The Nation Newspaper

Category: Special Report

  • Financial markets: No dull moments in 2017

    Financial markets: No dull moments in 2017

    The outgoing year has been a busy one for the financial markets and the economy. From the naira’s huge recovery against global currencies, massive borrowing by the Federal Government from the International Capital Markets, the Bank Verification Number (BVN) policy and the Anchor Borrowers’ Programme to the implementation of the Financial System Strategy (FSS2020), there were no dull moments within the year. COLLINS NWEZE captures some of the major events that shaped the financial markets in 2017. 

    It was difficult to name one event that created the biggest anxiety for banks and managers of the economy within the last one year.

    However, the   Federal High Court, Abuja ruling on an ex parte application filed by the Federal Government through the Office of the Attorney-General of the Federation on October 21, which granted the temporary forfeiture of funds in accounts not linked to Bank Verification Number (BVN) stood out.

    The biggest casualties in terms of deposit loss should the Federal Government go-ahead to implement the court order  will be the first generation banks. They seem to have the largest number of customers who have stayed with them for close to or over 100 years.

    The banks with the largest impact are likely to lose deposits running into billions of naira, may have to recall loans, and suffer liquidity problems. The Federal Government has secured an interim forfeiture order from Federal High Court which would now allow it to freeze the accounts of bank customers in Nigeria who have no BVN.

    The order gave the Federal Government the nod to instruct the banks to disclose any investments made with these funds and to freeze any outward movement from these accounts.

    The court order mandates the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to appoint an examiner to look into the books of any commercial bank that fails to comply. The banks are expected to provide the names of accounts without BVN, account numbers, outstanding balances, domiciliary accounts without BVN, branch/locations where these accounts are domiciled.

    Although the Federal Government seems to have soft-pedaled on the policy implementation, the anxiety it created within the financial markets, especially among Tier-1 banks, is yet to go away.

     

    Naira stability achieved

     The naira started the year exchanging at N490 to dollar in the parallel market. By February 6, the exchange rate worsened to N497 to dollar and by ending of February, it was exchanging at N520 to dollar.

    The local currency was however, stable in the official market where it exchanged for N305.5 to dollar. Interestingly, the naira stabilized at N363 to dollar at the weekend, and has remained within that band in the last four months.

    The state of the naira then, prompted the CBN Governor, Godwin Emefiele to call for a change of lifestyles among Nigerians. He said in a campaign that: “The size of Nigeria’s reserves and the value of the naira critically depend on our lifestyles and on the value and types of imports we allow into the country.”

    Emefiele’s message implied that a change in consumption pattern from foreign to indigenous goods would impact positively on the value of the local currency.

    However, some stakeholders attributed the naira’s woes to CBN’s inability to fully liberarise the foreign exchange market and allow the naira to float.

    But sub-Saharan Africa Economist at Renaissance Capital (RenCap), Yvonne Mhango in a report titled: Nigeria: Winds of change- More flexible Forex Policy, predicted that the naira would not be allowed to float on the interbank market. “This view is informed by the partial deregulation of petrol prices on May 11, and Nigeria’s history of managing the forex rate. The ideal scenario would be for the CBN to let the market set the new interbank forex rate without restriction, and in so doing, allow for an appropriate level to be found,” she said.

    Mhango predicted that consumption expenditure would continue to underperform (and weight on aggregate Gross Domestic Product (GDP)  in the near term due to declining real wage and thrifty consumers who are wary of uncertain economic outlook and also taking advantage of high interest rate environment to save.

    “We believe policy measures to ease supply side shortages in the economy, particularly for forex, and subsequent easing of monetary policy will go a long way in stimulating investment and consumption spending to support aggregate economic performance and naira’s recovery,” she said.

     

    Measures to strengthen naira

    Some of the measures put in place by the CBN to end the crisis include the first Naira-Settled Over-the-Counter (OTC) Forex Futures Market (FFM) launched in June 27 with FMDQ OTC Securities Exchange and the planned resumption of dollar sales to the BDCs.

    The FMDQ OTC Securities Exchange (FMDQ) is an organisation with the strategic intent of bringing about revolutionary changes and fostering the development of the Nigerian financial markets.

    The naira-Settled OTC Forex Futures are non-deliverable forwards, or a contract where parties agree to an exchange rate for a pre-determined date in the future, without the obligation to deliver the underlying dollar on the maturity/settlement date.

    On the maturity date, it will be assumed that both parties would have transacted at the spot forex market rate. The party that would have suffered a loss with the spot forex rate will be paid a settlement amount in naira to ensure that both parties enjoy the rate that had been guaranteed to each other through the OTC Forex Futures.

    FMDQ’s Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer Bola Onadele Koko said: “The naira-settled OTC Forex Futures product is a major milestone development in the evolution of the Nigerian financial markets. The Futures market is an opportunity to transform risk into certainty – a major paradigm shift in the financial markets landscape.

    “This innovation offers opportunities for government, businesses, pension fund administrators, investors and individuals among others to hedge (not speculate) to cope with exchange rate risk.

    “It also affords the CBN a greater opportunity to manage exchange rate volatility, thus achieving greater market confidence, liquidity, improvement in business planning, job security, employment, better allocation of resources, global competitiveness of the Nigerian financial markets, and all in all, a thriving economy.”

     

    Foreign exchange interventions continue

     While the BVN policy was on the table, the CBN consistently funded the foreign exchange (forex)  market to protect the naira and make forex available to importers.

    Dollar injections into the economy are estimated at $9 billion since February and have helped the CBN achieve long-term naira stability and curb volatility in the forex market.

    The CBN had, in the last 10 months, sustained its weekly dollar interventions in the forex market; a large part of it goes into the interbank market, bureau de change (BDCs), Retail Secondary Market Intervention Sales (SMIS) and wholesale spot.

    The dollar injections were made to enable stakeholders secure enough forex for their operations, and in the process boost naira’s stability.

    The gap between official and black market rates started to shrink since February 20, when the CBN resumed dollar interventions in key segments of the economy. Industry sources said the CBN has injected over $9 billion in the last nine months into the market.

    The CBN’s Deputy Governor, Financial System Stability, Joseph Nnanna, said the introduction of the Investors’ & Exporters’ (I&E) Forex Window was targeted at increasing forex supply; and allowing the timely settlement of transactions helped to achieve the current exchange rate. He said over $10 billion has been attracted to the economy through the I&E Forex window, adding that the window’s success rate exceeded stakeholders’ expectations.

     

    The Financial System Strategy 2020

     The implementation of the Financial System Strategy 2020 (FSS 2020) blueprint launched 10 years ago and meant to transform Nigeria’s financial sector into a growth catalyst also featured prominently in the outgoing year.

    The FSS2020 was also meant to engineer the country’s evolution into an international financial centre to strengthen domestic markets and enhance their integration with external financial markets.

    The need to get Nigeria onto the same wavelength as the rest of the world prompted the CBN’s inauguration of the FSS 2020 which clocked 10 years this year.

    The vision was to enhance Nigeria’s chances of playing big in the global financial space and sustaining its leadership position in Africa. It was also to allow Nigeria achieve Goldman Sach’s prediction of being among the Next 11 countries poised for rapid economic growth by 2020. But, achieving this requires Nigeria to have a robust and vibrant financial system and reformed payment system to power the new economy.

    To make the vision a success, the CBN, in collaboration with key stakeholders in the payments community, developed the National Payments Systems Vision 2020 (NPSV 2020). The NPSV 2020 is a sub-set of the Financial Systems Strategy 2020 (FSS 2020).

    Former CBN Deputy Governor, Corporate Services and Coordinator, FSS 2020, Suleiman Barau, said that in measuring the milestone of FSS 2020, there was a need to examine them from the existing sector perspectives. For mortgage sector, a robust secondary mortgage has been created with the CBN and mortgage operators streamlined, which has led to the establishment of the Nigeria Mortgage Refinancing Company (NMRC).

    Again, the uniform underwriting standard which was nonexistent has now been codified and introduced in the mortgage industry to regulate their practice. “In addition, the framework for the mortgage asset registry has been developed to capture mortgage transactions on a common IT platform.  The CBN has also introduced the categorisation of primary mortgage banks into national, state and local. The pension asset has grown from about N3 trillion in 2013 to N6.02 trillion in 2017,” he said.

    Also within the year, the Nigerian Sovereign Investment Authority (NSIA) was appointed advisers to manage the deployment of pension funds into long term infrastructure deployment. He said through sensitisation and mass advocacy, PenCom has stepped up prompt settlement of pension claims for retirees and is embarking on massive technical trainings, using the Information Technology platform, to ensure prompt service delivery and implementation of the micro pension scheme.

     

    Anchor Borrowers’ Programme

     The CBN committed N44.1 billion to the Anchor Borrowers’ Programme (ABP) through the 13 participating financial institutions.

    Its spokesman, Isaac Okorafor, said the CBN is moving into commodity associations where over 300,000 farmers will be mobilised and about two million jobs will be created.

    Okorafor listed the CBN’s intervention schemes that have impacted positively to the economy as, Agricultural Credit Guarantee Scheme Fund (ACGSF), which has created a total of 5,045,900 jobs; N200 billion Commercial Agricultural Credit  Scheme (CACS) – 1,134,772 jobs; N200 billion Small and Medium Enterprises (SME) Restructuring and Refinancing Facility (SMERRF) – 89,860 jobs; N300 billion Power and Airline Intervention Fund (PAIF) – 7,899 direct jobs and 14,304 indirect jobs; the N220 billion Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises Development Fund (MSMEDF) – 139,156 jobs.

    Others are Textile Sector Intervention Facility (TSIF) – 1,668 jobs; Nigeria Electricity Market Stabilisation Fund (NEMSF) – 1,180MW Capacity Recovery by Generating Companies (GENCOS) and over 414,000 units of meters procured; and Anchor Borrowers’ Programme (ABP) created 653,250 direct jobs.

    He said a total sum of N44.18 billion has been released through 13 Participating Financial Institutions (PFIs) in respect of 200,000 small holder farmers across 29 States in the country cultivating over 234,581 hectares of farmland in the ABP.

    The CBN targets 500,000 participants by end of 2017 on the ABP. He said the CBN is expanding the ABP through the direct engagement of commodity associations. “Currently we are working with the Rice Farmers Association of Nigeria (RIFAN) to mobilise 300,000 rice farmers who would add two million tons of rice to the national output in one year.

    He said the CBN is also working with the Federal Ministry Agriculture and rural development which aims at the pilot stage to create at least 10,000 jobs in each state of the federation.

    In order to provide access to finance for MSMEs, the acting director noted that the CBN has facilitated the establishment of the National Collateral Registry (NCR) to ensure that MSMEs and the millions of budding entrepreneurs across the country can use their movable assets to raise finance.

     

    FGN Savings Bond

    The Federal Government also within the year, generated over N6.69 billion through the monthly issuance of the Federal Government of Nigeria Savings Bond (FGNSB) since in March this year. The bond issuance, was in pursuit of its objective of financial inclusion by attracting retail investors into the bond market.

