January 2022

31 January 2022
BusinessDay
Explainer: Why most Nigerians leave for greener pastures
The migration of Nigerians seeking greener pastures abroad is no news but the rate at which they are leaving poses a cause for concern, as they play a vital role in the growth and development of an economy…

30 January 2022
The Sun
British charity takes school enrolment campaign to Oshodi Market
British charity IA-Foundation has taken its campaign to Oshodi Market in Lagos, the latest initiative of the group to tackle out-of-school crisis in Nigeria, Africa’s most populous nation…

27 January 2022
Financial Times
‘Godfather’ of Lagos aims to become Nigeria’s next president
After a three-month stay in the UK for knee surgery, the former governor of Lagos state returned to his compound in Nigeria’s wealthiest neighbourhood, Ikoyi, in a dozen-vehicle convoy, greeted by scores of supporters, praise singers and politicians…

26 January 2022
Africa News
Nigerian Unions threaten strike over fuel subsidy?
The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and the Trade Union Congress (TUC) are to embark on a nationwide strike starting on Thursday January 27, as a way of registering their displeasure over government’s initial plans to remove fuel subsidies…

The Street Journal
Report reveals over 17,000 persons killed in violent clashes across Nigeria in two years
According to a report, a total of 17,363 persons were killed in violent incidents across Nigeria from 2020 to 2021, including attacks from Boko Haram, militia herdsmen, abductions, gang clashes and bandits.

The Sun
Over 17,000 Nigerians killed in 2 years
No fewer than 17, 363 persons were killed across Nigeria in violent incidents between 2020 and 2021. This was contained in a report compiled by SBM Intelligence, a geopolitical intelligence platform and the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data (ACLED) project, released, yesterday…

25 January 2022
AFP
Nigeria suspends plan to end fuel subsidies
Nigeria’s government has suspended a plan to end its costly fuel subsidy programme, saying the timing was not right, a year before the presidential election…

Le Nigeria renonce à la suppression des subventions des carburants
Le gouvernement du Nigeria a annoncé renoncer une nouvelle fois à la suppression des subventions des carburants, une mesure extrêmement populaire dans le pays le plus peuplé d’Afrique, un an avant l’élection présidentielle…

Nigéria volta a adiar abolição dos subsídios de combustíveis
Aatravessar uma grave crise orçamental, o Governo havia proposto inicialmente abolir os subsídios, que provocam anualmente a diminuição da entrada de receitas nos cofres públicos, mas que permitem que os postos de gasolina vendam os combustíveis a preços muito abaixo do mercado.

Channels TV
Rise In Military Takeovers On The Continent
SBM Intelligence’s Security Analyst, Confidence McHarry speaks on the coup in Burkina Faso and the wider sphere of political instability in the African Sahel

24 January 2022
Africa Business
Petroleum Industry Act let us down, say Niger Delta communities
Dissatisfaction over funds allocated to the communities of Nigeria’s Niger Delta Region by Nigeria’s historic Petroleum Industry Act in August has been exacerbated by the recent oil spill at Nembe in Baysela state…

Business AM
Informal sector associational taxation
Bringing the informal sector into the tax net has been a critical government concern at all levels. The informal sector in Nigeria and indeed sub-Saharan Africa is vast and averages between 50 and 65 per cent of GDP in countries such as Benin, Tanzania and Nigeria based on a 2016 IMF working paper titled “The Informal Economy in Sub-Saharan Africa: Size and Determinants – [WP/17/156]”. The sector is also not opposed to tax payments. An August 2021 survey by SBM intelligence titled “Under the Hood: A look into Nigeria’s informal sector” revealed that 98% of businesses in the informal sector in Nigeria pay taxes. Sadly, most of these payments end up with non-state regulators…

BusinessDay
Nigeria records more deaths by terrorism as fatalities rise 10,366 last year
Last year may be said to be worse in terms of insecurity as the number of people killed (fatalities) surged year-on-year by 47 percent to 10,366 in 2021, according to data compiled by SBM intelligence using multiple sources of which Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED) was one…

Divergent Options
An Assessment of Nigeria’s Security Situation in 2021
The open-source data on Nigeria’s security-related casualties indicates that insecurity remains a persistent threat in the country. The high number of deaths recorded between October 2020 and September 2021 shows that the nation is at war with itself…

The Nation
Positioning agric to drive economic growth
Nigeria is set to curb imports in the face of declining revenue from oil. The agriculture sector looks good to dislodge oil as a major revenue earner and, ultimately, contribute to economic growth and development. However, with various operators in the agric sector facing hard times due to heightened risks from the COVID-19 pandemic and its emerging variants, as well as soaring inflation, experts and stakeholders are canvassing the need to strengthen the nation’s food system to position agric to drive economic recovery…

