November 2020

1st November 2020

30 November 2020
Reuters
Threats, detentions and frozen assets: Nigeria’s protesters depict pattern of intimidation
At 7 a.m. on a recent Saturday, Onomene Adene received a call from a man whose voice she did not recognise. The man said he knew her from church and asked for help getting a package to their pastor. She agreed to meet him at a bank near her home in the Nigerian city of Lagos…

The Africa Report
Nigeria’s new banking act: A step in the right direction?
Nigeria’s new Banks and Other Financial Institutions Act (BOFIA) 2020, took nearly 30 years in the making. While criticised for being a ‘mixed bag’, others argue its presence could provide opportunities to investors who are looking to invest in Africa…

27 November 2020
ICIR Nigeria
On their own: How Osun retirees are denied of their salaries and pensions
If only Pa Amiola Sunday, a 64-year-old retired primary school headmaster, had foreseen the indignity waiting for him at the end of his career, he probably would have rejected the offer of employment given to him on the 1st of September 1981 by Oyo State Universal Basic Education Board…

25 November 2020
ICIR Nigeria
How security guards of Abuja schools coped during COVID-19 pandemic
Armed only with a cutlass, 52-year-old Yisa Burawa, a security guard at Unique International School located in the Bwari area of Abuja, once chased away an intruder who tried to gain access to the school premises through the back door…

24 November 2020
Guardian Nigeria
#EndSARS Protest: Counting the losses and the gains
Days after the abrupt end of the two weeks #EndSARS protest that rocked Nigeria, Africa’s economic powerhouse is now regaining its momentum despite sliding into a second economic recession in five years under the leadership of President Muhammadu Buhari…

Quartz
Nigeria losing control of northwest region to bandit herdsmen
This month BBC’s Hausa language service which covers northern Nigeria reported a remarkable story of 12 Nigerian police officers being kidnapped along the Katsina-Zamfara expressway in the country’s northwest region. It was the latest in a growing list of attacks and kidnappings in Nigeria’s northwest that have often been underreported in Nigeria’s national media and almost hardly covered by the international media…

23 November 2020
Financial Times
Nigeria’s richest plough money into Africa’s biggest economy
Nigeria’s billionaires and big businesses are ploughing money into Africa’s largest economy even as foreign investors shy away from a country in the midst of its second recession in five years…

The Cable
Wike imposes 24-hour curfew in Rivers council over violence
Nyesom Wike, governor of Rivers, has imposed a 24-hour curfew around Okoro-Nu-Odu flyover in Rumuokoro, Obio/Akpor local government area of the state…

21 November 2020
Bloomberg
Biggest African economy now in recession as oil output drops
Africa’s largest economy has slumped into a recession in the third quarter as oil production dropped to a four-year low…

The Cable
IT’S OFFICIAL: Nigeria slides into worst recession in 33 years
Nigeria has officially slid into its worst economic recession in over three decades, TheCable can report. According to gross domestic product numbers released by the National Bureau of Statistics on Saturday, the nation recorded a contraction of 3.62 percent in the third quarter of 2020…

20 November 2020
Humangle
Newspaper vendors protest killing of colleague by Speaker’s aide
Newspaper vendors in Nigeria’s capital Abuja, are currently on a protest against the killing of their colleague by a police detail attached to Femi Gbajabiamila, Nigeria’s Speaker of the House of Representatives…

NTA Business Express
Talking about the Finance Bill 2020
SBM Senior Analyst, Joachim MacEbong, analyses the 2020 Finance Bill with NTA’s Muplang Dakok…

Quartz
The spiking cost of Nigeria’s favorite dish captures an ongoing food crisis
Given Nigeria’s ethnic heterogeneity, with over 300 ethnic groups scattered across its 36 states, it’s pretty difficult to settle on a national dish…

19 November 2020
774
Nigeria gov’t to sanction CNN, says Lekki shooting, “massacre without bodies”
The Federal Government of Nigeria has said Cable News Network (CNN) may be sanctioned over what it described as “irresponsible reporting” of the #Endsars protests and its fallout at the Lekki Toll Gate, Lagos…

16 November 2020
Channels Television
The Beam: #EndSARS aftermath
Prostesters account freezing a breach of rule of law..?

12 November 2020
NewsWireNGR
The return of abacha-ism and the assault on freedom In Nigeria
“I’ve been getting calls. I’ve been getting many calls, David. You have been writing things. Have you seen the SSS Headquarters in Abuja? It goes 7 storeys underground. When they put you inside there, even with these your glasses, you won’t be able to see anything…”

NigeriaInfo Lagos
How much does a pot of jollof rice cost you to make these days?
According to the Jollof Index from SBM Intelligence, it now costs on average over ₦7,000 to cook a pot of jollof rice for a family of 5 anywhere in Nigeria…

Quartz
Nigeria has ratified Africa’s historic free trade agreement—but its land borders remain closed
The largest world’s largest free trade area since the World Trade Organization has taken one step closer to becoming a reality…

11 November 2020
AFP
Africa’s largest economy ratifies continent trade deal
The Nigerian government said Wednesday it had ratified the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) — a key step towards the long-negotiated creation of the world’s largest free trade area…