    The amount raised since inception grew to N6.69 billion following the conclusion of the FGNSB Offer for October 2017. Out of the N6.69 billion raised since inception of the FGNSB, N3.71 billion was for the 2-Year Bond while N2.98 billion was for the 3-Year Bond.

    The Debt Management Office (DMO) which issues the FGNSB on behalf of the Federal Government said the high level of subscription by investors since the debut offer in March, shows that the product appeals widely to investors. According to the DMO, 9,103 subscriptions have been received so far from investors across the county.

    Analysts praised the DMO for introducing the Savings Bond into the securities market for retail investors and taking the instrument to the grassroots. The DMO plans to sustain investor interest in the product through sensitization of the public about the gains of investing in the Bond which has a competitive fixed interest rate with its income exempted from taxes.

    Besides, the Federal Government within the year, raised N100 billion through the Sovereign Sukuk, also called Islamic Bonds.

    According to DMO Director-General, Patience Oniha, the fund will be used for the construction and rehabilitation of sections of key economic roads across the six geopolitical zones in the country.

    The Federal Ministry of Power, Works and Housing also listed 25 road projects the fund will be used for. For the CBN and DMO, Islamic finance is needed to take financial services to the grassroots, and open new investment frontiers in government-issued securities.

     

    Eurobond borrowings

    The Moody’s Investors’ Service downgrade of Nigeria’s long-term issuer and senior unsecured debt rating to B2 from B1 (with a stable outlook) within the year means higher cost of international borrowing, top financial analyst Bismarck Rewane has said.

    In an email report, the Financial Derivatives Company Limited boss, said Moody’s action means that the Federal Government’s plan to raise $5.5 billion through Eurobonds sales within this fourth quarter will attract higher pricing.

    This will bring the total funds raised through the Eurobond–International Capital Market (ICM) by the Federal Government to $7 billion in less than one year. A total of $1.5 billion was previously raised in two tranches of $1 billion and $500 million.

    In a report, Vice President – Senior Analyst Moody’s Investors Service, Lucie Villa, said Nigerian authorities’ efforts to address the key structural weakness exposed by the oil price shock by broadening the non-oil revenue base have so far proven largely unsuccessful.

    But in a swift reaction, the Federal Ministry of Finance (FMF), Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and the Debt Management Office (DMO) said the challenges that are highlighted in Moody’s rating are clear, and are being addressed by the government with the environment having improved significantly since the last period of assessment.

    Mhango said the plan to borrow $5.5 billion through Eurobonds will raise the country’s debt service to revenue cost beyond 62 per cent.

    She said capital releases for the 2016 budget continued into the first quarter of this year while public debt has increased by seven percentage points of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) since 2014.

    On the debt service/revenue, she said: “Nigeria’s debt service/revenue has risen sharply in recent years to 62 per cent as at June 2017 against 29 per cent in 2014. This largely reflects the Federal Government’s low revenue/GDP target of four per cent this year. The Federal Government plans a $5.5 billion Eurobond issuance before year-end 2017, as part of its efforts to lower local interest rates, by reducing domestic debt/total public debt to 60 per cent, against over 70 per cent today.”

    Mhango said budget performance in the first seven months of this year and debt developments showed there were no capital releases for the 2017 budget, because it was passed late. She said the Federal Government’s 2017 budget of N7.4 trillion was 6.2 per cent of GDP, and was signed by the executive, after being passed by the Senate in May.

  • CBN chief: banks fail to disburse N26.4b equity cash to SMEs

    CBN chief: banks fail to disburse N26.4b equity cash to SMEs

    Banks have failed to lend N26.4 billion Agriculture-SMEs fund to customers, eight months after the cash was made available through equity contributions by the lenders, Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Governor Godwin Emefiele said yesterday.

    Speaking at the ninth Bankers’ Committee retreat in Lagos, he said the banks were mandated last year by the CBN to contribute five per cent of their total assets as equity funds for lending to agriculture and Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs).

    Last year’s contributions which stood at N26.4 billion were released in April. They were meant  immediate disbursement to those who applied for loans.

    This year’s contribution is expected to hit N30 billion, bringing the total fund to N56.4 billion by the end of this year.

    Emefiele said: “The first of the issues that we looked at, you all recall this time last year, we said we were going to create an Agric SMEs fund. And in the month of April this year, we were able to put together about N26.4 billion.

    “But, as we speak even at this time, not a penny of that fund has been disbursed. It ‘s a shame that we will have N26.4 billion sitting in the CBN whereas there were people who needed access to the fund”.

    Emefiele said the committee is now determined to ensure that the fund get disbursed as loans to the customers to boost job creation and grow the economy.

    He said: “Since 95 per cent of businesses in Nigeria are SMEs, it is crucial if the economy must grow, the SMEs and small manufacturers must not be ignored.”

    According to him, financial access will lead to improve job creation and growth in the economy.

    The CBN chief said the fund will now be disbursed to over 100,000 SMEs by February next year to enable the beneficiaries to grow their businesses or stimulate agricultural production.

    The fund, he added, can also be used to buy machines and agricultural equipment and delivered to beneficiaries who will begin to payback.

    Emefiele said the committee had decided to reevaluate the conditions under which the facilities were to be made available.

    “It was meant to be just equity, but we found out that because of certain apathy on the part of people who have businesses and would have wanted to be part of it, most people shied away from the equity fund. So, we decided to amend it.  We decided that the fund needed to be reviewed completely. It must me in a way that we must improve access for people who need the facility that it must be done in a very speedy manner, so that those who need it can get it in good time so that they can run their business,” he said.

    The committee, which agreed that the fund must be affordable, also amended the fund’s tenor It raised the tenor of the fund to a minimum of seven years, providing for certain moratorium that would make it possible for beneficiaries to have the fund at low pricing and at a tenor that would give them ample time to repay.

    “The Bankers’ Committee looked at the governance principles around the pricing and it was agreed that the fund must be development-oriented.

    Besides, the facility must not be a profit maximisation scheme with a professional and transparent management process around it to give everybody comfort. That way, banks will be happy to be contributing to the fund which is their contribution to job creation and economic growth of the country,” he said.

    The committee agreed that under the governance principles, the fund must be seen to be sustainable, have a life and be in perpetuity.

    The committee decided that it will no longer be equity fund but a sort of preference share arrangement or debt structure for easy access for applicants.

  • What next for PDP after bitter convention

    What next for PDP after bitter convention

    The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) National Caretaker Committee (NCC), led by Senator Makarfi, has handed the baton of leadership to Chief Uche Secondus at its national convention held in Abuja, the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), at the weekend. Group Political Editor EMMANUEL OLADESU highlights the challenges that will confront the new leadership.

    The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) chairmanship poll has been won and lost. The party is now battling with post-convention crisis. Can its new leadership restore unity and harmony?

    Before the convention, the main opposition party was just recovering from a major leadership crisis foisted on it by the rift between its displaced chairman, Senator Alli Modu Sheriff and the governors under the opposition party’s platform. During the exercise at the Eagle Square in Abuja, the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), the cracks widened. At the end of the national congress, the platform became more divided than it was a year ago. It was meant to be a unifying meeting. But, the PDP was further torn apart by its convention. The so-called unifying and reconciliatory convention sowed a new seed of discord. It heralded more acrimonies, bickering, intrigues, antagonism, bitterness and confusion.

    Uche Secondus, the anointed candidate of the governors, became the chairman as projected. Those who lost out said he assumed the reins in an atmosphere of strife and rancour. There was jubilation in his camp as the electoral officer declared him winner. Secondus’ supporters said the intra-party poll was peaceful during voting. The transparency was attested to by a team of Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), led by Prof. A.T Okosun. There was also no security breach. Delegates to the elective convention shunned unruly behaviour, although the directive that the venue should not be turned into a 2019 campaign ground was flouted. Throughout the exercise, there was no skirmish. To ensure a free and fair exercise, delegates on the Convention Electoral Committee were asked to step down.

    According to poll results announced by the Electoral Sub-Committee Chairman and former Benue State governor Gabriel Suswam, Secondus scored 2,000 votes of the 2,396 votes cast; Chief Raymond Dokpesi got 66, and Prof. Tunde  Adeniran 230.  Prof. Taoheed Adedoja did not get any vote.

    But, Adeniran, Dokpesi and Adedoja did not concede defeat. Their supporters alleged pre-election manipulation and impunity. They queried the distribution of what they described as the “unity list” to delegates, which made them to vote along pre-determined patterns. Although the governors had their way, fresh problems of disunity, distrust, polarisation and ruptured confidence may have been created.

    Adeniran, political scientist and former Education Minister, expressed bitterness. Rejecting the outcome of the polls, when collation was still on, his media aide, Taiwo Akeju, alleged that the process lacked credibility. It was compromised and it is travesty of democracy, he said. To save PDP from disaster, he called for a fresh election, advising that the party should be handed over to the Board of Trustees (BoT), which should conduct a fresh poll. Also, Dokpesi alleged that the exercise was marred by irregularities and malpractices.

    Former National Planning Minister Prof. Olanrewaju Sulaimon, who contested for the National Publicity Secretary, rejected the results, saying that he was excluded from the race because one of his names was omitted from the ballot box. A reporter, Kola Ologbondiyan, from Kogi State, was declared winner. Sulaimon claimed that the omission created confusion for delegates. Urging the electoral committee to cancel the polls, he forwarded a letter of protest to the panel and threatened to go to court.

    He said: “To my chagrin and utter constellation, I was informed that my name was conspicuously missing from the list of candidates vying for the post of National Publicity Secretary, which lists were pasted in booths earmarked for voting into the office of National Publicity Secretary. I therefore, pray that the august body would do the right by me by cancelling the purported election,” he said.

    Indeed, a commotion was averted at the venue when an aspirant for Deputy National Publicity Secretary, Demola Kehinde, protested the alleged distribution of what he described as “unity list” to delegates.

    “What kind of party is this? What is the list meant for? What is it meant to achieve? Look at delegates with the sheets. They are telling them to vote in a particular way,” he alleged. However, his protest was ignored by the electoral committee.

    The former National Caretaker Committee Chairman, Senator Ahmed Makarfi, had anticipated the brewing tension in his opening and farewell address. The former governor of Kaduna State acknowledged the clash of divergent views and interests.

    In a breath, he said the apprehension of the aggrieved aspirants was misplaced, stressing that the convention will be transparent. Makarfi recalled that a culture of preference for litigation as against conflict resolution was costly to the party. In another dimension, he urged the incoming leadership to brace for the odds, advising winners to carry along the losers.

    The convention reinforced the supremacy of the PDP Governors’ Forum as the most potent and influential bloc in the main opposition party. The governors have become the major financiers of the party since 2015 when it was dislodged from power by the All Progressives Party (APC). He who pays the piper dictates the tune. Despite their intellectual arsenal, experience and robust ideas, all the aspirants combined could not withstand the financial war chest of governors who queued behind Secondus, the former acting chairman. There was naira and dollar war and the highest bidder got the crown.

     

    As it was in the beginning….

