Economy
Succession and Obligation of Leadership
By Jerome-Mario Utomi
Am I a good leader? I do not know and I guess no one else does. The people, the future and history will stand judged and I will accept their judgments no matter what they might be. Nevertheless, I am fully convinced that I am leading my people, not only on the right part but on the only one available -Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the United Arab Emirate (UAE).
Presently, the global community is in agreement that Nigeria is blessed with abundant resources –both human and natural. But in spite of these resources, development professionals are concerned that the nation is equally littered with a huge number of ‘coercive’ and selfish leaders as against truly ‘democratic, pace-setting and coaching’ leaders.
Essentially also, Nigerians, particularly the poor masses, are aware of these disappointing performances of their leaders and need no one to remind them. They are visible realities.
Aside from these failures exacerbated by public office holders/policymakers non-recognition that the efficiency of the government does not only affect the performance of the public sector –but affects that of the whole country including the private sector, Nigerians have in the past six years watched the country lie prostrate and diminish socially and economically with grinding poverty and starvation driving more and more men into the ranks of beggars, whose desperate struggle for bread renders them insensible to all feelings of decency and self-respect while the privileged political few continue to flourish in obscene and splendour as they pillage and ravage the resources of our country at will.
Also rings apprehension is the awareness that with less than two years to the expiration of this administration, there is neither a sincere desire among elected officials to engage best minds to help get the answers and deploy the resources we need to move into the future or engineer a sustainable process of generational change in the nation’s leaders structure via recruitment and allocation of rightful leadership positions to, but youthful Nigerians.
From the above realities, the following questions may be asked; what is the obligation of leadership in any given society, state or nation? What is giving a boost to Nigeria’s poor leadership that is notoriously reputed for, and devoid of a sincere succession plan?
Why is such negative leadership practice gradually becoming a norm in Nigeria? Why are public office holders in Nigeria reluctant to alleviate the real condition of the poor, the deprived, the lonely, and the oppressed or at the very least, get into their lives and participate in their struggle? How come public office holders in Nigeria are never willing to give, train, or admit youths into leadership apprenticeships? Why is this practice of leadership type characterized as self-centred and non-coaching? Why is Nigeria’s leadership ideology not based on considerations such as; meritocracy, pacesetting, people-focused but primarily on mundane factors such as tribal/ethnicity, religion, power rotation and federal character? Why has leadership in the country seriously failed to provide security and pursuit of the economic welfare of citizens which are the only two constitutional responsibilities of the state which all leaders must achieve?
To many, the answer to the above is signposted in leaders’ ground propensity/penchant for corruption, cronyism, backdoor or under the counter leadership approach/ practices. Others argue that more often, leaders believe that knowledge is power and that they retain power only by keeping what they know to themselves. Their implicit strategy is to preserve their leadership discretion by deliberately leaving the rules for success and failure vague. In their calculation, it is better to maintain control by keeping the people at arm’s length as bringing them close would represent a threat.
Could this be the only explanation?
Definitely not! There also exist public office holders in Nigeria who understand power as the ability to protect their interest and not as an opportunity to engineer social, political and economic prosperity.
However, one can make a stronger case as to why Nigeria’s leadership challenge is a crisis.
To support this claim, this piece will bring to mind/cast a glance at how Kuen Yew, Pioneer Prime Minister of Singapore used creative leadership prowess characterized by talent hunt, education, leadership apprenticeship/ coaching, to stamp out leadership mediocrity in Singapore, and in its place, install sustainable leadership excellence for the nation via the establishment of succession structure/culture that allows brilliant minds to collide and create.
Let’s listen to Lee; our greatest task was to find the people to replace my ageing ministers and me. My colleagues and I had started to search for younger men as possible successors in the 1960s. We could not find them among the political activists who joined the PAP, so we scouted for able, dynamic, dependable, and hard-driving people wherever they were to be found.
In the 1968 general election, we fielded several PhDs, bright minds, and teachers at the universities, professionals including lawyers, doctors, and even top administrators as candidates. In by-elections in 1970 and 1972, we fielded several more. We soon discovered that they needed to have other qualities besides a disciplined mind able to marshal facts and figures, write a thesis for a PhD, or be a professional.
Leadership, he added, is more than just ability. It is a combination of courage, determination, commitment, character, and ability that makes people willing to follow a leader. We needed people who were activists with good judgment and interpersonal skills. The search became more urgent at each subsequent election because I could see that my colleagues were visibly slowing down.