Can Biden do better than Trump in Africa?
After years of neglect by successive US presidents, Africans doubt Joe Biden’s globally celebrated electoral victory last week will bring miracles to the world’s poorest continent…

Arbiterz
Nigeria’s derelict roads a barrier to Dangote Refinery
Nigeria’s network of dilapidated roads will be a major barrier to the efficient distribution of refined petroleum from Dangote Refinery when it launches next year just as it is for intra-African trade…

Bloomberg
Africa’s largest economy to ratify continent-wide trade zone
Africa’s largest economy will commit to a continent-wide free-trade pact that could become the world’s biggest market, adding legitimacy to the deal months before first commerce is set to begin…

Humangle
Calls to restrict social media will shrink digital rights – SERAP, AI
There has been a push by governors and monarchs in some parts of Nigeria for the Federal Government to regulate the social media following the #ENDSARS protest in some states across the country demanding for an end to police brutality and a police reforms…

Premium Times
Nigeria faces possible COVID-19 second wave but has let guard down
To millions of Nigerians, the nation has moved past the worst of the coronavirus. That is even if the virus is “real and potent” in the country in the first place, many will argue…

Sahara Reporters
Governor Wike’s bounties sum to nearly ₦1 billion in 3 years
The Governor of Rivers State, Nyesom Wike, first announced a bounty of ₦200 million for the capture of Don Wani, the alleged mastermind of the New Year attack in Omoku in 2018.

9 November 2020
Arise TV
What does a Biden win mean for Nigeria?
Joachim Macebong, senior analyst at SBM Intelligence, talks to Arise TV’s Rotus Oddiri about what the results of the US’s 2020 elections mean for Nigeria…

BusinessDay
From immigration to trade, what a Biden presidency means for Nigeria
We look at how the presidency of Joseph Biden in the United States will affect Nigeria across multiple fronts from trade to immigration…

Reuters
In Nigeria, looters target government warehouses stocked with COVID-19 relief
Looters have been targeting state warehouses across Nigeria stocked with COVID-19 relief supplies which they say should already have gone to the poor and hungry…

The Africa Report
Nigeria – USA: Will Biden’s win reset relations with Abuja?
In what felt like an eternity as the 2020 US presidential election stretched into days of counting, for Nigerians it was a big sigh of relief when it was announced that Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. would be the 46th president of the United States…

8 November 2020
BusinessDay
Nigerians now spend nearly twice more on Jollof
The cost of preparing a pot of Jollof rice, a popular delicacy among Nigerians, is now ₦7,167, which is almost twice what it was four years ago, no thanks to the country’s protectionist policies and higher energy cost following the removal of subsidies…

7 November 2020
The Cable
More immigrants, greater economic engagements… the opportunities for Nigeria under Biden
Nigeria and other countries in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) would likely see renewed economic engagements from the United States (US) under a Joe Biden administration…

6 November 2020
The Africa Report
Nigeria: If you thought 2020 was bad, brace yourself for 2021
Nigeria needs to brace for an extended foreign exchange rate crisis as oil markets face a tough year-end, which analysts see as impacting the economy of Africa’s most populous country…

5 November 2020
BusinessDay
Awka is the cheapest city to prepare a pot of Jollof rice
Awka, the capital city of Anambra State is the cheapest place to prepare a pot of Jollof rice for a family of six, according to a recent October 2020 Jollof index report…

WFMJ
Rahma Indimi, Herbert Wigwe and other Africa’s 2020 heroes of philanthropy putting wealth to a good cause in the era of Covid-19
With the outbreak of the first reported case of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) in Africa in February 2020, experts predicted that the pandemic would hit Africa the hardest. And since then, African governments and communities have continued to grapple with the unprecedented health emergency, with implications for national economies and the livelihoods of citizens…

4 November 2020
BusinessDay
Johns Hopkins professor, Hanke takes swipe at “sleepy” Buhari
Steve Hanke, a professor of applied economics at American Ivy League University, Johns Hopkins, has been critical of the economic record of Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari…

The economic pains of Nigeria’s land border closure
The federal government may have justified the closure of the land borders on the need to stop smuggling activities and illicit export of locally subsidised petrol to neighbouring countries while boosting local production. However, the impact of such policy on the households, businesses and the economy, at large, has been devastating…

The Cable
Report: 43% of small businesses lost over N1m to #EndSARS looting
A new report by SBM Intelligence, Nigeria’s leading geopolitical intelligence platform, said 43 percent of small businesses lost over ₦1 million to looting during the #EndSARS protest…

3 November 2020
Petroleum Economist
Nigerian PIB stalls after inching forward
Nigeria’s hopes of accelerating growth in its upstream sector appear set for further delay due to legislative time running out to debate its long-awaited Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB)…

1 November 2020
Premium Times
Poor remuneration and its contribution to excesses of Nigerian police officers
The already-sullied reputation of the Nigeria Police Force, suffered more blows after the youth across the country, in the past few weeks, took to the streets in protest against police brutality, particularly the activities of the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS)…