    Observers had predicted that the PDP may not be able to rise against its past impunity. To aggrieved aspirants, the impunity has returned in disguise. The seed of acrimony was sowed as the party prepared for the Abuja conference. At the botched Port-Harcourt convention, the party had resolved to zone the chairmanship to the Southwest. But, a year after, top leaders began to sing a different tune. Micro-zoning to the Southwest was set aside and the slot was zoned to the larger South, comprising Southwest, Southeast and Southsouth. Southwest stakeholders cried foul, saying that it smacked of inequality and justice because the region has not produced a chairman before. However, Makarfi and the BoT Chairman, Walim Jibril, insisted that micro-zoning lacked justification. Some Northern elders, especially founding chieftains, including, Col. Ahmed Ali, Prof. Jerry Gana and Senator Ibrahim Mantu, however, rooted for candidates from the Southwest.

    However, the Southwest also failed to put its house in order. The region went into the convention as a divided house. There was no rallying point and the sheep were scattered in the absence of a shepherd. Instead of producing a consensus candidate, seven aspirants from the zone threw their hats into the ring. Senator Ningi was irked by the lack of strategy by Southwest stakeholders. While receiving Chief Bode George’s nomination form, he said it was unthinkable that the younger aspirants from a race that value age, experience and the concept of Omoluabi, could not step down for their elders.

     

    Battle not yet over

    On the eve of the exercise, George pulled out in protest. Although he had traversed the six zones during the campaign, the tours ended on a sad note. He doubted the capacity of the NCC to provide a level playing ground at the convention. In particular, George had an axe to grind with Rivers State Governor Nyesom Wike, who he chided for what he described as an unguarded statement against Yoruba. He said the ticket has been auctioned, lamenting that the party has departed from the path charted by its founding fathers.  Brimming with anger, he predicted that the PDP was on the way to perdition.

    “I cannot be part of this screaming aberration. I hereby withdraw from this brazen fraud and absolutely preconceived, monetised, mercantilist convention,” said the former deputy national chairman, who shunned the convention.

    To avoid a looming disgrace, three Southwest aspirants -former Lagos State governorship candidate Jimi Agbaje, former Ogun State Governor Gbenga Daniel, former Oyo State Governor Rashidi Ladoja and Aderemi Olusegun-also withdrew from the chairmanship race. Applauding them, the Convention Planning Committee Chairman and Delta State Governor, Ifeanyi Okowa, said they stepped down “in the interest of the unity of the party.”

    It was an after-thought.  All entreaties by party chieftains to step down for a consensus candidate from their zone had fallen on deaf ears. A deputy national chairmanship aspirant, Alhaji Sarafa Ishola, a former Steel Development Minister, also opted out of the race. Apart from Ekiti, the mood of other Southwest states of Lagos, Ogun, Osun, Ondo and Oyo, suggested a feeling of exclusion.

     

    The place of the Southwest

    Reflecting on the plight of his zone, shortly before delegates filed out to vote, Agbaje said it was unfortunate. The convention, he said, has implications for unity, cohesion and future political permutations. “The presidential ticket has gone to the North. The chairman will come from the Southsouth. The Southeast wants to produce the vice presidential aspirant later. What will be the Southwest do? Won’t the Southwest compete with the Southeast for the presidential running mate? If the Southwest and Southeast compete for the vice presidency, which zone will win?” he asked.

    But, a PDP senator from the Southeast, disagreed, saying: “It is a sealed agreement that the vice presidency should come to us, subject to the wish of the presidential candidate.  On this, Southeast, Southsouth and North are on the same page.”

    The fate of the aspirants have been determined and sealed before the convention. While the governors dictated the tune, some concessions were given to ex-governors, ministers and some members of the NCC. At the zonal level, some candidates had emerged and they ran unopposed at the convention. Among them were: the Deputy National Legal Adviser, the National Auditor and the Treasurer.

    According to observers, PDP governors may also seize the moment during the party’s presidential primaries next year, using the same predictable strategies, including incumbency factor, team spirit, group solidarity and enormous financial resources. But, the senator said this also is debatable because “the only factor that will count then is how to win the presidential election.”

     

    Between party interest and personal ambition

    The convention was conducted on the altar of personal interest. Sources close to the dissolved NCC said Makarfi objected to the micro-zoning of the chairmanship to prevent micro-zoning of the presidency. “If the chairman was micro-zoned to the Southwest, Atiku may push for micro-zoning to the Northeast and as you know, Makarfi, who is from Northwest, has a presidential ambition,” a source said.

    Another source also gave an insight into the rejection of the Southwest aspirants. He said: “Agbaje was turned down because of his disposition to the struggle to rescue the party from Sheriff. He was the anointed candidate of the governors in Port-Harcourt. However, after the botched convention, he distanced himself from his sponsors. He never showed up in court during the battle against Sheriff. After the party was rescued from Sheriff, he showed up again. That time, there were other considerations. Politics is dynamic.”

     

    The odds against Southwest aspirants

    According to the source, George, Agbaje, Daniel, Adeniran and Adedoja were also put on the weighing scale and it was discovered that they may not be able to deliver their states during elections. It was noted that George and Agbaje have never delivered Lagos and Daniel’s relevance in Ogun had waned. Also, Adeniran was not considered as an electoral asset in Ekiti.

    “In fact, when the Northern elders insisted that Adeniran should be adopted as candidate, Fayose threatened to leave the PDP and the matter was dropped,” he added.

    A source close to Wike said he insisted on Secondus’ candidature because he considered it as a payback time. “Secondus supported Wike to be governor, despite Amaechi’s stiff opposition and despite the fact that the deputy governor who was also interested hails from Secondus’ town,” he added.

    The leadership’s burden

    Between now and the presidential nomination, many challenges will confront the party under the new leadership. The first critical task is the post-convention reconciliation, which is inevitable for the resolution of pre-convention and post-convention crises. “The Southwest is aggrieved. It should be pacified,” said Agbaje.

    Echoing him, a chieftain from Osun State, Chief Tunde Odanye, said reconciliation with the Southwest will restore its lost sense of belonging and erase a feeling of marginalisation.

    Secondus have four important issues to tackle in the Southwest. Around 3am on Saturday, Senator Buruji Kashamu from Ogun West, a loyalist of Senator Modu Sheriff, was suspended, following his resort to litigation at the expense of the party.

    Secundus will get his baptism when he leads his party next year at governorship elections in Ekiti and Oyo states. Can the PDP retain power in Ekiti? Can it build on its success in the senatorial bye election in Osun State?

    A party source said, if the Kashamu issue is not properly handled, he may play a spoiler’s role in future elections. “Kashamu is popular in his district and he has money to deploy to fight a battle,” a source, who feared that the suspended chieftain may become a willing tool in the hand of the ruling party, said.

    Reconciliation with aggrieved aspirants, especially George and Adeniran, may be difficult at the initial stage, but it is not impossible. The onus is on the chairman and the reconciliation committee to reach out to the chieftains, their associates and supporters to bury the hatchet and put the past behind them.

    However, a National Assembly member said if they chose to be passive henceforth, or leave the party, they may not be missed. “How relevant are they as leaders in their states? They are big names. But, do they have the winning formula?” he asked.

    There are litigations hanging on the neck of the Southwest zonal leadership. The factional executive committee, led by Makanjuola Ogundipe, is still at loggerheads with Eddy Olafeso’s executive committee. How to broker peace through political solution is a  challenge.

    The fourth assignment in the zone relates to the Osun PDP debacle. It is polarised into two factions, making it impossible for the troubled chapter to harmonise its delegates. The crisis affected the compilation of the list of delegates from the state. Less than 15 delegates from the state voted at the convention. As pointed out by Makarfi, the new leadership will have to attend to the unfinished business of restoring normalcy and peace to the chapter. Other polarised state chapters that require urgent reconciliation include Anambra, Adamawa, Akwa Ibom, Kwara and Nasarawa.

    More importantly, the PDP has to tackle the challenge of perception arising from the way it conducted its convention. A picture of acrimony painted by the exercise may be discouraging to would-be returnees, who may not want to retrace their steps to a crisis-ridden party.

    Defections also have implications. As new members arrive, there will be need for the harmonisation of party structures to accommodate their interests and ambitions. Thus, Makarfi urged Secondus and his executive committee to open the doors of the party to the returnees and ensure that they do not suffer from any disadvantage.

    Ahead of 1999 presidential election

    How will the party also handle its presidential primary without risking another post-primary crisis? No fewer than six gladiators are struggling for the ticket. They include former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, former NCC Chairman Makarfi, former Sokoto State Governor Attahiru Bafarawa, former Kano State Governor Ibrahim Shekarau, former Kano State Governor Sule Lamido, and Gombe State Governor Ibrahim Dankwambo.

    More aspirants may still join the fray. A section of the party is even thinking that a reputable and competent northerner from the business world who is acceptable to the North and the country can be drafted into the race, if that will make the PDP triumph over the APC in 2019 general elections.

    The governors have been accused of imposing a chairman. Will the presidential primary be hitch-free, transparent and credible? Will the same allegation trail the shadow poll?

    For PDP, hope has become the elixir of life. Its target is to bounce back to power? But, can it realise the dream? Makarfi said the NCC has laid a solid foundation for Secondus to build upon. On the podium, he looked vibrant; exuding the agility and strength of a potential presidential contender. “We have laid a good foundation for the repositioning of the PDP,” he said, advising the new leadership to consolidate on the gains.

    Acknowledging the division in the party, which has not faded, owing to the competition for party tickets in 2015, rancorous party congresses at the state level and the scramble for party offices, he said members should not close the door of dialogue. He said for conflict resolution to replace the culture of litigation in the party, party stalwarts should resolve to make sacrifices and work for harmony.

    Makarfi said the onus is on the Post-Convention Reconciliation Panel chaired by Bayelsa State Governor Seriake Dickson, to listen to the grievances of the aggrieved, ventilate them and reconcile them with the party. He also urged the new executive committee to always ensure a level playing ground for contestants in the future to avoid a situation whereby fresh problems are created while trying to resolve new existing challenges.

    The former Kaduna State governor urged the new leadership to broaden the horizon of participation in party affairs by giving room for participation in the affairs of the party to women and youths.

    He suggested the establishment of a Students Loans’ Scheme in future by the PDP government to encourage students and stem the prevalent drop out in the tertiary institution by indigent students.

    Jonathan’s wish

    Former President Goodluck Jonathan also reflected on the 2015 electoral tragedy that hit the party, saying the platform can still bounce back in 2019 poll, if it puts its house in order.

    Urging party faithful not to despair, Dr. Jonathan, who alleged that the APC was persecuting top PDP chieftains, advised them to endure the pains and resolve to forge ahead with determination. He said the winners must promote a culture of inclusiveness by carrying along those who lost at the convention.

    The former president advised the party to put its house in order, maintaining that it can only regain power as a united family.  “PDP should remain at the forefront of leadership by example. I urge members to continue to support the party. PDP has become a strong voice, a reference point as the nation moves closer to another election season. It is growing from strength to strength. Defectors are coming back. There is a reunion.

    “PDP is the only stable party that has not changed its name and identity. It continues to make promise and fulfil its promises. Those who will win the election today must carry the losers along,” he stressed.