To do this, Lee said something interesting; I had to find and get into the office a group of men to provide Singapore with effective and creative leadership. Had I left it to chance, depending on the activists coming forward to join us, I would never have succeeded. We set out to recruit the best into the government. The problem was to persuade them to enter politics, get themselves elected, and learn how to move and win people over to their side. It was a slow and difficult process with a high attrition rate. Successful, capable professionals and executives are not natural political leaders, able to argue, cajole, and demolish the argument opponents at mass rallies, on television, and in parliament.
To see how wide the net must be cast for talent, I had only to remember that the best ministers in my early cabinets were not born in Singapore. Three-quarters of them had come from outside Singapore. The net that brought in my generation of leaders was thrown in a big sea that stretched from South China across Malaysia, to South India and Ceylon.
Whenever I had a lesser minister in charge, I invariably had to push and prod him, and later to review problems and clear roadblocks for him. The end result was never what could have been achieved. When I had the right man in charge, a burden was off my shoulders. I needed only to make clear the objectives to be achieved, the time frame within which he must try to do it, and he would find a way to get it done, he concluded.
Indeed, while the above account in my view sums up the obligation of leadership, this piece must underline without fail that Nigeria and Nigerians need leaders like Lee of Singapore and Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum of UAE to lead them not only on the right part but on the only one available.
Jerome-Mario Utomi is the Programme Coordinator (Media and Public Policy), Social and Economic Justice Advocacy (SEJA), Lagos. He could be reached via je*********@***oo.com/08032725374.
By Adedapo Adesanya
The Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC) will, at the Commercial Bid Conference, announce the successful bidders for 50 oil and gas blocks in the 2025 Licensing Round on July 21, 2026.
The regulator said the conference would conclude an eight-month licence round that began on December 1, 2025, after President Bola Tinubu approved the exercise under the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA) 2021.
The commission said the 50 blocks include 15 onshore, 19 shallow-water, 15 frontier and one deep-offshore block, covering basins such as the Niger Delta, Chad Basin, Benue Trough, Anambra and Bida.
It said the round aims to attract about $10 billion in fresh investment and to unlock discovered but undeveloped fields, fallow assets and gas resources. NUPRC described the 2025 round as the third licensing exercise under the PIA framework and stressed it is designed to prioritise natural gas development.
NUPRC outlined a five-stage process for the round — registration and pre-qualification, data acquisition, technical bid submission and evaluation, and the commercial bid conference — followed by ministerial approval and contracting. The Commission said it notified pre-qualified applicants on March 16, 2026, and closed technical and commercial bids on June 12, 2026.
NUPRC chief executive, Mrs Oritsemeyiwa Eyesan, had said the selection would be merit-based and would exclude weaker applicants.
She said only candidates with strong technical and financial credentials, professionalism and credible development plans would advance, and that winners would be chosen on a weighted combination of technical and commercial scores.
To widen participation, the federal government fixed signature bonuses for the round in a prescribed range of $3 million to $7 million per block, the Commission said, adding that bids outside that range would be non-compliant and excluded.
NUPRC said it would resolve the tied highest bids within the range by conducting a sealed rebid for the signature bonus, adding that successful bidders will receive Petroleum Prospecting Licences (PPLs) and may elect either a Concession or a Production Sharing Contract (PSC) framework, noting that the choice of framework will determine fiscal terms for up to two decades.
The agency noted that bidders were required to present host community development plans and to commit to remit 3 per cent of operating expenditure to Host Community Development Trusts. It said decarbonisation objectives and broader environmental, social and governance (ESG) requirements were mandatory parts of submissions.
It warned that applicants with government debts, those that had previously failed to develop licences “vigorously and in a business-like manner,” or those found non-compliant with applicable laws could be disqualified at any stage.
The regulator said it expects ministerial approval and formal contracting between July and October 2026, after which awardees must execute concession contracts before licences take legal effect.
Recall that during the 25th Nigeria Oil and Gas (NOG) Energy Week in Abuja, the NUPRC issued PPLs to 12 companies across 19 blocks from the 2024 round. The Commission named recipients, including Boron Energy Limited, Energy Marketing and Supply Limited, Sahara Deepwater Resources Limited, Tulkan Energy E&P Company Limited and said that the exercise showed the licensing pipeline was functioning.
By Adedapo Adesanya
The Special Adviser to the President on Energy, Mrs Olu Verheijen, has said Nigeria requires about $38.3 billion in fresh investment to sustain current oil and gas production and achieve its 2030 output targets.
