December 2019

31 December 2019
Nairametrics
Nigeria in 2020: SB Morgen perspective
The Nigerian economy is expected to be challenged in the year 2020 and possibly beyond. This could be attributed to policies implemented based on impulse and not facts in 2019 by President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration, a report from SB Morgen Research disclosed…

We are still studying ‘Eco’ adoption by ECOWAS members- FG
The Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Zainab Ahmed, has disclosed that the Federal Government is monitoring proceedings of the planned currency change, Eco. The currency change involves eight West African countries of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS)…

27 December 2019
Al Jazeera
Maritime piracy increases business costs in the Gulf of Guinea
In early December the Nave Constellation supertanker was hijacked. Pirates boarded the fully loaded ship, stole its oil cargo, and kidnapped 19 members of its crew about 77 nautical miles (143km) from Bonny Island, a loading terminal in Rivers State, Nigeria…

BluePrint
VAT hike, closed borders: Nigerians may face hard times in 2020
The year 2020 may bite the average Nigerian hard with increased VAT, a potential electricity tariff increase and the continued effects of the border closure. In all, the Central Bank of Nigeria has stood valiantly defending the naira and heavily depleting the country’s foreign reserves. Defending the naira cost more than $3.3bn in the second half of 2019…

26 December 2019
The Sun
How to end electoral violence in Nigeria — Stakeholders
The orgy of violence witnessed before, during and after last month’s gubernatorial elections in Kogi and Bayelsa brings to fore once again the need to curb the death toll and mayhem associated with voting in Nigeria over the years…

YNaija
Sorrows, tears and blood…The most distressing tragedies of the year
President of the Association of Nigerian Authors (ANA) Denja Abdullahi exhibited proof that he has no business leading an association of creatives via his cruel and unusual treatment of Ernest O. Ògúnyemí, a budding writer whose only error was winning a prose prize for young writers organized by the ANA…

23 December 2019
BusinessDay
SBM says it got 60% of its 2019 predictions right. Here’s its 2020 outlook
An intelligence platform which got 60 percent of its 2019 predictions correctly and was partially correct on 14 percent gives its outlook for next year. Among other things, Lagos-based SBMorgen correctly predicted average oil price, the impact of regulation on Fintechs, fiscal problems of the FG-although it was wrong on its prediction that Nigeria would see another recession in 2019…

Guardian Nigeria
Devaluation, subsidy removal among biggest predictions for Nigeria in 2020
If President Muhammadu Buhari’s 2019 economic decisions were anything to go by, 2020 could be a wild ride with the government moving all the pieces on whims rather than fact…

21 December 2019
Bloomberg
Christmas dinner in Nigeria this year misses one key ingredient
Nigerians may have to do without their favorite delicacy this Christmas. Jollof, a mixture of rice, tomatoes and spices, is practically a national dish in Nigeria, Africa’s most-populous country with almost 200 million people. It’s particularly coveted by the poor at Christmas and other festive periods, when increased demand for its ingredients contributes to seasonal price rises…

20 December 2019
BusinessDay
Why Jollof rice may have low patronage during Christmas celebration
As Nigerians wait for the 2019 Christmas in few days, it appears cooking ‘Jollof rice,’ the usual meal that comes with the celebration, may not be an option for most Nigerians…

16 December 2019
The Africa Report
Nigeria’s loss is Ghana’s gain
December is a busy month for airlines flying between London and West Africa. Many first and second-generation West Africans, living in Europe or elsewhere, will fly home to celebrate the holidays with their extended families. Airlines, like British Airways (BA), will make a killing on this route by offering return tickets to Accra and Lagos for as much as $2,400 (£1,800)…

14 December 2019
Bloomberg
Nigeria’s Buhari resurrects hard-man habits to curb dissent
Evoking memories of Nigeria’s three decades of military rule, the repression risks undoing progress Africa’s top oil producer has made since the restoration of multiparty democracy in 1999…

7 December 2019
Guardian Nigeria
How Nigerian Twitter helped keke rider raise over ₦1 million to pay hospital bills
When Emmanuel Nweke’s wife Gift was delivered of a baby through a Caesarean section (CS) on November 5, he was happy the child and his wife were in good condition. But there was a problem. The hospital bill was way more than he could afford. His monthly income was too meagre to support such a burden…

2 December 2019
African Business
Nigeria border closure causes economic shock
The unexpected nature of the announcement gave traders and communities little time to prepare for the economic shock that followed. In October Nigeria – which shares boundaries with Benin, Niger and Cameroon – closed all of its land borders to the movement of goods in a bid to tackle smuggling…

1 December 2019
Premium Times
Nigerian journalists, CSOs to discuss shrinking civic space
A cohort of civil society and media organisations are set to hold a dialogue session to discuss the increasingly adverse environment within which media and civil society organisations operate in Nigeria, especially in the last couple of months…