    For Atiku, it is another home-coming. He said for PDP to survive, it must cultivate Nigerians and convince them that past mistakes will not be repeated.

    The former vice president said: “We must work to earn the trust of Nigerians. If we get power, we should use it to work for Nigerians.”

    Atiku said the poor performance of the APC will make Nigerians vote for the opposition party in 2019.

    “Under the APC, Nigeria is not working and our workers are not working. APC promised three million jobs. Under APC, Nigeria lost three million jobs. Under the PDP, Nigeria was united. Under the APC, Nigeria is disunited, more than it was during the civil war. APC promised restructuring, it has denied promising restructuring. PDP waged war against corruption; APC is waging war against the opposition,” he added.

    Atiku lamented that, despite its achievements in 16 years, PDP lost power because it made mistakes. He said: “We made mistakes, but we put our nation first. APC is blaming previous government, instead of solving problems. Let the PDP get winning again so that it can get working for Nigerians again.”

    The BoT Chairman, Jibril said the convention meant that PDP was on the move again, ready to take power in 2019.

    As if he was reading his lips, Ekiti State Governor Ayodele Fayose said: “PDP is well positioned to take over the affairs of the country. There is nothing wrong in falling; not rising again is the problem. PDP will rise again. The convention shows that PDP is well organised and ready to bounce back.”

    To the aspirants, he said: “We are voting for the PDP. In any contest, one will win, another will lose. PDP will be the ultimate winner. When PDP returns to power, a bag of rice will come down from N20, 000 to N5, 000.”

    Senate Deputy President Dr. Ike Ekweremadu said: “Our religious and traditional leaders are worried about the suffering of the people, the jobless, the victims of Boko Haram attack and youths trapped in Libya. The former president and vice president are bothered by the disunity in Nigeria.

    “I am proud of the 16 year of PDP, and what it brought; the telecommunication, justice to the Southwest through the election of Chief Obasanjo as president, justice to the minority ethnic group through the election of Dr. Jonathan, amnesty to the people in the creeks, debt forgiveness. But, today, we are in debt. It was 16 years of light. Now, it has been two years of darkness.”

    Former Special Duties Minister Kaiti Turaki said: “Today, PDP is more united and prepared to salvage Nigeria. We have learnt our lessons. We have appreciated our mistakes. Nigerians have had an opportunity to make comparison. They are now wiser.”

     

  • What Nigeria stands to gain from $3b Eurobond, by DMO chief

    •DG says offer oversubscribed by 400 per cent

    The Federal Government plans to use the proceeds of the $3 billion Eurobond Offer it issued in two tranches of $1.5 billion for 15 years and $1.5 billion for 30 years to refinane domestic debts.  The offer, issued through the Debt Management Office (DMO), was oversubscribed by 400 per cent. In this report by COLLINS NWEZE, the DMO Director-General, Ms. Patience Oniha, explains the government’s debt management strategy and the envisaged impact of the offer on the economy. THERE were high expectations within the International Capital Market (ICM) when the Federal Government announced plans to raise $5.5 billion with the backing of the Debt Management Office (DMO).

    In line with the government’s debt management strategy, the $5.5 billion has two components. The first – $2.5 billion to part-finance the 2017 Appropriation Act deficit and $3 billion Eurobond to be borrowed from external sources and proceeds targeted at repaying maturing domestic debt obligations.

    So, when the $3 billion Eurobond offer eventually came and was oversubscribed by 400 per cent, the DMO Director-General, Ms. Patience Oniha attributed the success to foreign investors’ appetite for Federal Government’s instruments. The DMO chief, who oversaw the successful issuance of the country’s first Sovereign Sukuk of N100 billion, also gave further details.

    On plans to raise $5.5 billion from the international financial markets, Ms. Oniha explained the federal government’s strategy.

    She said: “The DMO had for several years raised funds for the government largely in the domestic market through FGN Bonds and Nigerian Treasury Bills, and to a limited extent, from external sources mainly the multilaterals.

    “While this had a beneficial effect of developing the domestic debt capital market, the government became the dominant issuer to the extent that it has been regularly accused of crowding out the private sector.

    “The outcome was obviously not intentional, but to remedy the situation. The DMO deemed it fit to shift some of the borrowing activities to the international financial markets. This is also in line with its debt management strategy of achieving a portfolio mix of 60 per cent domestic and 40 per cent external.

    “Through the strategy, the share of domestic debt has been brought down from over 85 per cent to 77 per cent as at September this year.”

    Giving insights into the components the DMO director0general said: “The $5.5 billion is made up of two components, the first of which is $2.5 billion to part-finance the deficit in the 2017 Appropriation Act. The 2017 Appropriation Act included new borrowings of N1.254 trillion from the domestic market and N1.068 trillion equivalent of about $3 billion from external sources.

    “As at October 2017, only $300 million in the form of a Diaspora Bond had been raised leaving an unfunded balance of $3.2 billion. The other component of the $5.5 billion external capital raising is the $3 billion whose proceeds are to be used to repay some maturing domestic debt obligations.”

    Speaking on the benefits expected from borrowings, she said: “The DMO’s role in financing budget deficits  as provided in Annual Appropriation Acts, are to support  budget implementation and the attainment of the government’s economic targets. The $2.5 billion is specifically targeted at fulfilling the DMO’s mandate in this regard.

    “On the $3 billion for refinancing domestic debt, there are several benefits for the action. Firstly, it will reduce the crowding out effect that I earlier referred to thereby creating more space for other borrowers in the domestic market.

    “It also has the potential to bring about a reduction in lending rates which would make the cost of production of goods and services by the private sector cheaper and more price-competitive.

    “Another major benefit of raising external capital is a lower cost of borrowing to government and a moderation in debt service costs. As you know, United States (U.S.) dollar interest rates are much lower than naira interest rates. The $1.5 billion 10-year and $1.5 billion 30-year Eurobonds were issued at coupons of 6.5 per cent and 7.625 per cent per annum respectively.

    “These coupons are certainly much lower than the 15 per cent to 17 per cent that the government borrows at in the domestic market for shorter tenured funds. There is also the fact that the $3 billion is a direct accretion to Nigeria’s external reserves which are extremely useful for managing the naira exchange rate.”

    Ms. Oniha explained what accounted for the over-subscription of the Eurobonds by over $11 billion (about 400 per cent of the $3 billion that the government took) and her agency accepted less than the $5.5 billion approved by the National Assembly.

    Her words: “The demand of over $11 billion from international investors is a demonstration of their confidence in the policies and reform initiatives of President Muhammadu Buhari as well as the economic outlook of Nigeria.

    “Like those investors, we ourselves can attest to the economic improvements in Nigeria as demonstrated by higher external reserves, stable exchange rate, Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth of 1.44 per cent in the third quarter of 2017 and improvement in the Ease of Doing Business.

    “Our intention was not to raise the $5.5 billion at once. Our first priority was to raise the $2.5 billion required for the 2017 budget while the $3 billion required for refinancing domestic debt will be in a phased manner.

    “Also, from a technical perspective, we still wanted to moderate the cost even in the International Capital Market by managing the supply of Nigeria’s Eurobonds in the market.”

    On the significance of the 30-year Eurobond being issued for the first time in the country, she said: “It is remarkable that international investors were willing to take a long term risk on Nigeria by buying the 30-year Eurobond. This feat is even more remarkable when we consider that South Africa which has a superior sovereign rating of BB- compared to Nigeria’s B+/B rating is the only sub-Saharan country that has issued a 30-year bond in the International Capital Market.

    “The other outstanding aspect of the 30-year Eurobond is its Pricing at 7.625 per cent which is lower than the coupon of 7.875 per cent on the $1.5 billion 15-year Eurobond issued earlier in the year.

    “In terms of its specific benefits to Nigeria, it provides the appropriate funds for financing infrastructure which is typically long term while also reducing the refinancing risk of the debt stock.

    “It will also serve as a benchmark for local and foreign institutions which may need to raise long term dollar funds to invest in Nigeria under various Private Public Partnership (PPP) arrangements for infrastructure as well as privatisation.”

    She said the fresh borrowings from the International Capital Market will not anyway worsen the country’s debt burden.

    The DMO chief said: “I want to re-assure Nigerians that the government’s borrowings are pre-approved by the executive and legislative arms of government and are used to finance various activities of the government as appropriated.

    “These layers of approvals ensure that the borrowings are both necessary and scrutinised before the DMO embarks on actual borrowing.    The increasing focus by the current administration of using borrowed funds for infrastructural development is a step in the right direction.

    “As borrowing is deployed to infrastructure to promote economic growth, the benefits of job creation and increased production among benefits are good for all Nigerians.

    “Besides, the debate on debt burden should therefore shift to actively supporting the government to increase revenue to levels comparable to the sub-Saharan average of 17 per cent of GDP. The other part of the argument about debt becoming a burden is the issue of Nigeria’s revenue base which at six per cent of GDP is not only low but well below that of peer countries.

    “Interestingly, government’s revenue is now being given proper attention. The measures to increase revenues are already yielding some results, and as this trajectory continues, the need for borrowing is expected to reduce while debt service will become an increasingly smaller portion of revenue.”

     

  • Road maintenance: How far can tolling go?

    Road maintenance: How far can tolling go?

    The odds favour the return of the tolling regime, the Federal Government believes. The reintroduction of toll plazas will assist the government in sourcing funds for roads repair and maintenance. But will this be the needed elixir be enough to generate the huge revenue make all federal roads smooth all-year-round? ADEYINKA ADERIBIGBE asks in this report.

    The stage is set for the Federal Government to reintroduce the tolling regime on federal highways. But motorists have nothing to fear as Power, Works & Housing Minister Babatunde Fashola assured that tolling will not return until all federal roads have been reappeared.

    “We are only waiting for the completion of these roads before we introduce toll gates,” Fashola told the Senate when he appeared before the National Assembly last week.

    To him, the extant laws still empowers the government to introduce tolls. And government will be tolling the roads in order to get the needed funds for their maintenance.

    Despite the whopping N1.8 trillion spent of federal highways by the former Goodluck Jonathan’s administration before he left office in 2015, the roads (more than half of them) belonging to the federal government are bad.

    An investigation carried out on the state of federal roads across the six geo-political zones by The Nation showed that less than 30 per cent of the road network across the country is passable. The worse hit region is the Southeast where no road was rehabilitated by the previous administration. The Federal Government claimed to have committed N345 billion to road repairs in the region.

    Though official figures remained sketchy, experts claimed that road repairs gulped N4 trillion in the last 16 years. Successive administrations since Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, continued to commit the tax payers’ money to fix the roads with little or nothing to show for the various interventions.

    Fruitless interventions

    For instance, between 1996 and 1998, the Federal Government, through the Petroleum Trust Fund (PTF), spent about N500 billion to build and refurbish all the highways. In 2000, erstwhile Works Minister Chief Anthony Anenih sunk another N350 billion under an intervention programme tagged: “Operation 500 roads.” The programme was designed for the upgrade of 500 ‘critical’ federal roads across the country.

