Economy
Nigeria Cuts Gas Flaring to 8%, Target 0% by 2025
By Adedapo Adesanya
The federal government has pledged to end gas flaring by 2025 following the significant reduction to eight per cent.
The pledge was made by the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Mr Timipre Sylva, on Monday at a public hearing on gas flaring organised by the House of Representatives in Abuja.
The Minister said that the public hearing was an opportunity to update the records and to bring stakeholders up to speed on happenings in the sector.
He said that elimination of gas flaring was an issue the ministry was taking seriously, saying it was committed to achieving the global consensus on elimination of gas flaring by 2025.
“Today, we have actually reduced gas flaring significantly to a very minimal level of eight per cent.
“If you all recall, in 2020, the ministry of petroleum started what we call the National Gas Expansion Programme and we declared the year 2020 as the year of gas.
“At the beginning of this year, we also declared the year 2021 the beginning of the gas decade. We believe that with all the programmes we have in place, we are on course to achieving complete elimination of gas flaring by the year 2025,” he said.
The Minister recalled that in December 2020, the ministry rolled out a gas penetration programme, noting that it was aggressively pursuing it to attain total elimination and utilisation of gas that was being flared today.
Also speaking, the Minister of Environment, Mr Muhammed Abubakar, said that gas flaring was one environmental challenge a lot had been said about.
Represented by the Director of Environment, Mr Abah Suleman, Mr Abubakar said that gas flaring leads to global warming.
“The fear that the earth might snowball into a runaway greenhouse effect as we have on planet Venus is one of the major reasons why it has been globally accepted that all hands must be on deck to ensure that gas flares are totally put out.
“The federal government has made commitments to the Paris Agreement of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change through our intended national determined contribution.
“The Ministry of Environment is highly desirous and has been giving support to the Ministry of Petroleum in this regard.
“As far back as 2003, when the ministry along some oil companies pushed for the use of compressed natural gas, which went comatose.
“I am happy to say that the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari has kick-started the programme,” he said.
Mr Abubakar said that the ministry had embarked on a programme that would accurately track gas flaring across the country.
He pledged the ministry’s support to enforce all laws and policies to ensure that Nigeria meets its global commitments on gas.
On his part, the Group Managing Director (GMD) of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Mr Mele Kyari, said that gas has an attractive value, adding that no one would want to flare gas when it could be commercialised but there must be a perfect framework to achieve that.
“We are connecting most part of the country to the gas network so that people can convert this gas either for power or industrial use and we hope to achieve this by the end of March.
“It is business that makes people invest, no matter how much penalty you put, if the cost of the penalty is cheaper than the cost of developing the gas that may not be commercial, people will continue to flare gas and pay the penalty.
“You can raise the penalty to any number and what it does, it completely makes people not to invest in anything, so increasing the penalty is not the solution.
“The solution is to clear the commercial towns that will enable companies to invest in this flare so that we can convert them into money,” he said.
He said that the harm gas flaring was doing to communities and the environment would go away if commercialised, pledging to work with the National Assembly to put in place every structure required to end gas flaring in the country.
By Aduragbemi Omiyale
The trading licence of Monument Securities and Finance Limited has been revoked by the regulatory arm of the Nigerian Exchange (NGX) Group Plc.
Known as NGX Regulations Limited (NGX Regco), the regulator said it took back the operating licence of the organisation after it shut down its operations.
The revocation of the licence was approved by Regulation and New Business Committee (RNBC) at its meeting held on September 24, 2025, a notice from the signed by the Head of Market Regulations at the agency, Chinedu Akamaka, said.
“This is to formally notify all trading license holders that the board of NGX Regulation Limited (NGX RegCo) has approved the decision of the Regulation and New Business Committee (RNBC)” in respect of Monument Securities and Finance Limited, a part of the disclosure stated.
Monument Securities and Finance Limited was earlier licensed to assist clients with the trading of stocks in the Nigerian capital market.
However, with the latest development, the firm is no longer authorised to perform this function.
Economy
NEITI Advocates Fiscal Discipline, Transparency as FG, States, LGs Get N6trn in Three Months
By Adedapo Adesanya
The Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI) has called for fiscal discipline and transparency as data showed that federal government, states, and local governments shared a whopping N6 trillion Federation Account Allocation Committee (FAAC) disbursements in the third quarter of last year.