Premium Times
Burkina Faso: Concerns grow over recurring coups in Africa
The recent military coup in Burkina Faso is the fourth in the West African region in recent times and the sixth successful coup in the continent since 2020. There had been two within the period in Mali, and one each in Guinea, Sudan, and Chad…

20 January 2022
AIT
Moneyline with Nancy Iloh: NIN: National Identity Data Base in Nigeria
Nancy Iloh with Cheta Nwanze, Lead partner, SBM Intelligence, critically talked on “NIN: National Identity Data Base in Nigeria”. Establishing that the physical NIN is the best instead of the newly introduced digital NIN token and Nigerians should have the it…

BusinessDay
Naira to face pressure on low oil output, rising interest rates
Economists have said the devaluation of Nigeria’s currency, naira, is inevitable in 2022 as lower oil production puts pressure on the nation’s reserves…

19 January 2022
Africa Check
Not only about size – why Nigeria’s Kaduna state governor misses point about insecurity
Does its larger territory explain why insecurity is a persistent headache for Nigeria’s north-west state of Kaduna? This was the gist of reported remarks by Kaduna governor Nasir El-Rufai at a high level summit in the south-west state of Ekiti in October 2021…

18 January 2022
Premium Times
Repression of human rights worsening in Nigeria – Human Rights Watch
Attack on human rights is worsening in Nigeria, the Human Rights Watch (HRW), an international non-governmental organisation concerned with human rights matters around the globe, has said…

17 January 2022
BusinessDay
Fading FDI piles pressure on FG to step up hunt for private capital
Nigeria is finding out that attracting Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) into a country that has a larger population than Egypt (102 million), Ghana (31 million), Morocco (36 million) and Canada (38 million), combined won’t be a smooth ride in a new COVID 19 world where access to private capital is keenly contested…

Irish Times
Northeast Nigeria’s students brave kidnappings, poverty, to go to school
Head teacher Sani Garba Mohammed stands in front of a blackboard reading “R data processing” in the El Ansar Islamiya school in Maiduguri, northeast Nigeria. These are notes from a computer class, he explains, even though his school of more than 400 students has no computers. “We learn theory,” Mohammed laughs…

16 January 2022
SilverbirdNews24
FG vs Twitter who is the biggest loser?
Ikemesit Effiong, Head of Research at SBM Intelligence unpacks the conditions met by Twitter in Nigeria before the government lifted the ban. Seven months down the line, who is the biggest loser?…

14 January 2022
774Ngr
New users from alleged troll farm flood Nigeria’s Twitter space as country’s gov’t unbans app
Once again, Nigerians can now use the micro-blogging platform, Twitter, without VPNs after two hundred and twenty two days of total ban because of what the federal government at the time tagged “the unceasing use of the platform by some unscrupulous elements for subversive purposes and criminal activities, propagating fake news, and polarising Nigerians along tribal and religious lines, among others…

13 January 2022
Al Jazeera
Nigerians react with joy and resolve to lifting of Twitter ban
Solomon Elusoji, a Lagos-based journalist, felt a rush of relief early on Thursday after being able to access Twitter for the first time in seven months…

Guardian Nigeria
Nigeria to have ‘direct channel’ to ‘manage prohibited content’ on Twitter
Nigeria will now have “direct access” to manage content on Twitter that violates Nigerian laws and Twitter community rules, as parts of the agreements reached between the social media platform and the West African country to lift the ban on Twitter operations…

12 January 2022
The Nation
2023: The president Nigeria needs
Back in 2014, as the resurgent opposition pummelled Goodluck Jonathan’s reeling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) administration, it saw opportunities in the challenges confronting it, to shape its campaign template…

11 January 2022
Premium Times
How insecurity, COVID-19 hampered Nigeria’s education sector
Like other sectors of the national economy, Nigeria’s education sector may not fully recover from the debilitating impacts of the coronavirus pandemic any time soon as insecurity, especially violent attacks on schools by non-state actors, has complicated the woes bedeviling it…

Punch
Zamfara massacre: Time to impose state of emergency
The mindless killing of more than 200 persons in some communities in Zamfara State has reinforced the urgent need for a change in the military strategy against insurgents, terrorists, and sundry armed criminals in the Northern states…

Vanguard
Entrench equity, fairness and justice to enhance security
Today, it appears that there is more than meets the eye concerning the unceasingly growing insecurity in every part of Nigeria. This is particularly disheartening because of the speculations, and/or striking naked facts, flying around in the public domain…

10 January 2022
Humangle
2021 Terrorists’ Invasions Of Schools In Northern Nigeria
In 2021, terrorists went on rampage in Northern Nigeria; from North-central to Northwest, attacking schools, kidnapping students, and staff of those schools…

