Daily Watch – FG ‘ready’ to talk with Avengers, Nigeria bags ₦4.2t deficit in manufacturing

7th November 2017

  • The Niger Delta minister said on Monday the government was ready to meet militants days after they called off a year-long ceasefire. Usani Uguru Usani asked the Niger Delta Avengers to be patient and said the government was pushing through development schemes in the southern territory where rights groups have long complained about poverty and pollution. The Avengers – whose attacks on energy facilities in the Niger Delta last year helped push Africa’s biggest economy into recession – called off the ceasefire on Friday. The government has been in talks for more than a year to address grievances over poverty and oil pollution but local groups have complained that no progress has been made, despite President Muhammadu Buhari receiving a list of demands at a meeting last November.
  • Nigeria supports an extension of a deal between OPEC, Russia and other non-members to cut oil supply until the end of 2018 “as long as the right terms are on the table” regarding its own participation, its oil minister said. He said there is growing agreement among other members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries to extend the deal. “There isn’t any reason to change what is a winning formula,” oil minister Emmanuel Ibe Kachikwu told Reuters, adding “there is a consensus to extend. The issue will be the duration.” Nigeria is exempt from the deal, which has made output rebound after militant attacks that cut its output to close to 1 million bpd, but Kachikwu said the recovery is ongoing.
  • A Daily Trust analysis which compared Nigeria’s full-year earnings from Q3 2016 to Q2 2017 shows that Nigeria recorded a huge trade deficit of ₦4.21 trillion. Data sourced from the NBS showed that Nigeria exported manufactured goods worth ₦286 billion and imported manufactured goods worth ₦4.5 trillion from the third quarter of 2016 to the second quarter of 2017. The Daily Trust further compared the country’s earnings from exports of manufactured goods and earnings from imports of manufactured goods between the H1 2016 and H1 2017 found that the trade was largely to the country’s detriment. Manufacturing contributed 15.96 percent to national GDP in Q2 2017, up by 16.98 percent from the -1.02 percent recorded in Q2 2016.
  • Lagos’ information commissioner says only 600,000 Lagosians have paid their taxes up to date, out of a population of over 18 million. Steve Ayorinde said the Lagos state government had directed all its revenue agencies to enforce tax payments. Ayorinde said Governor Akinwumi Ambode has expressed concern over the situation, which according to him would adversely affect the infrastructural renewal drive of Nigeria’s biggest economy.
  • Eight domestic carriers operated 13,255 flights in Q3 2017 while 8,173 of the flights were delayed, according to the summary of flight operations by the Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA). The report however showed an upward trend in flight operations compared to the previous two quarters of 2017 when 21,662 flights were operated between January and June. According to the Q3 report, 96 flights were cancelled by airlines including Arik Air, Air Peace, Med-View, Dana, Azman, Aero Contractors and Overland during the review period. The delay chart shows Air Peace leading with 2,166 delayed flights while Arik delayed 2,057 flights just as Dana Air delayed 1,079 flights. Med-View delayed 986 flights within the period; Aero, 684; Azman delayed 712; Overland delayed 391 flights while First Nation delayed 98 flights. For international flights originating from Nigeria, 1,076 were delayed while 38 flights were cancelled.