In its analysis of the FAAC Q3 2025 allocation, the body revealed that the federal government received N2.19 trillion, states received N1.97 trillion, and local governments received N1.45 trillion.
According to a statement by the Director of Communication and Stakeholders Management at NEITI, Mrs Obiageli Onuorah, the allocation indicated a historic rise in federation account receipts and distributions, explaining that year-on-year quarterly FAAC allocations in 2025 grew by 55.6 per cent compared with Q3 of 2024 while it more than doubling allocations over two years.
The report contained in the agency’s Quarterly Review noted that the N6 trillion included 13 per cent payments to derivative states. It also showed that statutory revenues accounted for 62 per cent of shared receipts, while Value Added Tax (VAT) was 34 per cent, and Electronic Money Transfer Levy (EMTL) and augmentation from non-oil excess revenue each accounted for 2 per cent, respectively.
The distribution to the 36 states comprised revenues from statutory sources, VAT, EMTL, and ecological funds. States also received additional N100 billion as augmentation from the non-oil excess revenue account.
The Executive Secretary of NEITI, Mr Sarkin Adar, called on the Office of the Accountant General of the Federation, the Revenue Mobilisation Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC) FAAC, the National Economic Council (NEC), the National Assembly, and state governments to act on the recommendations to strengthen transparency, accountability, and long-term fiscal sustainability.
“Though the Quarter 3 2025 FAAC results are encouraging, NEITI reiterates that the data presents an opportunity to the government to institutionalise prudent fiscal practices that will protect the gains that have been recorded so far in growing revenue and reduce vulnerability to commodity shocks.
“The Q3 2025 FAAC results are encouraging, but windfalls must be managed with discipline. Greater transparency, realistic budgeting, and stronger stabilisation mechanisms will ensure these resources deliver durable benefits for all Nigerians,” Mr Adar said.
NEITI urged the government at all levels to ensure the growth of Nigeria’s sovereign wealth and stabilisation capacity, by committing to regular transfers to the Nigeria Sovereign Wealth Fund and other related stabilisation mechanisms in line with the fiscal responsibility frameworks.
It further advised governments at all levels to adopt realistic budget benchmarks by setting more conservative and achievable crude oil production and price assumptions in the budget to reduce implementation gaps, deficit, and debt metrics.
This, it said, is in addition to accelerating revenue diversification by prioritising reforms that would attract investments into the mining sector, expedite legislation to modernise the Mineral and Mining Act, support reforms in the downstream petroleum sector, as well as the full implementation of the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA) to expand domestic refining and value addition.
By Aduragbemi Omiyale
Nigeria has been projected to record an economic growth rate of 4.4 per cent in 2026 by the World Bank Group, higher than the 3.7 per cent earlier predicted in June 2025.
In its 2026 Global Economic Prospects report released on Tuesday, the global lender also said the growth for next year for Nigeria is 4.4 per cent rather than the 3.8 per cent earlier projected.
As for the sub-Saharan African region, the economy is forecast to move up to 4.3 per cent this year and 4.5 per cent next year.
It stressed that growth in developing economies should slow to 4 per cent from 4.2 per cent in 2025 before rising to 4.1 per cent in 2027 as trade tensions ease, commodity prices stabilise, financial conditions improve, and investment flows strengthen.
In the report, it also noted that growth is expected to jump in low-income countries by 5.6 per cent due to stronger domestic demand, recovering exports, and moderating inflation.
As for the world economy, the bank said it is now 2.6 per cent and not 2.4 per cent due to growing resilience despite persistent trade tensions and policy uncertainty.
“The resilience reflects better-than-expected growth — especially in the United States, which accounts for about two-thirds of the upward revision to the forecast in 2026,” a part of the report stated.
“But economic dynamism and resilience cannot diverge for long without fracturing public finance and credit markets,” it noted.
World Bank also said, “Over the coming years, the world economy is set to grow slower than it did in the troubled 1990s — while carrying record levels of public and private debt.
“To avert stagnation and joblessness, governments in emerging and advanced economies must aggressively liberalise private investment and trade, rein in public consumption, and invest in new technologies and education.”
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