦21.22 billion

What they won't tell you is that major capital Renovation of National assets were captured in this allocation;

The Renovation of Dodan Barracks Presidential Lodge - ₦5 billion is captured.

--Renovation of Vice President Quarters in Lagos - ₦5 billion Is equally captured.

--Full Digitization of the entire State House and Lagos State Offices and Quarters - ₦10 billion

2024 Budget:
Overhead: ₦698.1m
Capital: ₦20.5bn
Femi Gbajabiamila's purse - Nil.

Even God as Commander in Chief of the Republic of Heaven, Satan and his camp still felt elections have consequences and revolted against the Almighty, how much more Asiwaju and his lieutenants. It is the President's job to ensure he delivers on his manifesto, but the job of making haters happy is solely theirs.

Good Evening Severally..

Good job, thanks for taking the time to explain. Too many people just run along without doing some due diligence.

Calitoscassius:
For the first time i am agreeing with you, Yes, you are correct!


But the government could also pay them better money, good holiday and retirement plans, treat them well, so they wouldn't leave in the first place.

Government should be enticing and encouraging them with better pay, better working condition to stay rather.

How much money can govt pay them? Truth is even if govt triples their current salary, it won't still be enough. We simply cannot compete with the developed countries on wages. India knew this and set up many IT training schools and universities to take advantage of that japa opportunity. Today, almost every top tech company has Indians as CEOs etc. They are now returning home to help the country of their birth. Japa may not always be bad, it depends on how you handle it. We can follow in India's footsteps.

What is Senator Ningi saying? What budget was passed without us knowing? The executive presented a 2024 budget of N27.5 trillion to the National Assembly (NASS). This was jacked up to N28.77 trillion by NASS and subsequently passed into law by the President.

All these happened in the open before all Nigerians. Where is Sen Ningi's N25 trillion coming from? People just sit somewhere and manufacture stories and those who should be more discerning are lapping it up and swallowing it hook, line and sinker.

EreluRoz:
Who takes hajiya Najaatu seriously 😒

No one does...i wonder why anyone listens to anything she has to say. She got played, lost out and should sulk in peace

ReubenE:
I don't think she is inferring she relies solely on her salary for survival. She's only using her official salary as a baseline to gauge how bad or expensive things has become which is the right thing to do.

We all use minimum wage of 30k as baseline when talking about commodities, it does not mean everyone that use that survive on only 30k

Apart from the basic salary she and others like to quote, our academicians earn varying other allowances that bump up their pay. That said, overall pay is still low in comparison. Tuition paid cannot properly fund University education including paying decent wages to University lecturers. I will say liberslise and commercialise University education, support exceptional indigent students with scholarships and other poor students with student loans so no one is denied access to quality education. That way, everyone benefits

Eriokanmi:
Why didn't you go by road earlier and enjoy your money in hotel ahead of the tournament?

Don't mind the Prof. It is law of demand and supply. Many Nigerians will want to go and watch the match hence demand that far outstrips supply. The consequence is increased airfares. Same during peak and rush periods. I thought the Prof will know this and stop trying to do notice-me.

The options like you said are either go by road (much more cheaper) or watch at home with 1 month dstv premium subscription.

You will be shocked how much these Profs make from their side hustles enabled by the same academic environment they frequently like to abuse. Imagine Prof still hoping to get salaries paid for the 8 months they were on strike? Who does that? What of the students who lost one year due to that strike or those whose life journeys were altered? Who fights for them?

Where will Atiku have found $10bln for SMSEs Talk is cheap.

nairalanda1:
It has been decaying from independence.

The problem with our economy in my opinion (corruption aside, which is a serious issue mind you)..is that our economy is based on the price of whatever we are selling. IN the 1960's it was agric and solid minerals...then from the 1970's oil took over and remained our main source of income.

Problem is, we do not set the prices. ANd the solutuion is that we use what we have to make things the world can use.

Tinubu has really not done much. WHat he has done is had his hand forced by the fact that at the start of his regime, debt service was eating up most of the avaialble revenue, once subsides for petrol and the dollar had been paid. He had to cut subsides (he has not removed subsides) to get more money. Yes, nice...like IMF even suggested.

But lipstick on a pig does not make it a beautiful woman. (It may improve the pig's looks a bit, but it is still a pig).

At the end, we still are not earning enough money, and cutting subsides can only go so far. APC , Tinubu's party promised that diversification would happen when they took over in 2015. At the end, they did not diversify, and TInubu has not yet outlined how he would diversify the economy. Then there is the low revenue from tax. Improving both things means harsh economic polices for the next decade...and APC wants to win elections...so at the end, they won't take the hard decisions needed.

We have to earn more money, and we can do that by being a exporter of manufactured goods and servicies, having a decent tax income and also having a proper anti-corruption effort, and cutting government costs.

