The report that the Nigerian economy started on a bumpy ride last year and that there was so much uncertainty about the unending pandemic and whether the fragile global recovery would be sustained is one of the trending stories in Nigerian newspapers on Monday.
The Guardian reports that rising from the ashes of COVID-19 last year, the Nigerian economy started on a bumpy ride. There was so much uncertainty about the unending pandemic and whether the fragile global recovery would be sustained.
On the domestic scene, Nigeria was neck-deep in one of its worst recessions in decades. The economy in 2020 had contracted by -6.1 per cent in the second quarter (Q2) and -3.62 the following third (Q3).
With dipping revenues, the government could not do much to inspire confidence in an economy that was losing more jobs than it was creating. Indeed, there was a consensus that the recession would be short-lived but sharp disagreement on the speed of recovery – a convoluted U- or V-shape recovery?
There was fear that a prolonged shock could trigger a deeper slump or depression. But fortunately as predicted by some experts, the economy had exited recession earlier than expected. This was confirmed by quarter four (Q4) 2020 gross domestic product (GDP) data.
Amid concern about rising fiscal risks, the country’s output, in Q2, broke a six-year record, jumping by 5.01 per cent year-on-year (YoY) to consolidate the fragile growth that started in Q4 2020. The growth was roughly twice as high as any other previous quarterly performance in the life of the current administration.
The newspaper says that in what has become a trend, Naira fell to a record low over-the-counter on the last trading day of 2021, closing at N435/$. This came amid uncertainty about the market outlook as the economy wobbles into a new year.
With the closure rate, naira had sold at a discount of over 15 per cent to a dollar at the official Nigerian Autonomous Foreign Exchange (NAFEX) window last year.
Trading opened last year at N410/$ but the exchange rate fell to about N415/$ as the year rolled by, though it also traded at N415/$ after the Christmas holidays, with extremely wide swings, indicating high volatility of the market.
Last Friday, the Naira started trading on an upswing at N420.67/$ but slid to as low as N445.60/$ by mid-day before it appreciated slightly to close at N435/$. The extremely unpredictable trading session saw the currency vacillating between N400/$ and N445.60/$.
The forward market, which measures the perception about the near-to-medium-term outlook of the Naira moved on a much narrower range of between N452.12/$ and N453.12/$.
Naira, however, has been relatively stable at the parallel market, closing the year at N565/$. As at yesterday, the market still traded around N465/$, suggesting the narrowing of the historic wide differential between the official and black market rates. Some experts have attributed the many manipulations (including round-tripping) in the market to the wide gap between the windows.
The dollar traded for about N475/$ in the early days of last year and hit N575/$ at the height of last year’s currency crisis few months ago. There was a breather weeks ago, with the unofficial exchange rate adjusting to N550/$.
The Punch reports that at least 352 farmers have been killed and kidnapped in 12 months amid the rising insecurity in Nigeria, a tally by The PUNCH has shown. The 352 comprised 216 killed farmers and 136 kidnapped farmers.
The figures were obtained from the Nigeria Security Tracker, a project of the Council on Foreign Relations’ Africa, as well as media reports.
The Council on Foreign Relations is a United States non-profit think tank specialising in US foreign policy and international affairs. It is headquartered in New York City, with an additional office in Massachusetts
The figure exceeds 352 as there were cases of killings and kidnappings of farmers with unknown numbers.
Farmers have been under serial attacks across the country, fuelling fear of acute food shortage if the government does not intervene proactively, The PUNCH has learnt.
Across the six geo-political zones, findings revealed that farmers were abandoning their farmsteads, plantations, orchards, and processing factories amid the spate of armed invasion, kidnapping, and attacks.
According to findings by our correspondent, the most affected states are Plateau, Nasarawa, Oyo, Niger, Zamfara, Borno, and Ondo.
The newspaper says that members of the National Assembly have insisted on the amendments made to the 2022 Appropriation Bill, including the reduction of allocation to 10,733 projects and insertion of 6,576 new ones.
The lawmakers stated that by the power of appropriation conferred on the National Assembly by the constitution, the parliament has the right to tinker with the Federal Government’s budget like any other bill.
According to the members, who spoke to our correspondents, in separate interviews on Sunday, the changes made and the response by the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), showed that the legislature was not a rubber stamp of the Executive, as being alleged by Nigerians.
Buhari had on Friday while signing into law, the 2022 Appropriation Bill and the 2021 Finance Bill, expressed strong reservations on the “worrisome changes” made by the National Assembly to the Federal Government’s budget.
He argued that the cuts in the provisions for several of these projects by the National Assembly might render the projects “un-implementable” or set back their completion, especially some of this administration’s strategic capital projects.
The President declared that he would revert to the National Assembly with a request for amendment after the parliament’s resumption so that critical ongoing projects cardinal to his regime would not suffer a setback due to reduced funding.
The Nation reports that the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA), Oyo State Command, said it arrested 330 drug traffickers and secured 48 convictions in the state last year.
The NDLEA Commander in the state, Dr Wale Ige disclosed this in a statement by the command’s Public Relations Officer, Mrs Mutiat Okuwobi in Ibadan, yesterday.
Ige said the suspects comprising 297 males and 33 females were arrested for dealing in various drug offences such as cannabis Sativa, Tramadol, Diazepam, Rohypnol, Colorado, codeine, chocolate infused with codeine and other psychotropic substances.
He said 101 suspects were charged to court while 48 of them were convicted for various drug offences with jail terms ranging from six months to life imprisonment in the year under review.
Ige said the command recorded a total seizure of 3,543.96 kilograms of cannabis Sativa and other narcotic and psychotropic substances during the period under review.
He said that the command destroyed 0.69 hectares of cannabis farm located at Olosun village in Akinyele Local Government Area of the state and that the command’s sensitisation programmes were extended to over 164 schools and some private organisations in the year under review.
The Vanguard says that Nigeria recovered from economic recession in 2021 but the economy of most Nigerians did not.
Most Nigerians experienced decline in welfare and standard of living caused by a combination of sharp naira depreciation and surge in prices of goods and services. These and other major developments which dominated the economy in 2021 are presented below.
A major issue of concern and challenge for most individuals and companies is the widespread surge in prices of goods and services.
According to data by the Nigeria Bureau of Statistics, NBS, the average price of eggs (medium size) rose by 28.15 per cent from N44.75 in November 2020 to N57.35 in November 2021.
Similarly, the average price of Ikg Yam rose by 38.64 per cent from N236.25 in November 2020 to N327.53 in November 2021. Also the average price of one bottle of palm oil rose by 42.79 per cent from N542.85 in November 2020 to N775.11 in November 2021.
GIK/APA