Nigerian press zooms in on ripple effects of removal of petrol subsidy, others

APA – Lagos (Nigeria)
The report of long queues and hike in price of petrol less than 24 hours after President Bola Tinubu declared an end to fuel subsidy, the pump price of petrol has skyrocketed to N600 per litre from N195/l in many parts of the country dominates the headlines of Nigerian newspapers on Wednesday.
The Punch reports that less than 24 hours after President Bola Tinubu declared an end to fuel subsidy, the pump price of Premium Motor Spirit commonly known as petrol has skyrocketed to N600 per litre from N195/l in many parts of the country.
The development equally triggered a 100 per cent hike in transport fares, while long queues resurfaced at fuel stations across Lagos, Abuja, Ilorin, Benin, Asaba, Port Harcourt, Kano, Makurdi and other major cities and urban areas.
To worsen the situation, many outlets shut down their facilities and refused to dispense fuel to motorists, further creating scarcity and sparking desperation and panic buying at the fuel stations that were opened to customers.
Tinubu had in his inaugural address at the Eagle Square on Monday pronounced with finality an end to subsidy, noting that the 2023 Appropriation Act did not provide for petrol subsidy beyond June; the end of the 18-month extension period approved by the Muhammadu Buhari administration for the discontinuance of the subsidy regime.
The PUNCH reports that the petrol subsidy gulped N6.88trn under the administration of former President Buhari, according to data from the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited and the Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative.
The newspaper says that investors on the Nigerian Exchange Limited gained N1.5tn on the first day of trading after the inauguration of Bola Tinubu as Nigeria’s president, marking a three-month high for the market.
The Market Capitalisation climbed to N30.349tn at the close of trading on Tuesday, a high it last reached on February 27, the first trading day after the last presidential election.
Similarly, the NGX All-Share Index surged by 2,764.47 base points or 5.22 per cent to settle at 55,738.35. The Year-To-Date returns also appreciated from 3.36 per cent on Friday to 8.76 per cent on Tuesday.
The NGX had closed the past week on a positive note as it recovered losses from the previous session, bringing the All-Share Index up by 0.29 per cent to close at 52,973.88 points. The market’s performance was bolstered by renewed investor interest in MTNN (+0.56 per cent), Zenith Bank (+0.93 per cent) and Geregu (+1.64 per cent).
On the first trading session with Tinubu as Nigeria’s president, a total of 1,078,230,806 billion shares worth N15.799bn were traded in 9,916 deals on the NGX floor.
The shares of Access Holdings dominated both the value and volume charts as 199,620,670 million shares of the HoldCo, valued at N 2.445bn were traded. GTCO followed in terms of value as N2.180bn worth of shares were traded. 127,937,125 million shares of FBN Holdings worth N1.748bn were also traded. Recall that the financial institution had yet to submit its 2022 annual reports.
Investors’ sentiment as measured by market breadth improved as seen in 64 companies recording gains while equities of 12 companies depreciated in price.
The Guardian reports that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has expressed his administration’s readiness to create one million new digital jobs for the economy.
Tinubu, in his inaugural address on Monday, in Abuja, stated this with an assurance that his administration must create meaningful opportunities for the teeming youths.
Digital jobs are created through the application of Information and Communications Technologies (ICT) to a new or existing activity or process. Getting this one million jobs, Tinubu said the new government shall work with the National Assembly to fashion an omnibus Jobs and Prosperity bill.
He said this bill would give the administration the policy space to embark on labour-intensive infrastructural improvements, encourage light industry and provide improved social services for the poor, elderly and vulnerable.
Recall that the immediate past Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Prof. Isa Pantami, disclosed earlier in the year that the digital economy sector created 2.2 million jobs in Nigeria between Q1 2020 and Q3 2022. Indeed, the rise in digital jobs in the country can be attributed to COVID-19, which triggered several online activities.
Nonetheless, stakeholders in the sector have also rated the outgone administration of President Muhammadu Buhari. While some applauded the performance of the sector, others castigated what they described as the overbearing influence of the Ministry of Communications and Digital Economy.
The achievements of the sector under Buhari include the huge contributions of the ICT sector to the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP). As of 2015, ICT contribution to the economy was somewhere around 11 per cent, but as of Q1 2023, the sector’s contribution increased to 17.47 per cent.
According to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), the ICT sector is composed of the four activities of telecommunications and information services – publishing, motion picture, sound recording, and music production; and broadcasting.
While the ICT sector recorded a growth rate of 10.32 per cent in real terms year on year in the quarter under review, the growth was driven largely by activities in the telecommunications sub-sector, which contributed 14.13 per cent to the GDP in real terms.
Also, the doggedness of Pantami saw the issuance of the National Identification Number (NIN) increase to 100 million within two years.
Specifically, under Pantami’s supervision from October 2020 to May 2023, more than 61 million citizens were successfully registered, leading to the current database of 100 million individuals with NIN.
The newspaper says that a study is bullish on Nigeria’s exports in the next decade, with its exports projected to hit $127 billion by 2030.
The country is expected to see a much faster than average yearly growth rate at 9.5 per cent.
Agriculture and food production, the report conducted by Standard Chartered says, will lead the country’s export at 10.1 per cent yearly growth rate from 2021 to 2030.
The report says global trade will reach 32.6 trillion at the turn of 2030 at a growth rate of five per cent.
Then, Nigeria’s trade growth will almost double the global trend with the country’s export-to-global-trade ratio amounting to almost four per cent.
Trade corridors anchored in the whole of Africa, Asia, and the Middle East will outpace global trade growth by up to four percentage points, driving combined trade volume in these regions to $14.4 trillion or 44 per cent of global trade in seven years, the report says.
The report places Nigeria as a country to watch in global trade trends in the decade.
“As a result of rapid growth, India is the largest destination for Nigeria’s exports. Export corridors to Poland, Indonesia and Malaysia are among the fastest-growing,” it notes.
Poland’s export is pegged at 13.4 per cent yearly growth rate while its import is projected at 9.8 per cent. India is expected to come next at a growth rate of 12.2 per cent.
“Nigeria is expected to grow exports from its key sectors, by supporting capacity expansions and entering new markets. The Nigerian government is focusing on building quality logistics infrastructure to enhance trade capabilities.
“The government launched the ‘National Integrated Infrastructure Master Plan’ – a private-sector driven multi-trillion dollar development plan that seeks to enhance the country’s infrastructure over the next two decades. One of the projects undertaken by the plan is the $1 billion Lekki Deep Sea Port – the first deep sea port in Nigeria, and has the capacity to handle 1.2 million containers annually once completed,” the report observes.
GIK/APA