    Two years after, the Federal Government came up with another intervention, which brought about the creation of the Federal Road Maintenance Agency (FERMA), to carry out an all-year-round maintenance on federal roads across the country.

    Despite the frequency of such interventions, which has spanned two decades, more than 80 per cent of roads remain in deplorable condition.

    Records showed that the Federal Government’s roads alone had gulped over 70 per cent of the nation’s total capital expenditures over the last 20 years.

    Yet, only 34,123 of the 193, 200 kilometres of road networks nationwide belong to the federal. The states and local government areas account for 30,500 kilometres and 129,577 kilometres respectively.

    The high costs of providing durable road network have placed the burden on government as sole financier of road infrastructure.

    Since 1962, budgetary allocations to road architecture have been on the rise. The road sector got 19 per cent of total public capital outlays between 1962–1968 (the civil war era), while 23 per cent; 22 per cent; and 15 per cent were allocated in the post war era of 1970–1974; 1975-1980 and 1981–1985 (corresponding to the various National Development Plans).

    The road transport also continued to receive over half of the total public sector capital outlay, with road infrastructure receiving the lion’s share of 58 per cent; 67 per cent; 71 per cent and 60 per cent of the transport sector’s share during the period, while rail, air and water, shared the remaining allocations along 42 per cent; 33 per cent; 29 per cent and 40 per cent in the first, second, third and fourth development plans respectively.

    Between 1960 and 2009, the transport sector contributed between 1.9 and 5.5 per cent of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in the country. Road transport alone accounted for over 60 per cent in the 1960s; over 80 per cent in the 1980s and over 90 per cent in the 1990s and 2000s.

    Since independence, roads accounted for over 70 per cent of passengers and freight movements, and over 95 per cent of the goods to and from the seaports.

    As at 2007, only 35 per cent of the federal highways were rated as being in a good or very good condition. The last assessment of the Federal Draft Green Paper for Consultation II Roads, carried out by FERMA in March 2011, revealed that only 26.5 per cent of federal roads passed the integrity test.

    But, despite the deplorable condition of the roads, the traffic volumes have consistently been on the rise.

    According to a traffic data on federal roads, about five per cent of the roads carry over 10,000 vehicles per day (vpd); 19 per cent carry between 6,000 –10,000 vpd, while 26 per cent and 51 per cent of the road carry between 4,500 – 6,000 vpd and less than 4,500 vpd.

    The density of traffic on the road, with its attendant wear and tear informed the need for thinking out of the box to frontally confronting funding of road maintenance.

    Recession compounded the problems for the government as rooftop foreign exchange became a nightmare.

    Fashola argued that whereas the Ministry of Works alone, requires N2 trillion to maintain all federal roads in 2016, (and perhaps yearly), only N433.4 billion was appropriated to the three ministries under his jurisdiction last year.

    According to Fashola, the options before Nigerians, is to choose between fire and a deep sea. He told his audience that the choice is either to pay for good road network, or refuse, and be buffeted all round by grossly dilapidated roads.

    The incontestable fact is that the President Muhammadu Buhari inherited bad roads as most of the 193,200 kilometres roads network are crying for attention.

    To avoid the initiative being steeped in the murky waters of politics, government may conclude all rehabilitation works by the first quarter of 2018, and kick off test run by the second quarter 2, next year. The minister hinted that the private sector would be invited to manage the facilities.

    Fashola said that tolls would be introduced in 38 points across the country. Though the exact locations where the new toll plazas would be located have not been identified, Fashola stated that the government may stick to the old locations.

    What this means invariably is that each state capital will have one toll plaza, with Abuja or Lagos having two. Conservatively, if each toll plaza makes N1 million monthly, the government is projecting to rake in N38 million/month, and about N54.7 billion/year. In two years, N1 trillion could be set aside to carry out maintenance.

    A public affairs analyst, Lekan Shote, who lauded the idea behind the return of the toll gates, hinged his reservations on the erosion of the people’s purchasing power.

    According to him, just like the fuel increase regimes worsened the people’s living conditions, the toll imposition will further recess the people’s income and increase the cost of doing business for most struggling Nigerians, battling with a meager income.

    Those who will be worse hit by the toll reintroduction are the ordinary people, especially, traders, as transporters will eventually pass the cost to them.

    Transportation and logistics experts insist that nothing is wrong with collection of tolls on any road, be it federal, state or local government. The snag, they argue, is that the people’s disposable income have been badly impacted by recession that introducing toll at this time would be adding to their misery.

    Shote likened the toll fee (road tax), may further tighten the net against the nation’s huge members of the informal sector, who still escape the tax net. “If you do not pay income tax or company tax, you will at least pay road toll indirectly as long as you ply the roads or buy goods freighted on the roads.”

    He blamed Buhari’s macroeconomic policies which has eroded Nigerians’ earning capacity.

    But, Dr. Joseph Shojobi, a foremost transportation systems engineer and planner, said nothing better outside tolling, lies in the horizon if Nigerians are to enjoy quality roads with better markings and signage.

    Shojobi, who retired 50 years ago from the University of Lagos as a senior lecturer, claimed Nigerians loses N80 billion daily as vehicular occupational cost as a result of the state of the nation’s roads.

    He served as Chairmen of the post war Federal Roads Advisory Committee under Alhaji Femi Okunnu as the Federal Commissioner for Works & Transport. The retired don described as “government’s most unpardonable gaffe,” the cancellation of toll plaza by the Obasanjo administration.

    Blaming the deplorable conditions of the roads on the stoppage of the tolls in 2002, Shojobi said that despite the outcry that the plazas were becoming a cesspool of corruption, the revenue accrued from the plazas was close to a billion Naira as at 2000, and would have outstripped a trillion by 2016.

    Quoting figures, Shojobi said the toll collection, as at 2000, was N569 million, N742 million in 2001 and N779 million in 2002.

    He said: “If this revenue had been allowed to continue to grow, we would have gone pass N1 trillion, and we would not be cash strapped in fixing the roads.”

    Shojobi said that successive governments have continued to strive against shrinking revenue in confronting the bad state of the roads headlong.

    He said series of interventions such as the introduction of petrol tax, on which series of price increments over the years have been pegged, necessitating the establishment of the Petroleum Products Pricing Regulatory Agency (PPPRA), or the establishment FERMA, to handle regular maintenance of roads have continued to fail due to paucity of funds.

    The storm ahead

    Though Fashola has assured that much of the details behind the eventual reintroduction of the toll regime were in the works, Nigerians have also taken the government to task to come up with more disclosures that would assist in planning their activities and living.

    One of the very basic information already released by the government was that the new plazas would be introduced at the old locations, which obviously would be along the government’s approved corridor. But for states like Lagos, achieving such may increase the burden of millions of people living even up to kilometre 50, on the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway.

    “For most of us living at Warewa, Magboro, Ofada, Aseese, Arepo, Mowe, Ibafo and other sundry boundary communities on that axis, the news was a bombshell as it would add to our financial burden on both sides of the carriage,” Anthony Umeh, a regular commuter said.

    Another concern identified by regular users of the road is that the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway, for instance, now provides home to no fewer than a dozen religious institutions, many of which also offers estate facilities to their faithful, who lives therein while they work in the city.

    Umeh and Godwin Oku, a commercial bus driver who operates the Mowe-Berger route, said it would be nice if the government can relocate the plaza to a little after the Redemption Camp. They said that with living and commercial activity already encroaching on the old toll gate at the Ojo end of the highway, retaining the plaza there will not serve the purpose for which it was meant to serve.

    Patrick Adenusi of Safety Without Borders said one of the bane of Nigeria’s development is policy summersault. He recalled that all stakeholders rose against the cancellation of the toll system by the Obasanjo administration, but that lack of political will stood against its immediate reversal by successive governments, “until the reality of an empty purse went beyond a mere headache or rhetoric to threaten the very heart of governance.”

    He said had the late Musa Yar’Adua or Goodluck Jonathan administrations demonstrated the will, the short-sighted decision taken on suspicion of sleaze or corruption for which anti-corruption agencies such as the Independent Corrupt Practices and other Offences Commission (ICPC) and Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) were later created, Nigeria would not have slipped into becoming the third country with the most unsafe roads in the world.

    Adenusi said the toll system being contemplated by the government is part of the elements that is embedded in the new Road Trust Fund Bill, which has passed its second reading, and has moved to committee stage for further fine-tuning.

    He said while tolling may be a very sure way of bailing the nation out of its poor road maintenance profile, transportation system experts must be involved in building a sustainable strategy in maintaining the cluster of roads in the country.

    Like Adenusi, Shojobi listed vehicle count, traffic density and travel pattern as factors that must be considered in coming up with locations where the plazas should be sited.

    Shojobi said so many variables, among them; new trends in transportation patterns, population, vehicle density, migration, and other factors, may have adversely affected the old locations, which may make siting the new ones on same spots unprofitable.

    “I have no doubt that the government would employ experts in coming up with various engineering solutions now that the government is looking at the various strategies to help it resolve its maintenance quagmire,” he said.

    The scholar pointed out the need for a review of road classifications in the country. A decision that may also inform the reclassification of some roads hitherto classified as Trunk B as a Trunk A, while some Trunk C roads could actually have been serving as Trunk B as a result of its vehicular density.

    Viewing the nature of maintenance of the nation’s roads, Shojobi suggested that roads should be broadly classified into two major classes as the 774 local governments across the country has proven too weak to be saddled with road maintenance.

     

    Other revenue spots

    Shojobi identified insurance premiums, import duty tariffs, vehicle assessment tax, MOT certification and other other road related taxes and levies as some sources the government can explore to generate more money to maintain its roads.

    He said corporate organisations, as well as individuals, may also be invited to assist in rehabilitating any road with provisions for adequate incentives to recoup their investments.

    Experts added that if exploited, the toll regime may be become the needed elixir to extricate the roads from of neglect and dilapidation.

    For instance, Shojobi insisted that the collectable revenue should be put into a sinking fund under the administration of an independent agency.

    From the fund, the agency which should compose of incorrigible Nigerians should embark on the allocation of funds for any classes of roads across the country.

    Reminiscing on the impact of such an agency in the past – the Petroleum Trust Fund (PTF) in the rehabilitation of all classes of roads across the country, Shojobi said that such an agency should be in charge of administering the fund on behalf of Nigerians.

    Describing roads as a national and an international asset linking communities and countries, Shojobi said that the time has come for Nigerians to accept the reality of paying to finance its maintenance.

    “Everybody want to own a bit of the road but it is a national asset. As a national asset, it must be maintained regularly if we must continue to get the best value from its usage. As the people pay for the use of electricity or even water supply, or the use of gas, they hardly considered road as a resource worth paying for. Nobody thinks of paying for the use of the road. So, we end up abusing our little space on it. All of that would change if we begin to exploit the various opportunities that we could get by getting the best mileage of these roads which are our commonwealth. We should begin to pay for the use of the roads and the best place to start is to by introducing the toll regime,” Shojobi added.

