Daily Watch – Boko Haram hit Borno for N1.2 trillion, Buhari promises 10GW

22nd March 2016

  • A report seen by Daily Trust shows that Borno State has lost about 20,000 citizens and suffered property damage worth $5.9 billion (N1.16 trillion) to the Boko Haram insurgency over the last seven years. These figures are according to a preliminary validation of a Post Insurgency Recovery and Peace Building Assessment report by World Bank officials. The report is an estimate of the value of public and private property damaged by the insurgency in the Borno’s 27 local government areas. The assessment report indicates that out of 3,232,308 private houses in the state, 956,453 or 30 percent were destroyed by insurgents. Worst hit is Mobbar local government where out of 150,585 private houses, 101,085 houses were destroyed. Abadam, Guzamala, Bama and Gwoza followed in the scale of destruction. More than 80 percent of the houses in Bama local government were destroyed. The report also found that 5,335 classrooms and other school buildings were destroyed in primary, secondary schools and two tertiary institutions.
  • President Muhammadu Buhari has pledged to boost electricity output to 10GW by the end of his tenure, and boost gas supplies to power stations. Speaking at the opening session of the two-day National Economic Council retreat, the President said, “Nigerian’s favourite talking point and butt of jokes is the power situation in our country. But, ladies and gentlemen, it is no longer a laughing matter. We must and by the grace of God, we will put things right. In the three years left for this administration. We have given ourselves the target of ten thousand megawatts distributable power. In 2016 alone, we intend to add two thousand megawatts to the national grid.” However, some analysts have said that the President’s speech was laden with familiar slogans echoed by former leaders. Nigeria currently generates about 4,000MW of electricity, and consumers continue to complain about constant power cuts and high electricity bills. Other problems are low supply of gas to power plants due to vandalism, obsolete power distribution equipment such as transformers, power fluctuations, which damage manufacturing equipment and household appliances, and low voltage that cannot run industrial machinery. SBM Intelligence recently published a report on the power sector problems.
  • Activities on the floor of the Nigerian Stock Exchange improved last week, which ended on Friday, as a total of 11.907 billion shares were traded for N18.338 billion in 19,508 deals compared with a total of 1.111 billion shares valued at N7.448 billion traded in 15,562 deals. The improvement in trading activities, could not however impact the NSE All-Share Index, which dropped by 1.13 per cent to close the week at 25,694.79 points and N8.839 trillion respectively. The week witnessed several full year 2015 earnings reports from large companies with varied dividends that offered a mixed picture for investors. These, however, failed to lift the market as the overall focus remained on: macro environment; profit warnings coming from the banking sector; the impending action of the central bank on the naira that has been keeping FPIs away from the market.
  • The newly-established Dangote Tomato Processing Factory in Kadawa, Kano State has the capacity to process 120 tonnes of fresh tomatoes per day at full capacity, an official has said. The Managing Director of the company, Abdulkadir Kaita, said that the company, which began test production last week, had processed 500 tonnes of tomatoes. “We have not commenced production at full capacity. This is the reason why we are taking the product in batches,” Kaita said. He said the company would do everything possible to ensure that the finished product met required quality standards. According to him, the management of the company will fix a tentative date for the official inauguration of the company soon. He said the company bought tomatoes from farmers at higher prices than the existed in the open market. “We purchase the commodity at N20,000 per tonne irrespective of the tomato specie. So we buy a basket of the commodity above N1,000 per basket and the current price at the market is N300. This is more than twice the price at the open market. The farmers are happy about the price because we have had several meetings with the officials of their association before we agreed on the prices.”