April 2020

29 April 2020
Premium Times
Covidnomics: How To Deliver Food and Money to the Poorest Nigerians
Just before the lockdown of Lagos, videos of government officials readying food packages to distribute to poor households were making the round on social media. It looked thoughtful and reassuring. But just hours after the lockdown came into effect, video clips and reports emerged showing restless Lagosians in poor neighbourhoods complaining about being locked down and having no food to eat. Lagos still has a number of lockdown days to go and it’s not inconceivable that the lockdown could be extended, depending on the numbers of infections that are recorded in the next couple of days. So, it’s very important to think of ways to get food to the poorest Nigerians…

27 April 2020
BusinessDay
Abba Kyari: The high-profile casualty of Nigeria’s theatre of misrule
First, my condolences to the family of Mallam Abba Kyari, President Muhammadu Buhari’s chief of staff, who died on 17 April 2020, aged 67, after a coronavirus illness. His death is particularly sad because contracting the coronavirus is not an automatic death sentence. As of 24 April, last week, there were 2, 753,627 Covid-19 infectees worldwide, according to the global statistical organisation, “Worldometer”, and only 192,326 (about 7 percent) deaths. Sadly, Kyari was one of the unlucky few…

Counter Currents
Rising piracy in Gulf of Guinea
Gulf of Guinea continues to be world’s most dangerous route for international shipping trade. Called as ‘world piracy hotspot’, it has now eclipsed the troubled waters off Somalia in the Horn of Africa, by becoming a new epicenter for piracy, looting and kidnappings. According to International Maritime Bureau, almost eighty two percent of maritime kidnappings in the world occurred in the Gulf of Guinea in 2019. Attacks against merchant ships were recorded off Togo, Benin, Nigeria, Cameroon and Equatorial Guinea…

26 April 2020
Punch
Individuals, firms join forces to support govt’s fight against deadly COVID-19
Oluwaseun Osowobi’s joy has been uncontrollable since leaving one of the Lagos State isolation centres for coronavirus patients. Understandably, none should be surprised at her elation; surviving coronavirus is no mean feat just as testing positive for the virus is not a death sentence. Over the last four months, coronavirus has killed more than 202,000 persons around the world, shattering dreams of families and communities in the process. Young and old, rich or poor – the virus has spared no one – leaving behind a trail of devastation and scars on its victims and their families…

24 April 2020
Bloomberg
Nigeria defends slow pace of virus testing
Nigeria defended the slow pace of testing for the coronavirus amid a lockdown that’s paralyzed economic activity in its two main cities as concern over the government response to the outbreak grows…

Reuters
How Africa risks reeling from a health crisis to a food crisis
In Nigeria’s Benue state, the food basket of the country, Mercy Yialase sits in front of her idle rice mill. Demand is high across the nation, but she already has mounds of paddy rice that are going nowhere amid the COVID-19 lockdown…

22 April 2020
Global Business Reports
Nigeria and COVID-19: First-Hand industry insights
COVID-19 has effectively suspended almost all commercial activities in the country. On the good side, we have seen the private sector rally to assist with hospitals being built, equipment and hundreds of millions of dollars being donated to fight the spread of the disease. On the bad side, the suspension of all but essential economic activities has led to us seeing early signs of a recession, a devaluation of the Naira and our foreign exchange reserves hitting its lowest level in decades. It will take months, if not years, to assess and recover from the economic damage.

Mail & Guardian
Nigeria’s president loses his right hand man to Covid-19
Abba Kyari, the chief of staff to Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari and regarded by many as perhaps the second most powerful man in Nigerian politics behind only the president himself, died on April 17 in Lagos. He was 67…

18 April 2020
Bloomberg
Nigerian President’s Chief of Staff dies after getting virus
Abba Kyari, chief of staff to Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari and an ardent supporter of state intervention in the economy, has died. His age wasn’t disclosed…

17 April 2020
Vyral Africa
Nigerian security agents have killed more Nigerians than COVID-19 during lockdown
Security forces enforcing the lockdown in parts of Nigeria have killed more people than coronavirus itself, a local rights group says…

16 April 2020
Premium Times
Insecurity: Nearly 1,000 deaths recorded in Nigeria between January – March – Report
A Lagos based research platform, SBM Intelligence, has revealed that at least 979 deaths were recorded in Nigeria between January to March 2020. On Tuesday, the organisation published a report titled ‘Media Reported Killing in Nigeria’, which showed killings from violent incidents, including attacks from Boko Haram, kidnapping, herdsmen, various militia, and communal clashes…