     

     

  • Buhari’s pay directive: Governors, workers clash looms

    Buhari’s pay directive: Governors, workers clash looms

    The presidential directive to governors to pay civil servants’ salaries before Christmas may pit the states’ chief executive officers against organised labour. Reason: the balance of the Paris/London Club refund from which the governors are expected to settle the workers may be a far cry from what is required, especially in states owing huge arrears of salaries. Osagie Otabor, Odunayo Ogunmola, Nicholas Kalu, Mike Odiegwu, Rosemary Nwisi, Suleiman Adamu, Damisi Ojo, Ernest Nwokolo, Anthony Bassey, Adekunle Jimoh and Adesoji Adeniyi report that the local chapters of the workers’ unions look set to challenge their employers across the states.

    President Muhammadu Buhari’s directive to governors to settle workers’ salaries before Christmas may have widened the gulf between the states’ helmsmen and organised labour.

    The directive was reportedly given on Monday after the President met with the governors at the State House in Abuja.

    The President directed Finance Minister Mrs. Kemi Adeosun and Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Governor Godwin Emefiele to release the 50 per cent balance of the Paris/London Club refund to enable the states carry out his directive.

    Labour hailed the President for the gesture and urged its members to look forward for a rosy Yuletide.

    But if feelers from the Nigeria Governors’ Forum (NGF) are anything to go by, the hope of having a blissful Christmas may remain in the realm of a dream for the workers.

    The governors said the President never said that all arrears of salaries should be paid before Christmas.

    Besides, they foreclosed the possibility of getting their shares of the Paris/London Club refund before Christmas ,given the delay in the past when the President gave such directives.

    The workers, through their local chapters in the states, are already counting days. Those in debtor-states are upbeat that the arrears of their salaries will be cleared.

     

    Governors must be monitored

    In Cross River State, the Trade Union Congress (TUC) commended the President for the gesture and urged him to raise monitors to guard against misapplication of the funds when released to the governors.

    TUC local chairman Clarkson Otu said: “We must commend the President for the interest he has shown in the welfare of the workers of Nigeria. He has shown that he is very welfare-oriented, he is worker-friendly and, of course, he knows that these salary earners and low-income earners are really the people bearing the brunt of this recession and tight economic situation.

    “You see him giving bailout and the Paris Club refund. He has continually stated that they should be used to defray outstanding salaries, pensions, gratuity and such other related allowances. So, he has done well in that regard.

    “But the problem is whether it would translate to the benefit of the people when the governors get this money; whether they would use it for such purposes, because that is the problem we have.

    We have no issues with arrears of salaries in Cross River State. The problem we have is the outstanding of monumental arrears of gratuity, which is climbing close to N30 billion now. “That has been our major concern. We have been shouting. It is our prayer and hope the man should put part of the money received if not all to address the issues of gratuity.

    “I hope the governors would have that kind of sympathy for workers to deploy those funds appropriately. It is unfortunate that some governors, despite getting these funds, still don’t put them to use for what they were meant for. The leadership in the various states are not sensitive to the plight of the workers and the people. They are very greedy and wicked.

    “After all, this Paris Club efund is not a loan. Some of them are just diverting those funds. Some have stolen it for whatever grandiose projects, some becoming pipe dreams, even in our own state here.

    “I think the President should do more. There have been complaints in various states that the released funds are not being utilised for those purposes. The people are still crying. Pensions have not been paid in several states. Gratuity is still outstanding. Salaries are still being owed.

    “The President is still giving bailout and the governors have not accounted for the ones given to them in the past. So, that is the area that is lacking. If you give them this money, follow it up. Ensure that they are utilized.

     

    Reduced allocations cripple states

    The local chapter of the TUC in Ekiti Ekiti State welcomed the bailout, saying the reduction in monthly subventions to the states from the Federation Account has adversely affected state finances.

    Chairman of the TUC in the state, Odunayo Adesoye, said Governor Ayo Fayose has done his best on workers’ welfare but that paucity of funds has been a major challenge.

    Adesoye said: “Governor Fayose has tried his best for workers since he came into power. He has always carried labour leaders along in the management and disbursement of allocations from the Federation account for the payment of workers’ salaries.

    “But, the reduction in the allocations to the state occasioned by the shortfall in the oil revenue and deductions from the state allocation are responsible for the state government owing workers arrears of salaries.

    “If it is true that there is directive that governors should pay workers’ salaries before Christmas, the Federal Government should assist the state governments with financial support.

    “Our governor loves workers. He has done his best within the limited resources available to him and he wants workers to enjoy a blissful Christmas and he is even working towards that already.”

    But the Enlightened Workers’ Forum (EWF), a group in the state work force,urged the Federal Government to hold Fayose accountable on the management of previous financial interventions.

    EWF state coordinator, Mike Bamidele, said the state government should not have owed as much as between five and eight months’ arrears if financial reliefs were well managed in the past.

    Bamidele said: “This presidential directive is a welcome development because civil servants in Ekiti State are suffering. They are being owed between five and eight months’ arrears. I mean the core civil servants – workers in institutions under subvention and local government employees.

    “This is a government that had received series of intervention funds from the Federal Government, including bailout funds, Paris Club refund and Budget Support Fund (BSF) but these funds have been diverted as attested to buy the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) which said N680 million from the first tranche of the bailout cash was diverted.

    “We have said it times without number that Fayose should be made to account for these funds so that workers will be given what is due to them. We urge the Federal Government to devise means of paying the planned release before Xmas directly into workers’ account to prevent further diversion.”

     

    NLC threatens unrest if…

    The NLC in Edo State said it would cause industrial unrest if Governor Godwin Obaseki failed to pay pensioners, local government employees and tertiary institution workers.

    It promised to ensure the state government complied with the Presidential directive that the balance of the Paris Club refund be used to pay workers’ salaries.

    The local Chairman of the NLC, Emmanuel Ademokun, told reporters that the union will monitor the application of the refund by state government.

    Ademokun stated that the NLC will ensure the usage of the expected fund to pay pensioners, local government workers and staff of some tertiary institutions in the state.

    His words, “We have a lot of issues as regards pensioners in the state including those that in the local government. We don’t want pensioners going to stay in the street again demanding for payment.

    “We are prepared to monitor how the fund will be disbursed. There will be industrial unrest if the state govern fail to settle pension and salary arrears.”

    The pensioners’ spokesman in the state, Gabriel Osemwekhai, a lawyer, said his members will resume their street protest if they were not paid their pension arrears.

    “We will go back to the trenches and do what we know how to do. We are waiting for the money to be paid,” he said.

     

    Edo government disagrees

     

    The Obaseki-led government said it has always paid workers’ salaries on or before the 26th of every month. It faulted claims that it owed workers and pensioners 10 months salaries.   Such report “is false and misleading,” the governor’s Special Adviser on Communication & Strategy, Crusoe Osagie, said in a press statement.

    According to him, the state has motivated its employees for optimal service delivery with prompt payment of salaries.

    The statement reads: “The state government has ensured that workers are paid as and when due. We are pursuing all-inclusive reforms in the state civil service to ensure that workers deliver optimum service to the people. The payment of their salaries is one of the first steps to achieving this and we have been faithful to that mandate.

    “We have met these obligations right from the previous administration up till now. In Edo State, we prioritise the welfare of workers, both those in active service and even pensioners.

    “We have not only paid salaries, we have also met obligations to pensioners. In fact, we have paid N6.2 billion to both state and local government pensioners from January to September.”

     

    Four-month salary arrears sure in Bayelsa

    The local chapters of the NLC and TUC in Bayelsa State are sure of the payment of the four and half-month arrears of their members’ salaries by Governor Seriake Dickson.

    The Monday’s directive of President Buhari that the third tranche of the Paris Club refund should be released to the state governors with emphasis on payment of workers’ salaries boosted their hopes.

    The NLC Chairman, Bipre Ndiomu, told The Nation, that prior to Buhari’s directive, Dickson had promised use the refund to pay outstanding salaries.

    Ndiomu noted that the government was owing four and half month salaries and not 10 months as reported in some quarters.

    The unionist, however, said the government’s ability to offset all the arrears was dependent on the amount of money released to the state government.

    He explained that Dickson used the first tranche to pay arrears of two months; the second tranche to offset one and a half month adding that the amount of the expected third tranche would determine the capacity of the government.

    Ndiomu said: “We commend the Federal Government because that is what we expected them to do. We hope that all the governors will oblige. In the state, the governor has been complying.

    “In the first tranche, he paid arrears of two months. In the second one, we were paid one and a half month. So, we are expecting that this one will come out on time so that workers will enjoy the Christmas as the President had directed.

    “In Bayelsa, the state government is owing four and half months and we are confident that the government will pay the arrears. But, how much we do not know yet.

    “We don’t know how much is coming and that is one thing the Federal Government should make clear so that we can bargain with that.”

    In a statement signed by its Information Commissioner Daniel Iworiso-Markson, the government faulted a report that it owed workers between 10 to 16 months’ salary backlog.

    Iworiso-Markson said: “The fact of the matter is that the Bayelsa State government is not owing up to 10/16 months’ salaries as claimed in the report. All the salaries of workers in the he state civil service have been paid in 2017.

    “There is no outstanding. Please note what was published about Bayelsa State was false. It is also unfair that no move was made by the writer to contact the media unit before such a story was published.

    “We are constrained, once again, to correct an erroneous impression being fed to the Nigeria public by some faceless interests that the Bayelsa State government is owing workers salaries of between 10 to 16 months. It is important to note that the Bayelsa State Government is among the few states that have paid salaries up to date in 2017.”

     

    Doubt over governors’ sincerity

    Labour leaders in Rivers State hailed the presidential directive with reservations on whether the governors will comply.

    NLC chairman in the state Beatrice Utubor, feared the governors might disregard the directive.

    Describing Buhari as a worker-friendly President, Utubor recounted the efforts made by the President to improve government/worker relationship, but regretted that the governors have been insensitive to the plight of workers and pensioners.

    Utobor said: “We are happy with the directive by President Muhammadu Buhari but the issue is how far the governors will comply with the instructions given.

    “The first time the President assumed power, he gave bail-out fund to some states that are owing salaries arrears to pay workers and pensioner, he later released Paris-Club refund to governors for the same purpose. Now, he has given another directive to release another one to help them clear the salaries, but we do not know whether they will pay or not, but we are happy for Mr. President.

    “Some of the governors are paying salaries but not pensions, while some are not. One thing we do know is that Mr President has never been the problem of workers. He is worker-friendly but the governors are insensitive to the plight of workers.

    “We have been telling the governor to pay pensioners in the state; that they are dying in their numbers in the state. The workers who retired since 2015 have not been keyed into the pension scheme, they have not even been paid their gratuity are worst affected on this, they are dying every day.

    “However, for those that are yet working and the retirees that are already receiving pension before he came in, he is trying in the payments. He pays both parties regularly and simultaneously, but there are some retirees of 2012, 2013, 2014, and part of 2015 who were not able to process their retirement documents before implementation of PenCom began, they are not being paid.

    “Also those that retired in 2016, the government has not been paying its counterpart funds to the pension managers. So, this category of workers are just there with nothing to live on, with nobody doing anything about their case.