7 January 2022
Africa Confidential
Contenders fill the stage
With presidential and national assembly elections due in February 2023, political campaigns will go into overdrive this year as alliances are made and deals struck. Outgoing President Muhammadu Buhari and his allies will use his incumbency to try to influence the ruling All Progressives’ Congress’s (APC) choice of candidates…

Guardian Nigeria
Insecurity spikes fares, hobbles rail, road travels
Land travel recorded one of its bumpiest rides last year. Besides the poor infrastructure that afflicted both road and rail paths nationwide, worsening insecurity made safe travel a luxury that only a few could afford…

Nairametrics
Gulf of Guinea piracy: What to expect in 2022
Nigeria’s efforts in the Gulf of Guinea has seen improved numbers compared to other chaos and violent zones in the country. This is related to the fact that Nigeria’s maritime industry is also culturally and geographically tied to its oil and gas export zones, and with further implementation of the African Continental Free Trade Agreements (AfCFTA), Nigeria needs to secure its lucrative maritime routes to boost trade with Africa and the world…

6 January 2022
19FortyFive
The Story Of How 88,000 AK-47 Assault Rifles Somehow Went Missing
The AK-47 remains the favored weapon of insurgents, paramilitary forces, and rogue fighters around the world. It is easy to maintain, simple to operate, rugged and of course deadly…

Al Jazeera
Nigeria labels bandit gangs ‘terrorists’ in bid to stem violence
Nigeria has branded criminal gangs known locally as bandits that are blamed for mass abductions of schoolchildren as “terrorist” groups, a designation aimed at containing growing insecurity in the north…

Sicurezza Internazionale
La Nigeria designa come “terroristi” i banditi locali
La Nigeria ha etichettato con il termine “terroristi” i membri dei gruppi criminali locali conosciuti come banditi e accusati principalmente di furti, saccheggi e rapimenti di massa di studenti…

5 January 2022
African Business
Nigerian Startup Bill to unlock tech sector potential
Nigeria’s President Muhammadu Buhari looks set to hand the country’s vibrant tech ecosystem an olive branch, following years of fraught relations with the sector. In his New Year’s speech to the nation he stated: “In year 2022 and going forward, our administration would intentionally leverage ICT platforms to create jobs while ensuring that the diversification of our economy creates more support to other emerging sectors…

Nairametrics
Insecurity: Over 88 thousand AK-47 rifles unaccounted for
The Office of Nigeria’s Auditor General of the federation reported that over 88 thousand AK-47 rifles have been unaccounted for as of December 2018…

4 January 2022
African Business
Nigeria’s spill-hit communities demand more from Petroleum Industry Act
A dozen oil workers celebrated and high-fived each after capping a leaking wellhead that spewed over 20,000 barrels of oil per day for one month into the waterways of Nembe, in Nigeria’s Bayelsa state…

BusinessDay
Nigerians defy insecurity, pandemic, travel for Yuletide
Considering that about 2,287 Nigerians lost their lives to insecurity in the third quarter of 2021, according to a report by SBM Intelligence and EiE Nigeria, most people were advised to cancel planned trips to locations considered unsafe for the festive celebration last year…

Punch
2022: Security, economy, restructuring should top agenda
Nigerians welcomed 2022 enveloped in uncertainty. In a world wracked by a record pandemic, meltdown, natural disasters, internal and international divisions, celebrations ushering in the New Year in many countries were phlegmatic. In Nigeria, gloom has been pervasive, discernible despite official posturing to simulate the boisterous merriment of the past. The reasons are obvious. Insecurity has pushed the country to the edge of state failure, economic and human development indices are dreary, famine looms and joblessness is dangerously explosive. Separatist sentiments compete with calls for restructuring of the polity…

Reuters
Nigeria’s auditor general flags missing police firearms
Nigeria’s police could not account for thousands of firearms, including 88,078 AK-47 rifles, an audit report published by the auditor general of the federation on Tuesday showed…

TV360
Insecurity In Nigeria: 2021 In Retrospect
More than a decade after Nigeria began its campaign against attacks by insurgents; the country witnessed an unprecedented rise in the level of attacks by terrorist groups as well as abductions by bandits…

3 January 2022
Premium Times
Rising concerns over secrecy of public official’s asset declaration, CCB’s role
President Muhammadu Buhari and Vice President Yemi Osinbajo did the uncommon in September 2015 by making public sketchy details of their asset declarations, although, it was in response to growing pressure on them to fulfil a major campaign promise…

1 January 2022
Peoples Gazette
Nigeria in 2022: Experts give predictions on VAT, elections, economy, civil and separatist agitations
As Nigeria ushers in Year 2022 amid continuing battle against global contagion, COVID-19, experts have weighed in on the year’s outlook as the country faces unabating insecurity, mounting economic woes and off-cycle elections in Osun and Ekiti States…