Reuters
Millions face hunger as African cities impose coronavirus lockdowns
Shehu Isah Daiyanu Dumus has run out of cash and says he only has a few handfuls of cassava flour left to eat. The 53-year-old paraplegic man usually sells phone cards. But an extended lockdown to fight the new coronavirus in Nigeria’s biggest city, Lagos, has left him stranded…

15 April 2020
African Business Magazine
Nigerian private sector donates more than most other African countries in fight against COVID-19
As the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) continues to spread across Nigeria, public health officials are ramping up efforts to test more people and provide care for people who have contracted the acute respiratory illness. The number of confirmed cases in Nigeria skyrocketed to 343 as of April 13, of which 91 patients have been discharged and 10 dead…

Global Business Reports
Nigeria tackling 2020
2019 ended on a positive note with the FID on Train 7 and the ignition of Nigeria’s ‘year of gas’. Nigeria had an exciting year ahead. “It is a time of hope, optimism and fresh possibilities. We look forward as a nation to the 2020s as the opportunity to build on the foundations we have laid together on security, diversification of our economy and taking on the curse of corruption,” stated President Buhari in his address to the nation for the new year…

14 April 2020
NewsWireNGR
Why did the IMF executive board approve immediate debt relief for 25 countries and ignore Nigeria?
The Executive Board of the International Monetary Funds, IMF, approved immediate debt service relief to 25 of the IMF’s member countries under the IMF’s revamped Catastrophe Containment and Relief Trust (CCRT) as part of the Fund’s response to help address the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic…

10 April 2020
AFP
Nigerians struggle as virus lockdown hits supply chains
At a market on the outskirts of Nigeria’s megacity Lagos, yam trader Olatunji Okesanya is scrambling for produce as measures to halt the coronavirus cut him off from suppliers…

9 April 2020
BusinessDay
Analysts predict mixed fortune for consumer goods firms over COVID-19 fallout
Consumer goods analysts have predicted a tale of two halves for fast moving consumer goods amid a lock down in major cities of the country…

Cost of preparing Jollof may be more expensive in coming months
There are expectations that the cost of preparing a pot of Jollof might be expensive in coming months amid covid-19 turmoil that led to an upsurge in prices of key ingredients including rice, according to the latest Jollof index report by SBM…

8 April 2020
The Cable
COVID-19: Foodstuff prices almost double in Q1 2020
The price of food items in the country recorded a significant increase in the first quarter of 2020, a report by SBM Intelligence has shown. The report, which is called the Jollof Index, monitors food inflation by tracking the change in the price of food items….

NewsWireNGR
Enforced COVID-19 donations may betray ugly truth about Nigerian government’s crisis handling
When John Ahmadu (name has been changed) received a letter from the National Insurance Commission (NAICOM) on the 3rd of April, he assumed it would be a run-of-the-mill advisory memo from his industry regulator. As the director of a small insurance company that will remain anonymous for the purpose of this report, John was already facing the double jeopardy of a recent business slump and low future business volumes due to the COVID-19 outbreak. The last thing he needed was more trouble on his plate, but that is exactly what the letter brought…

7 April 2020
Nairametrics
Jollof Index shows Nigerians are spending more on food during lockdown
The SBM Jollof Index for Q1 2020, which was recently released, has shown that Nigerians are spending more on food items amid the Coronavirus lockdown…

Reuters
Lockdowns: Saving lives, but ruining livelihoods in Africa
In a dark ground-floor room in Lagos, dressmaker Kemi Adepoju gazes at a pile of dresses she has made but which cannot be collected due to the lockdown in force to slow the spread of the new coronavirus…

2 April 2020
Global Voices
Nigeria’s elite ‘above the law’ as the poor struggle with COVID-19 measures
Researchers at Nigeria’s University of Ibadan have predicted that COVID-19 cases in Nigeria will spike to about 312 by Friday, April 3, 2020, and noted “a consistent increase in the daily reported cases” since March 19…

Premium Times
Nigerian governors urge CBN to stop states’ debt deductions
The Nigerian Governors Forum (NGF) has urged the Central Bank of Nigeria to suspend all funds deductions from states and restructure their debt repayments. Governor Kayode Fayemi of Ekiti, the NGF chairman, said this at the governors’ second COVID-19 teleconference meeting on Wednesday…