News Express

With wide reports Of voter suppression and armed attacks against voters in Nigeria’s February 25 presidential and national assembly and the March 18 governorship and state houses of assembly elections still seething, a new Freedom House report has revealed ‘global freedom’ declined for the 17th consecutive year in 2022, as 35 countries suffered deterioration in their political rights and civil lib...

Nigeria's 2023 general elections which began with the now disputed presidential and national assembly elections and which were to move to the gubernatorial and state assembly elections, suffered a little setback when initially scheduled for March 11, 2023, were postponed to March 18 by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), citing logistic issues stemming from its lack of time to ca...

Economists And Financial experts across the country continued over the weekend to hail the decision by the Supreme Court to extend the validity of the withdrawn N1,000 and N500 currency notes until December 31, 2023, describing the ruling as a positive development and one that provides relief from the cash crunch and helps stave off the severe repercussions for businesses and socioeconomic activit...

One of united states leading think tanks, Brooking Institution, in an analytical article on Nigeria’s highly anticipated new government that will come into being after the forthcoming general elections, has placed a heavy weighting on fiscal and economic reforms, charging the incoming president to have an unwavering determination to implement policies that must deliver an inclusive and competitive...

A supposedly harmless currency redesign policy for the Nigerian naira resulting in a cash swap program implemented by the Central Bank of Nigeria turned into a full-blown crisis that came to a head in the last seven days as scarcity and persistent difficulties in accessing the new notes led to disruptions in business and economic activities and the daily lives of Nigerians held captive by a policy...

A Potential trade volume estimated at $3.4 trillion packed into the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) has now effectively received the attention and keen interest of ranking global chief executive officers from around the world, further putting pressure to deliver on African political and business leaders who will now have to do right by the pact, seen to have traveled rather too slowly...

Policymakers, business managers, and investors have been told that the landscape of the economy in 2023 remains mixed and corporate strategies in organizations navigating this landscape would require having a keen eye on a number of trends that are projected to emerge on the horizon of the Nigerian economy this year. Nigeria is in the throes of a crucial year in its history going into a crucial ge...

After Many Decades Of relying on a revenue sharing formula that allocates funds from a central pool that has gradually become inadequate to meet basic and developmental needs, experts have challenged Nigeria’s subnational governments, comprising states and local governments, to put on their revenue generation creative cap and expand their view to see the capital markets as veritable exploration gr...

In the Lead up to 2023, when elections are expected to take place for a new government to replace the current administration of President Muhammadu Buhari, now into its seven years and six months, it is becoming clearer that long before the outbreak of COVID-19 in late 2019 in China and across the world in 2020, Nigeria has been suffering its own ‘long COVID’, long-lasting symptoms that afflict pe...

Nigeria's Power sector is expected to record a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of about 13 percent between 2022 and 2027, driven by government support for renewables-based power generation, according to analysts at Mordor Intelligence. The market research company, in a report “Nigeria Power Market - Growth, Trends, Covid-19 Impact, and Forecast (2022-2027)”, said the Nigerian power market is la...

Rising Inflation since the beginning of 2022 has sent the global economy wobbling, driven majorly by an unusual mix of supply shocks associated with the Covid-19 pandemic and, later, the Russia-Ukraine conflict. From developed to emerging markets, multi-decades-high inflation and tighter monetary policy are threatening to tip the world into a recession by next year. Recently, analysts at investmen...

Cashless transactions in Nigeria have recorded appreciable growth since 2012 when the Central Bank of Nigeria introduced its cashless policy to give bank customers ease of transactions, eliminate long queues across banking halls, curtail the excessive movement of cash, and control the volume of cash in circulation. Prior to this time, Nigerians depended largely on a cash-based economy which meant...

Economies across the world have taken a beating since the turn of 2022, exacerbated by the Russia-Ukraine conflict, just as the world economy seemed to be recovering from the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. From the US to China to the UK to Europe and emerging markets, it has been a tale of decelerated or negative headline GDP growth, spiraling inflation, interest rate hikes by central banks, and...

The Central Bank Of Nigeria is not going back on its decision to withdraw, redesign and reissue the higher denominations of naira banknotes despite a welter of opposition that has greeted the policy move. Last week Wednesday, the CBN announced that it has secured President Muhammadu Buhari’s approval to redesign the N200, N500, and N1,000 paper currencies and that the new notes would be in circula...

With enterprise Ngr proudly presenting Nigeria’s first State of Enterprise report which measures the country’s Financial and Professional Services sector, the performance of the FPS sub-sectors in 2021 validates its pivotal role in the economy. Its particular contributions are significant in governments, businesses and people. By providing a current-state assessment. Obi Ibekwe, EnterpriseNGR’s ch...

As the global economy wriggles through uncertainties worsened by the protracted Russia-Ukraine war with its spillover effects seen in accelerating global inflation, aggressive tightening of monetary policies, worsening debt positions, the decline in capital importation and other adverse implications, the sharp slowdown in global growth raises the risk of a prolonged recession in emerging markets,...

Nigerian Public Universities'over-reliance on government direct funding has been the major cause of constant disagreements between the university staff unions and the federal government, which has come to see university funding as a millstone around its neck. These disagreements have led to lockdowns of the university system in the form of prolonged industrial actions, translating to time wastage...

Nigeria's active young population that is increasingly technology savvy is setting it up to rapidly play in the deep end of the contactless payment revolution now seen to be racing to $10 trillion in transaction value in the next five years to 2027. According to a new study, contactless payments, the system which uses near-field communication for making secure payments, will reach some $10 trillio...

Nigerian subnational governments facing the dangerous consequences of the potential collapse of their much relied-upon revenue sourcing channel, the Federation Account Allocation Committee, must rethink their strategy and seriously consider the empowerment of different revenue sources domiciled within their boundaries. The SNGs in the country, much better known as states, have historically relied...

Even though it produces historically low carbon emissions and contributes the least to the global climate crisis in comparison to more industrialised continents, Africa has been hard hit by extreme climate change effects, which have seen the continent emerge as the most drought-affected region and the second most flooded area in the world. This is a huge concern for stakeholders within and outside...

The Nigerian presidency IS contemplating a return to supporting the establishment of modular refineries mainly by small-scale operators as an option to solve the country’s obdurate petroleum agony, according to a letter from the presidency. The aim is to use the initiative to mop up hundreds of artisanal refiners that are strewn in most parts of Nigeria’s oil region. An army of young people has en...

Nigeria's lack of capacity to compete in the international air travel space is responsible for its high outflow of foreign exchange to meet the needs of foreign airlines who are providing the services for international travelling passengers in Nigeria. The painful stings on the country’s already fragile foreign exchange position are at the heart of current moves by international carriers flying in...

Global airlines are expected to post a much lower aggregate loss this 2022, a year already in H2. The International Air Transport Association (IATA) revised the loss down to $9.7 billion, a sharp improvement from an earlier $42.1 billion, with global carriers expected to begin to see profit by 2023. According to IATA, forecast yields, a proxy for airfares, will rise by 5.6 per cent this year globa...

In the lame duck year of his presidency, President Muhammadu Buhari is finding out every day that all the indices of measuring his management of the economy are exposing him as lacking in the requisite capacity personally, and even in the ability to assemble men and women with the ability to deliver for him. President Buhari had assured Nigerians when he first applied for the job in 2015 that he k...

The attention of the global community of investors focused on healthcare has been drawn by a new report to the window of massive opportunities in Nigeria where it says some doses of private capital could help close a funding shortfall for the country’s health sector. Opportunities are opening up on the back of efforts to strengthen the sector in recent years resulting in some progress being made o...