Economy

CBN Seeks Private Sector’s Input in 5-Year Roadmap

Published

6 years ago

10/06/2019

By Modupe Gbadeyanka

Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Mr Godwin Emefiele, has held an interactive session with members of the private sector in the country so as to have their views on his five-year roadmap.

This month, Mr Emefiele commenced his second tenure of five years in office after he was reappointed by President Muhammadu Buhari.

At the consultative round table held in Lagos last week and tagged Growing for Growth,’ participants shared with the chief banker how he and his team can help the economy grow faster and better.

Chairman of Dangote Group and Africa’s richest man, Mr Aliko Dangote, said at the meeting that for Nigeria to witness economic growth, government must collaborate with the organised private sector.

He also said the electricity issue in the country must be resolved because no country can record any significant growth when industries are powered with generators.

In addition, Mr Dangote said banks must support the private sector by giving entrepreneurs easy access to consumer credit.

Others things he said must be done are increase house mortgages, increased focus on agriculture and manufacturing sectors.

“Government needs to have partnership with the private companies to access growth. It needs to encourage private sector investors, so that they do not rely on oil to pay salaries. That of oil should go into implementation for perfection of the economy.

“We the local investors should drive this country. No foreigner will invest in the country unless we locals do.

“The other thing that we need to look at is easy access to consumer credit. Consumer credit will help the government in fighting corruption.

“Also, another issue is smuggling. There is no country that can survive near the Republic of Benin because their main job is facilitating smuggling,” Mr Dangote said.

On his part, founder of Stanbic IBTC Bank, Mr Atedo Peterside, listed high tax rates, among others, as harmful to the growth of young and start-ups businesses, exchange rate instability, high

inflationary rate, among others, as bottlenecks impeding growth in the economy.

Speaking at the event, the convener, Mr Emefiele, said the points highlighted by the businessmen would be looked into.

On the smuggling issue, which the CBN chief said was a sabotage to the nation’s economy, he said efforts would be made to punish those encouraging it.

According to him, the CBN would close bank accounts of any company or person caught in smuggling and dumping of banned products into the country.

“Smugglers and dumpers are the major sabotage to the country’s economic policies. Nigeria is very good at making brilliant economic policies but we have identified smugglers and dumpers as those who sabotage these policies and we have decided we will deal with them and the strategy we came up with is that we will not bother ourselves.

“There is an agency of the government that is responsible for border control but that if these people pass through this border control, we would use the instrumentality of being the regulator for the banking system, to make sure that we get the banks to provide all details about these smugglers and dumpers, to provide investigation and if they are found culpable in economic sabotage bordering on dumping and smuggling in Nigeria.

“We will not only block their accounts; we will close their accounts in all the Nigerian banks simultaneously. We will close the accounts of the owners of those companies and we will close the accounts of top management members of those companies because they know that their companies are involved in smuggling and they should not be supporting those keep and of things.”

On the reason for the round table discussion, Mr Emefiele said, “We are here today as part of the engagement that we have planned, preparatory to the CBN releasing another five-year vision and agenda for the next tenure of the Governor of CBN.

“As you can see, we have at this session private sector leaders like Aliko Dangote, people in telecommunications, people in manufacturing, people in the IT sector, people in the agricultural sector and banking sector. All of them are represented.

“Basically, what we are saying here is that we want to give them opportunity, I will use the word to vent their view about what they think the CBN, the monetary policy committee should be doing in the next five years to support the economy and indeed to support the growth of the economy.”

Economy

Renaissance Shuts Down Okordia–Rumuekpe Pipeline After Oil Leak

Published

22 minutes ago

07/05/2025

Aduragbemi Omiyale

By Aduragbemi Omiyale and Adedapo Adesanya

Crude oil feed into the Okordia–Rumuekpe pipeline in Rivers State has been suspended by Renaissance Africa Energy Company Limited.

This action was taken by the energy firm after a leak in the 14-inch pipeline in Ikata under the Ahoada East Local Government Area of Rivers State.

Before now, the oil facility was operated by Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC), but Renaissance recently acquired all the oil assets of Shell in a deal finally approved by the federal government.

Business Post reports that Renaissance took over onshore oil and gas assets of Shell in Nigeria for about $2.4 billion.

The recent oil leak was the first major incident the facility was experiencing since the transaction was concluded a few months ago.

Confirming the shutdown in a statement on Tuesday, a spokesperson for Renaissance Africa Energy, Mr Michael Akande, explained that the action was taken to protect the environment.

“We have taken immediate steps to isolate and discontinue production into the pipeline to minimise any potential environmental impact,” Mr Adande stated.

He noted that the relevant regulatory authorities have been informed of the oil leak, assuring that the company will cooperate with the regulators to determine the cause and extent of the spill.

“Government regulators have been informed, and we are actively coordinating the statutory joint investigation visit, which will include their representatives and those from the local community,” he added.