    “In the same vain, workers of Rivers State Sustainable Agency (RSSDA), have not been paid their monthly salaries for more than two years. It is my wish that the CBN would release the funds as soon as possible and that the governor of the state complies swiftly by using the funds as directed.”

    In his reaction, a former House of Assembly Deputy Speaker in the state, Leyii Kwanee, lauded the President for the gesture and urged governors to ensure judiously apply the funds.

    He urged any governor thinking of diverting the funds into electioneering campaign to perish such an idea.

     

    It’s a morale booster

    The Sokoto State Chairman of the Joint National Public Service Negotiating Council (JNPSNC), Abubabakr Sadeeq Malami, described the directive as timely and morale boosting, at a festive period.

    “It’s a welcome development, especially to workers in states that are being owed salaries by their governments. Sokoto is not among states owing workers in respect of salaries. The November salaries have been paid by state government.”

    “The government is consistent and regular in the payment of workers’ salaries. Let me tell you that workers’ welfare is a priority to the Sokoto State government.”

    On the Paris club refunds, he said it would be a thing of joy if states could have it released at once to enable those with huge unpaid salary arears to clear same. It will go a long way to boost the morale and welfare status of workers.

    He said on the other hand, states with zero salary arrears can as well allocate same to meaningful projects for the benefit of their people.

    The Nigeria Union of Teachers (NUT) in Ondo State described the directive on salary payment before Christmas as cheery.

    Its Secretary Solomon Igbelowowa noted that the federal government ought to have put the financial status of each state into consideration before issuing the blanket directive.

    Igbelowowa noted that in some states, workers have been receiving half salaries since the past one year, hence, no matter the amount of the Paris Club refund, it would have no impact on the workers if it failed to cater for the unsettled salary arrears.

    The NUT, however, expressed lauded the President for sharing in the plight of many workers who have not been able to make ends meet because of piled up salary arrears owed by many state governments.

    The local chapter of the National Union of Local Government Employees (NULGE), through its Public Relations Officer (PRO) Victor Omodara, also hailed President Buhari for the directive to the state governors.

    He noted that the 50 per cent Paris Club refund for states would be adequate to clear the backlog of salary arrears, saying that workers under the NLC and TUC would ensure strict utilisation of the funds.

    According to him, President Buhari did not give any clause as to how the fund would be spent but mainly to clear the unsettled salary arrears.

    Omodara said what the directive of the President in the issue is very clear saying “anything contrary to the directive would be vehemently resisted by the entire workforce in the state.”

    The Ogun State chapter Chairman of the TUC Olubunmi Fajobi, told The Nation that Buhari’s directive demonstrated his awareness of some governors’s indebtedness to their workers.

    The labour hoped the state governors should listen and respond positively so that majority of the workers will be happy during Christmas, as well as be able to pay school fees in January.

    According to him, the Ogun State government owed salaries.

    He listed the categories of arrears owed them as 16 months cooperative deductions, 10 months check-off dues, 86 months contributory  pension, three years leave bonuses and three years of unpaid promotion arrears.

    The state Chairman, Academic Staff Union of Secondary Schools (ASUSS), Akeem Lasisi, described the plights of the state and local government employees in Ogun as pathetic.

    The President’s directive might just be what that would bring succour to them if the governor applied the Paris Club refund to settle backlog of arrears, he said.

    He said: “There is nothing better than the state government using the Paris Club refund to settle all our deduction arrears. We are suffering.  We encourage the Finance Minister and CBN to release the remaining refund so that workers plights could be addressed with it.

    “We can’t access loan from financial institutions or cooperatives because of unpaid deductions. We are hoping that this time, the state government would use the money from Paris Club refund to address all our arrears issues.”

    The Secretary to the State Government (SSG), Taiwo Adeoluwa, had admitted that the government was having issues with the deductions and was working to straighten things out.

    He told The Nation that the government wasnot owing salaries.

    Adeoluwa said: “We are not owing workers salary. We only have issues with deductions but not salaries and the government is working to address the deductions. Government workers are owed elsewhere) “but not in Ogun. No. Not in Ogun state.”

     

    Guarding against past pitfall

    The Akwa Ibom State chapter chairman of the NLC, Etim Ukpong, described the directive as timely and paying the workers’salaries abefore Christmas, will be a great relief.

    “It would help cushion the pains suffered by workers arising from the expected rise in the cost of food items, clothes and other necessities associated with the yuletide,” Ukpong said.

    The NLC chief said that workers in Akwa Ibom are anxiously waiting for the money to be disbursed.

    Ukpong, however, lamented that the previous tranches released to some governors were not beneficial to workers because they were diverted.

    He said: “We are waiting for the money. Workers in the state did not benefit from previous tranches. The governors should use the money to settle the backlog of indebtedness to workers.”

    He also urged the federal government to strictly monitor the application of the London-Paris Club refund by the governors, whose lifestyle, he alleged was contrast to worker’s plight.

    The Kwara State chair of the TUC, Olumo Kolawole, said of the directive: “It is a good one for workers.  As a labour leader I appreciate the gesture. The president means well for the workers to celebrate the Christmas in good mood.

    “It is an opportunity for the state governors owing workers’ salaries to put smile on workers faces.

    “I hope the state governors owing arrears of salary will justify the president’s directive to CBN and Finance Minister by using the 50 percent balance of Parish Club to pay their workers.”

  • What Nigeria stands to gain from $3b Eurobond, by DMO chief

    What Nigeria stands to gain from $3b Eurobond, by DMO chief

    •DG says offer oversubscribed by 400 per cent

    The Federal Government plans to use the proceeds of the $3 billion Eurobond Offer it issued in two tranches of $1.5 billion for 15 years and $1.5 billion for 30 years to refinane domestic debts.  The offer, issued through the Debt Management Office (DMO) was oversubscribed by 400 per cent. In this report by COLLINS NWEZE, the DMO Director-General, Ms. Patience Oniha, explains the government’s debt management strategy and the envisaged impact of the offer on the economy. THERE were high expectations within the International Capital Market (ICM) when the Federal Government announced plans to raise $5.5 billion with the backing of the Debt Management Office (DMO).

    In line with the government’s debt management strategy, the $5.5 billion has two components. The first – $2.5 billion to part-finance the 2017 Appropriation Act deficit and $3 billion Eurobond to be borrowed from external sources and proceeds targeted at repaying maturing domestic debt obligations.

    So, when the $3 billion Eurobond offer eventually came and was oversubscribed by 400 per cent, the DMO Director-General, Ms. Patience Oniha attributed the success to foreign investors’ appetite for Federal Government’s instruments. The DMO chief, who oversaw the successful issuance of the country’s first Sovereign Sukuk of N100 billion, also gave further details.

    On plans to raise $5.5 billion from the international financial markets, Ms. Oniha explained the federal government’s strategy.

    She said: “The DMO had for several years raised funds for the government largely in the domestic market through FGN Bonds and Nigerian Treasury Bills, and to a limited extent, from external sources mainly the multilaterals.

    “While this had a beneficial effect of developing the domestic debt capital market, the government became the dominant issuer to the extent that it has been regularly accused of crowding out the private sector.

    “The outcome was obviously not intentional, but to remedy the situation. The DMO deemed it fit to shift some of the borrowing activities to the international financial markets. This is also in line with its debt management strategy of achieving a portfolio mix of 60 per cent domestic and 40 per cent external.

    “Through the strategy, the share of domestic debt has been brought down from over 85 per cent to 77 per cent as at September this year.”

    Giving insights into the components the DMO director0general said: “The $5.5 billion is made up of two components, the first of which is $2.5 billion to part-finance the deficit in the 2017 Appropriation Act. The 2017 Appropriation Act included new borrowings of N1.254 trillion from the domestic market and N1.068 trillion equivalent of about $3 billion from external sources.

    “As at October 2017, only $300 million in the form of a Diaspora Bond had been raised leaving an unfunded balance of $3.2 billion. The other component of the $5.5 billion external capital raising is the $3 billion whose proceeds are to be used to repay some maturing domestic debt obligations.”

    Speaking on the benefits expected from borrowings, she said: “The DMO’s role in financing budget deficits  as provided in Annual Appropriation Acts, are to support  budget implementation and the attainment of the government’s economic targets. The $2.5 billion is specifically targeted at fulfilling the DMO’s mandate in this regard.

    “On the $3 billion for refinancing domestic debt, there are several benefits for the action. Firstly, it will reduce the crowding out effect that I earlier referred to thereby creating more space for other borrowers in the domestic market.

    “It also has the potential to bring about a reduction in lending rates which would make the cost of production of goods and services by the private sector cheaper and more price-competitive.

    “Another major benefit of raising external capital is a lower cost of borrowing to government and a moderation in debt service costs. As you know, United States (U.S.) dollar interest rates are much lower than naira interest rates. The $1.5 billion 10-year and $1.5 billion 30-year Eurobonds were issued at coupons of 6.5 per cent and 7.625 per cent per annum respectively.

    “These coupons are certainly much lower than the 15 per cent to 17 per cent that the government borrows at in the domestic market for shorter tenured funds. There is also the fact that the $3 billion is a direct accretion to Nigeria’s external reserves which are extremely useful for managing the naira exchange rate.”

    Ms. Oniha explained what accounted for the over-subscription of the Eurobonds by over $11 billion (about 400 per cent of the $3 billion that the government took) and her agency accepted less than the $5.5 billion approved by the National Assembly.

    Her words: “The demand of over $11 billion from international investors is a demonstration of their confidence in the policies and reform initiatives of President Muhammadu Buhari as well as the economic outlook of Nigeria.

    “Like those investors, we ourselves can attest to the economic improvements in Nigeria as demonstrated by higher external reserves, stable exchange rate, Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth of 1.44 per cent in the third quarter of 2017 and improvement in the Ease of Doing Business.

    “Our intention was not to raise the $5.5 billion at once. Our first priority was to raise the $2.5 billion required for the 2017 budget while the $3 billion required for refinancing domestic debt will be in a phased manner.

    “Also, from a technical perspective, we still wanted to moderate the cost even in the International Capital Market by managing the supply of Nigeria’s Eurobonds in the market.”

    On the significance of the 30-year Eurobond being issued for the first time in the country, she said: “It is remarkable that international investors were willing to take a long term risk on Nigeria by buying the 30-year Eurobond. This feat is even more remarkable when we consider that South Africa which has a superior sovereign rating of BB- compared to Nigeria’s B+/B rating is the only sub-Saharan country that has issued a 30-year bond in the International Capital Market.

    “The other outstanding aspect of the 30-year Eurobond is its Pricing at 7.625 per cent which is lower than the coupon of 7.875 per cent on the $1.5 billion 15-year Eurobond issued earlier in the year.

    “In terms of its specific benefits to Nigeria, it provides the appropriate funds for financing infrastructure which is typically long term while also reducing the refinancing risk of the debt stock.

    “It will also serve as a benchmark for local and foreign institutions which may need to raise long term dollar funds to invest in Nigeria under various Private Public Partnership (PPP) arrangements for infrastructure as well as privatisation.”

    She said the fresh borrowings from the International Capital Market will not anyway worsen the country’s debt burden.