Your piece is nice and factual but can do with more realism. Things have been pretty bad. The first step when you are in a hole is to stop digging. A big ship takes energy and effort to change course. There are different phases along the recovery path. Questions need to be asked about what targets and what timelines are we working towards to double or triple our tax to GDP ratio, double or triple our oil and gas production, take our power generation and consumption to 50GW, reduce our import dependence by 50% etc etc. We will crawl, walk then run...it takes a disciplined process

Coming from someone who is resident in Dubai. If SW Govs can float Amotekun without FG support to largely successfully fight insecurity, why can't AA as a towering figure in the NE galvanise NE Govs to do same? His state leaves so much to be desired.

Peter Obi recognises that reforms take time to yield sustainable impact such as how Obiano reaped years later from the foundation he as Obi laid years earlier. My question then is - why does he think that all Tinubu is doing should yield impact NOW just after 8 months else he is failing?

I commend Gov Sanwo Olu on this. I worry that financing is not yet sorted. I thought Afrexim Bank or some financial institution committed to providing part funding. Why not start with that and be more creative in finding the balance?

That said, there are lots of existing roads that are either potholes filled or very rough and undulating. Can there be a plan over a 4-yr period to resurface those roads and beautify them? The sort of upgrade/resurfacing that FG is doing with the third mainland bridge. Collaboration with FG is crucial as some of these roads are federal roads. Lagos should massively benefit with BAT as President. If not, no one else will do it for Lagos in a generation. Some of these roads include;

1. Eko bridge
2. Carter bridge
3. Ikorodu road
4. Ozumba Mbadiwe road
5. Kofo Abayomi street
6. Lekki expressway
7. Lekki regional road
8. Lekki coastal road
9. Oba Akran avenue
10. Mobolaji Bank Anthony way
11. Kingsway (Alfred Rewane) road
12. Falomo road
13. Billingsway road
14. Domestic to International airport road

...just to mention a few

Retracted.

firearcher:
Its simple. They had no incentive to own such ships before. But now they do. Time for the companies to shore up their capital base and capacity.

Nigeria will be great.

This is the closest reasonable reason i have read here. Though not excusable by Nigeria and Nigerians because we are a major oil producer and should have been actively involved in marketing crude oil across the globe using crude tankers. There is so much money in the global oil trading and shipping business that we can't afford not to partake in.

As you say, there is now an incentive to get involved. To be fair, we do have LNG trading tankers and an LNG trading business via the NLNG trading arm. Much more can be done.

Surprising that discos do not have audited accounts dating back to at least 3 years including the supposedly well run ones. Red flag!

40% ownership of discos controlled by Wale Edun through MOFI is the end game of this move. Why not leave it under BPE afterall its DG was just removed and a new one installed. How many ventures and enterprises does MOFI want to oversee? You can begin to see a clear pattern in the way MOFI is getting involved in many strategic areas of the economy.

If it leads to improvement in the economy and massive gains, why not. However, is it sustainable over a longer period of time? Time will tell

Doyin Okupe's description of LP as a Special Purpose Vehicle was highly provocative and uncalled for. I think he deserved what came at him from.LP.

These 2 gentlemen are arguably amongst the top 10 competent persons holding public jobs in this country. What have they done to deserve sack? Irukera as federal consumer protection boss recently saw to British American Tobacco paying that huge fine. Okoh on the other hand has been doing some good privatisation work. What on earth are their crimes??

I would have thought Commissioner Omotosho should have done a comprehensive listing of ongoing projects to be completed. The 2 or 3 he mentioned did not do justice to the Lagos State Govt's efforts. For me, the following should be minimum infrastructure delivery targets. I am not including social and other human development projects.

1. Commence and push Lekki airport to 50% completion

2. Commence and push Fourth Mainland bridge to 30% completion

3. Complete the Lekki- Epe expressway rehabilitation. Complete Lekki regional road and push Lekki coastal road completion to 50%

4. Complete and start operating Red Line rail. Open up all the overpasses

5. Commence and push 2nd phase Blue Line rail to 50% completion

6. Complete feasibility and flag off 2 more rail lines as per masterplan

7. Complete the LASG part of the Lagos-Badagry expressway and collaborate with AfDB and FG to complete that entire stretch of road

8. Complete the Opebi-Mende-Ojota bypass road

9. Think through the rehabilitation of many major trunk roads that need facelift in Lagos - Oba Akran Avenue, Billingsway, MMA2-MMIA link road and so many others like them across the metropolis

10. Work with LGAs and LCDAs to deliver at least 500 internal roads

11. Start implementing Power strategy to generate, transmit and distribute power to Lagos as enabled by recent legislation

These are the minimum deliveries i expect. There are a lot more but prioritisation in the face of funding challenges is important.

Can't believe this report. Gombe State is about 4 million in population. How many are women? How many women are of child bearing age? How many had kids in 2023? Completely suspicious numbers.

A good man from one who saw him from afar particularly in his Church of the Assumption Falomo Parish. Served his God and others selflessly. May his soul and those of all the faithfully departed rest in peace, Amen. Adieu