The report that President Muhammadu Buhari plans to provide leadership ahead of the party’s presidential primary next Monday is one of the trending stories in Nigerian newspapers on Wednesday.
The Guardian reports that just as it was in the days leading to the national convention of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), which saw Senator Abdullahi Adamu emerge as the national chairman in March, President Muhammadu Buhari, yesterday, met with the 22 APC governors, where he announced to them he would once again, provide leadership ahead of the party’s presidential primary next Monday.
The governors, who met with the President at the Council Chambers of the State House, shunned newsmen, who approached them for the outcome of their closed-door meeting.
While the governors of Imo, Hope Uzodinma; Ogun, Dapo Abiodun and Kano, Abdulahi Ganduje, were seen discussing with Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Boss Mustapha, outside the council chambers, the other governors also ignored media overtures, as they filed out of the State House immediately the meeting ended.
All the APC governors were in attendance except Governor Nasir el’Rufai of Kaduna State, who was represented by his deputy, Hadiza Sabuwa Balarabe.
At the meeting, President Buhari stated the factors he would consider in supporting a presidential candidate among the 23 persons seeking to fly APC’s flag. “Our objective must be the victory of our party and our choice of candidate must be someone who would give the Nigerian masses a sense of victory and confidence even before the elections so that the party could retain power at the centre,” he said.
In a statement by his spokesman, Femi Adesina, the President told the governors and the national chairman of the party: “The processes for the 2023 general elections have commenced in earnest and I note that the most successful political parties, globally, have always relied on their internal cohesion and a strong leadership brand to achieve bigger electoral fortunes.
The Punch says that Nigeria and 44 other countries around the world are severely exposed to the Ukraine war-induced food crisis, a study by Boston Consulting Group, a global management consulting firm, has shown.
BCG, in a report titled, ‘The war in Ukraine and the rush to feed the world’, said it explored in detail, the multiple direct and indirect impacts of the turmoil in Ukraine on global food systems.
The BCG report, co-authored with Food Systems for the Future, also provided 30 near- and medium-term solutions to help respond to the crisis and improve the resilience of global food systems.
It said the affected countries, which were concentrated in Africa, South Asia and Latin America, were hotspots around the world as they endured some of the worst effects of the crisis.According to the BCG report, Nigeria and the other affected countries faced severe levels of extreme poverty, compounded by the ongoing economic and social challenges associated with the COVID-19 pandemic.
Additional factors worsening the food crisis identified in the report included: heavy reliance on food imports, high import bills, high inflation, a high debt burden, climate risks, and civil unrest.
An estimated 1.7 billion people—most of them in developing economies—could suffer severely increased food insecurity, higher energy prices, or greater debt burdens, according to the UN Task Team for the Global Crisis Response Group.
It stated that each of these individual factors adversely affected people’s ability to feed themselves.
The newspaper reports that sequel to its development finance initiative, the Central Bank of Nigeria has agreed to leave interest rates at five per cent per annum for critical sectors and manufacturing industries until March 2023.
The decision followed the resolution of the Monetary Policy Committee to increase benchmark interest rate to 13 per cent from 11.5 per cent. Rate increases of this nature often lead to increases in lending rates across the various sectors of the economy.
The CBN said, “The MPC is of the view that rates on the development finance initiatives of the Bank should remain at five percent till March 2023.”
The five per cent per annum interest rate is a form of subsidy for industry players who originally ought to pay an interest rate of nine per cent. But such rates may rise as high as 20 per cent per annum at commercial banks.
The decision to leave interest rates for intervention funds at 5 per cent, according to the CBN, was a measure to stimulate economic growth in critical sectors of the economy.
According to the apex bank, it had continued to fund activities across several sectors of the economy as part of its development finance activities. The funding came in the form of loans from the CBN through commercial and developmental banks.
The Nation says that the West African capital markets will eliminate geographic distance and varied environmental factors by adopting ways and means that facilitate integration.
Speakers at the West African Capital Markets Conference with the theme: “Deepening and Strengthening the Capital Markets Across West Africa through Effective Regulation” held in Accra, Ghana, agreed on the importance of closer collaboration and integration of the region’s capital markets.
The conference was organised by the West Africa Securities Regulators Association, WASRA.
Chairman, WASRA and Director General of Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Mr Lamido Yuguda, said the need for regular assessment necessitated the revision of the WASRA/WACMIC (West African Capital Markets Integration Council) Road Map to reflect current developments and include specific initiatives that will further improve the successful implementation of integration and other efforts.
He reiterated that against the backdrop of innovation and dynamism in the capital markets, there is the need for regulators to keep pace with this trend.
Yuguda stated that the WACMaC periodically presents members with an opportunity to explore the role that financial markets should play in supporting the growth of the real sector of the respective economies and indeed the sub-region in general.
“We are not unaware that in some member states, capital markets activities are still in their nascent stage. In collaboration with ECOWAS, efforts are being made to encourage these jurisdictions to join WASRA. We intend to engage and partner with them to build capital markets that will support the growth and development of their respective countries while advancing our regional market integration efforts.
GIK/APA