As anticipation builds for the outcome of the JIV, environmental advocates and local leaders have called for transparency and immediate remediation.

Nigeria’s oil production have been affected over the years by a series of challenges. While efforts to curb them have yielded some results, the country is still far from hitting its 2.06 million barrels per day target to fund its 2025 budget.

Nigeria’s oil production peaked at 2.5 million barrels decades ago and despite ambitious 3-4 million barrels promises by subsequent governments, the highest actualisation in recent times have been 1.8 million barrels per day.

Economy

Nigerian Telcos Add 3.39 million Customers as Internet Users Drop in Q1 2025

Published

2 hours ago

07/05/2025

Adedapo Adesanya

By Adedapo Adesanya

Telecommunications operators in Nigeria added about 3.39 million telephone lines in the first quarter of 2025, pushing active users to 172.7 million, amounting to 79.67 per cent teledensity, according to the latest data released by the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) on Tuesday.

The industry regulator also said the number of active telephone users moved from 169.3 million as of January to 172.7 million by March ending.

The latest data showed that 4G technology remained most dominant in the country with 48.82 per cent penetration, followed by 2G at 40 per cent and 3G at 8.40 per cent.

The Fifth Generation (5G) offered by MTN, Mafab and Airtel leaped slightly by 0.16 per cent from 2.54 per cent as of the beginning of the year to 2.70 per cent by the end of March.

The 2.70 per cent means that of the 172.7 million active telephone users in the country, 4.66 million are using the 5G network.

Further analysis, however, showed a drop in the number of Internet users in the country. As of January, it was 142, 161,409 but dropped to 142,053, 537. But Broadband penetration rose to 47.73 per cent from 45.61 per cent. Interestingly, there are now 103.5 million broadband users in the country.

In terms of market dominance, MTN maintained the lead with 90 million users and 52. 4 per cent market reach. Airtel is second with 58.3 million customers and 33.8 per cent reach. Globacom came third with 12 per cent penetration and 20.7 million subscribers. 9mobile is fourth with 1.72 per cent nationwide penetration and 2.96 million customers.

This development comes amid rising complaint of worsening service offering by telcos in the past few days.

So far, only MTN has apologised for service glitch experienced by some subscribers yesterday.

Business Post reports that some MTN subscribers across Nigeria experienced a lengthy network downtime on Tuesday disrupting flow of work and communication.

As a result of the glitch, many users on the network were unable to access the internet and many social networking apps, except WhatsApp.

Speaking to this newspaper, a person identified as Albert Adeoye, said, “MTN really affected me yesterday. I heard people complaining but I didn’t know it was that bad.”

Economy

NASD Index Drops 0.02% to 3,289.00 Points

Published

3 hours ago

07/05/2025

Adedapo Adesanya

By Adedapo Adesanya

The NASD Over-the-Counter (OTC) Securities Exchange made a 0.02 per cent marginal slide on Tuesday, May 6, leaving the NASD Unlisted Security Index (NSI) down by 0.66 per cent to 3,289.00 points from the previous session’s 3,289.66 points.

In the same vein, the market capitalisation fell by N390 million to close at N1.925 trillion compared with the preceding trading day’s N1.926 trillion.

Afriland Properties Plc dropped N1.10 to close at N14.90 per share compared with the previous day’s N16.00 per share, FrieslandCampina Wamco Nigeria Plc lost N1.08 to settle at N38.92 per unit versus Monday’s closing price of N40.00 per unit, and UBN Property Plc went down by 22 Kobo to finish at N1.98 per share, in contrast to the previous day’s N2.20 per share.

On the flip side, the share price of Mixta Real Estate Plc increased by 45 Kobo to close at N5.00 per unit versus N4.55 per unit, and First Trust Microfinance Bank Plc expanded by 1 Kobo to trade at 63 Kobo per share compared with Monday’s closing price of 62 Kobo per share.

Yesterday, there was a 12,683.9 per cent rise in the volume of securities traded to 2.5 million units from the 19,920 units recorded in the previous trading day, there was also a 3,874.1 per cent increase in the value of securities transacted to N34.7 million from N872,687, and there was 320 per cent leap in the number of deals to 42 deals from 10 deals.

When the market closed for the day, Impresit Bakolori Plc remained the most traded stock by volume (year-to-date) with 533.9 million units worth N520.9 million, followed by Geo-Fluids Plc with 265.7 million units valued at N469.3 million, and Okitipupa Plc with 153.6 million units sold for N4.9 billion.

Also, Okitipupa Plc was the most traded stock by value (year-to-date) with 153.6 million sold for N4.9 billion, trailed by FrieslandCampina Wamco Nigeria Plc with 18.8 million units valued at N721.1 million, and Impresit Bakolori Plc with 533.9 million units worth N520.9 million.