Speaking at the recently concluded 25th NOG Energy Week Conference and Exhibition in Abuja, Mrs Verheijen said global investors are now prioritising countries with predictable policies, competitive fiscal terms and credible regulatory systems.
“For Africa, that question is urgent. And for Nigeria, the scale of the task is equally clear: to sustain the current base and grow toward our 2030 production target, analysis shows a financing gap of about $38.3 billion,” she said.
According to her, the era when countries relied solely on resource endowment to attract capital has ended.
“Capital has no passport. It is rational. It prices risk. It follows credibility. It asks one question: can this country turn resources into bankable projects, and bankable projects into reliable returns?”
She said Nigeria had deliberately repositioned itself through reforms aimed at improving investor confidence and accelerating project execution.
“We recalibrated fiscal terms, clarified regulation and streamlined oversight. We introduced targeted incentives and cut contracting timelines by more than half. We made a clear statement to the world: Nigeria is no longer asking to be trusted; Nigeria is working to be bankable.”
Highlighting progress recorded under the reforms, Verheijen said Nigeria now has more than $50 billion worth of upstream projects in its visible investment pipeline.
“We now have more than 50 billion dollars of upstream projects in the visible pipeline. In the last three years, more than 10 billion dollars of long-awaited final investment decisions have come through.”
She added that crude oil and condensate production has increased by about 400,000 barrels per day since 2023, while onshore production is at its highest level in two decades.
“Crude oil and condensate production has risen by about 400,000 barrels per day since 2023. Onshore production is at its strongest level in twenty years.”
Mrs Verheijen said the Federal Government remains committed to achieving its target of producing three million barrels of oil per day and 10 billion standard cubic feet of gas daily by 2030, while strengthening Nigeria’s competitiveness in the global energy market.
She also highlighted ongoing reforms in the power sector, including the N4 trillion Presidential Power Sector Financial Reforms Programme, which she described as critical to restoring confidence across Nigeria’s electricity value chain.
On gas development, she said the government was expanding domestic LPG supply, improving affordability and supporting investments through tax and import duty incentives.
“A gas-rich nation cannot be comfortable when families are priced back to firewood, charcoal or kerosene,” she said.
Mrs Verheijen stressed that Nigeria’s ambition extends beyond exporting crude oil to building an industrial economy anchored on value addition.
“We have chosen not merely to produce molecules, but to convert molecules into megawatts, fertiliser, petrochemicals, mobility, manufacturing, jobs and exports.”
She concluded that the country’s reforms were laying the foundation for long-term growth despite lingering challenges.
“The age of Nigerian hesitation is ending. The age of Nigerian ambition has begun. Our task now is to turn reform into relief, capital into projects, projects into jobs, and energy into national greatness.”
By Adedapo Adesanya
Nigeria’s headline inflation rate in June 2026 moderated to 15.91 per cent from 15.93 per cent in May, as pressure from the Iran war mildly eased, though it largely remained in focus during the review month.
In the report on Wednesday, the statistical office showed that the headline inflation rate for June on a month-on-month basis was 1.66 per cent, 0.09 per cent lower than the 1.75 per cent recorded in May 2026.
On an annualised basis, the print was down from 25.29 per cent in the same month of the preceding year (June 2025). This was due to the rebasing of the calculation year from 2009 to 2024.
The rise in prices, which stemmed from the continued conflict in the Middle East, continued to stoke food prices and energy costs, which account for a huge chunk of average spending.
The food inflation rate in May 2026 on a month-on-month basis was 3.75 per cent, up by 0.77 percentage points from May 2026 (2.98 per cent), while on a year-on-year basis, it was 17.52 per cent and stood at 25.41 per cent in the same month of the preceding year (June 2025).
At 15.91 per cent print, the inflation marginally beat expectations by Meristem Research, predicted at 15.95 per cent.
There had been expectations that the ceasefire between the United States and Iran would help drive oil prices lower, raising expectations of some relief on the inflation front. However, with conflicts now flaring up again, oil prices are likely to increase again, and the anticipated easing in energy-driven inflation may not materialise as broadly as earlier envisaged.
Meristem Research said it expects inflationary pressures to re-emerge across key economies in the near term, as the re-escalation of the US-Iran conflict has reignited upward pressure on global oil prices.
This will be a core factor that the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) will be looking at when it meets for the next policy meeting. At its last meeting, the committee left benchmarked interest rates at 26.5 per cent.