    The DMO chief said: “I want to re-assure Nigerians that the government’s borrowings are pre-approved by the executive and legislative arms of government and are used to finance various activities of the government as appropriated.

    “These layers of approvals ensure that the borrowings are both necessary and scrutinised before the DMO embarks on actual borrowing.    The increasing focus by the current administration of using borrowed funds for infrastructural development is a step in the right direction.

    “As borrowing is deployed to infrastructure to promote economic growth, the benefits of job creation and increased production among benefits are good for all Nigerians.

    “Besides, the debate on debt burden should therefore shift to actively supporting the government to increase revenue to levels comparable to the sub-Saharan average of 17 per cent of GDP. The other part of the argument about debt becoming a burden is the issue of Nigeria’s revenue base which at six per cent of GDP is not only low but well below that of peer countries.

    “Interestingly, government’s revenue is now being given proper attention. The measures to increase revenues are already yielding some results, and as this trajectory continues, the need for borrowing is expected to reduce while debt service will become an increasingly smaller portion of revenue.”

     

  • Recession exit: Manufacturers renew push for local products

    Recession exit: Manufacturers renew push for local products

    Mostly driven by an improvement in oil prices and production volumes, the economy is out of recession and the manufacturing sector is also gathering momentum due to improved foreign exchange liquidity. But, to sustain the recovery tempo, manufacturers are seeking for increased patronage of locally-made products by the government. They argue that the government, being the single largest spender in the economy, holds the ace to boost the industrial sector by increasing its patronage of made-in-Nigeria goods.  Assistant Editor CHIKODI OKEREOCHA reports that the government’s patronage of local products will increase revenue through taxes and job creation, among other positive spin-offs.

    Manufacturers are unrelenting in their push for patronage of locally-made products. Even before the exit from recession, their heart cry was the promotion of goods and services produced locally. Their argument: it is the fastest way of pulling the country out of recession.  According to them, cutting down on the insatiable appetite for imported material to the detriment of locally-produced ones will reduce the pressure on Foreign Exchange (forex) triggered by the nation’s huge import bills and low receipts from exports.

    They further argue that curtailing the growing demand for forex for consumption, rather than capital products and equipment; will strengthen the local currency (the Naira).

    Besides, the patronage of locally-produced goods will stimulate economic growth by revitalising the manufacturing sector and boosting its competitiveness thereby creating jobs.

    Bouyed by the benefits, local manufacturers have again renewed their clamour for increased patronage of their products, following the country’s exit from recession, stating that doing so will sustain the recovery of the economy.

    The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) has confirmed in one its reports gave the economy, which slipped into recession for the first time in more than two decades in August last year, a clean bill of health. According to the NBS report, in the second quarter of 2017, the nation’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) grew by 0.55 per cent (year-on-year) in real terms.

    The Bureau described as an indication that the economy has exited recession after five consecutive quarters of contraction since the first quarter of last year. It attributed the recovery to improved performance of oil, agriculture, manufacturing and trade sectors of the economy.

    Experts at multinational consulting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) Nigeria also confirmed the out-of-recession claim. The PwC attributed the recovery partly to a sharp recovery in the oil sector, driven by an improvement in global prices and production volumes.

    The experts said that in addition, the non-oil sector recorded a positive growth for the second consecutive quarter, boosted by a strengthening of the broader manufacturing sector, reflecting impact of improved foreign exchange liquidity.

    In a report made available to The Nation, PwC experts led by Partner & Chief Economist,  Dr. Andrew S Nevin, said that besides the improvement in real GDP, the performance in other macro-indicators suggest that the economy is on track for a broad-based recovery.

    The report entitled: “Nigeria’s Q2’17 GDP: From Recession to Recovery” was a projection that Nigeria’s real GDP will attain full recovery by 2019, with growth moving closer to its long-term trend of 6.7 per cent.

    Latching on to the recovery trend, particularly in the manufacturing sector, manufacturers are renewing their clamour for increased patronage as a viable, credible and win-win strategy to sustain and strengthen the sector’s recovery process.

    At the forefront of the push is the President, Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (MAN), Dr. Frank Udemba Jacobs, who has identified the government as the largest single spender and could drive industrial development and economic growth by increasing its patronage of locally-made products.

    Jacobs, who spoke in Lagos at the 50th Annual General Meeting (AGM) of Ikeja Branch of MAN, appealed to the government to increase its patronage of made-in-Nigeria products, noting that this will boost the manufacturing sector, resulting to increased revenue to government through taxes and employment creation, among others.

    The AGM had as its theme: “Building a Competitive Manufacturing Sector: Road Map to Nigeria’s Economic Recovery”, with special emphasis on “Monetary and Fiscal Policy Measurers: Catalysts to Restoring the Growth of the Real Sector”.

    It offered a platform to review the activities of the branch, the performance of the manufacturing sector as well as the economy in the past year.

    Udemba, in his address at the AGM, noted the Federal Government’s efforts at reviewing the current Public Procurement Act (PPA) at the federal level and the introduction of the Executive Order on improved patronage of made-in-Nigeria products as well as the current build up against smuggling and counterfeiting activities in the country.

    The MAN president, who was represented by the Vice President of MAN, Lagos Zone, Rev. Isaac Ade Agoye, however, said it was pertinent to note that public procurement is not just mere purchases, but a strategic fiscal tool that has been used by other countries, including advanced nations, to develop their manufacturing sector.

    The Federal Government, through the Minister of Industry, Trade & Investment, Dr. Okechukwu Enelamah, announced that at least 40 per cent of government procurement spending will be on made-in-Nigeria goods and services.

    The minister also said the government was working at moving up 20 places up the ranking on the Ease of Doing Business index this year and it has to start from growing made in Nigeria.

    The development was sequel to the signing of three strategic Executive Orders by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, when he held the forte for President Muhammadu Buhari, to promote patronage of made in Nigeria products, transparency and ease of doing business in Nigeria.

    Going forward, Enelamah said that any document issued by any Ministry, Department and Agency (MDA) for the solicitation of offers, bids, proposals or quotations for the supply or provision of goods and services shall expressly indicate preference to be granted to domestic manufacturers, contractors and service providers and the information required to establish the eligibility of a bid for such preference.

    All documents of solicitation shall require bidders or potential manufacturers, suppliers, contractors and consultants to provide a verifiable statement on the local content of the goods and services to be provided.

    Defining ‘local content’ as the amount of Nigerian or locally-produced human material resources utilised in the manufacture of goods and services, Enelamah said that made-in-Nigeria products shall be given overwhelming preference, or at least 40 per cent, of the procurement spent on locally manufactured goods and service providers.

    He listed some of the priority items to include: uniforms and footwear; food and beverages; motor vehicles; pharmaceuticals; construction materials; information and communication technology, furniture & fittings and stationery.

    The Nation, however, learnt that government agencies have not lived to the manufacturers’ expectations in their compliance with the Executive Oder on patronage of local goods and services.

    The MADs’ attitude has prompted the manufacturers and other private sector operators’ renewal of advocacy with the hope of getting more government patronage.

    Justifying the MAN’s position at the AGM, Jacobs said: “It is an established fact that when we buy foreign goods, we pay the returns to factors used in producing them in the originating countries; that is to say that we pay wages, rent, interest and profit to foreign countries with our local resources.”

    He said greater patronage of made-in-Nigeria products, on the other hand, will enhance the manufacturing sector and in turn, result to increased revenue to government through taxes. It will also reduce social vices as well as guarantee peace.

    The MAN chief specifically called on the Lagos State government to set a minimum percentage threshold for its purchases of made-in-Nigeria products.

    He said: “At the federal level, a 40 per cent minimum threshold of purchase has been fixed for Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) through the Executive Order One.

    “Also, we want you (Lagos State government) to give an acceptable Margin of Preference (MoP) of about 35 per cent in terms of price consideration for those products as against foreign ones.

    “This will mean that even if local products cost a little more than foreign ones, the local ones should be patronised within the set margin of preference,” Udemba said.

    According to him, this is in consideration of the prevailing high cost of the operating environment in and the need to keep local manufacturing companies in production. Besides, he said there is the need to retain jobs and create new ones.

    Udemba pleaded with Governor Akinwunmi Ambode and his colleagues in other states to ensure patronage of made-in-Nigeria products in their states’ procurement policies and processes.

    The thinking is that the made-in Nigeria campaign must be driven by all the states if the targeted objectives must be met.

    Not a few operators and stakeholders in the various sectors believe that if the made-in-Nigeria campaign must succeed, it should not be the challenge of the Federal Government alone; the 36 states must have a role to play.

    A voice for robust monetary, fiscal and exchange rate policies

    Prof. Ademola Oyejide of the Faculty of Social Science, University of Ibadan, who was guest lecturer at the AGM, noted that countries that have developed did so on the back of the productivity of the manufacturing sector.

    In his presentation entitled: “Monetary, Fiscal and Exchange Rate Policy Measures for Restoring Nigeria’s Real Sector Growth,” Oyejide said the manufacturing sector can only be productive and competitive with the appropriate mix of macroeconomic policies.

    According to him, having more than one exchange rate distorts the market and hurts the manufacturing sector.

    Dr. Okechukwu Kelikume of the Department of Economics, Lagos Business School (LBS), noted that indeed, Nigeria exited recession, starting from the second quarter of 2016, precisely February 2016, when oil price started moving up gradually.

    He, however, said that if the recovery momentum must be sustained and strengthened by riding on the back of the renewed campaign for patronage of local goods, it was important to ensure that “if we make policies, we must also stop distortions.”

    Citing the government’s policy to encourage local production of rice, the expert said it was critical to halt the distortion in the policy by way of halting the smuggling of the product.

    For instance, he said that at a time a bag of foreign rice cost about N13, 500, the price of a bag of local rice cost N17, 500. He said even though the policy to encourage local production of the product was in place, it made more economic sense for consumers to buy foreign rice because it was cheaper.

    Kelikume, who blamed it all on smuggling and high of doing business in the country, traced manufacturing contribution of a meagre 0.6 per cent to the GDP to the inability of the government to curb smuggling.

    Govt re-assures real sector operators

    In his remarks through the Commissioner for Commerce, Industry & Cooperatives, Prince Rotimi Ogunleye, who represented him at the AGM, Ambode said that his administration has intensified efforts at making the environment conducive for manufacturers and other private sector operators to thrive.

    He listed some of the efforts to include the state’s contribution to improving Nigeria’s rating on the World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business Index; automation of Lands Bureau to facilitate unhindered and smooth access to members of the public and other stakeholders who transact business with the institution; aggressive infrastructure development across the metropolis.

    Prof. Osinbajo had also assured that the Federal Government will not rest on its oars on improving the economy. He said the latest impressive ranking in the World Bank’s latest ‘Doing Business’ report, was an indication that the President Buhari-led administration’s reforms were producing results.In the World Bank report, Nigeria achieved the unprecedented step of climbing 24 places in the rankings, and earning a place on the list of 10 most improved economies in the world.Many stakeholders have described news as cheery for real sector operators, even as some of them argue that if government could complement this by increasing its patronage of locally made products, the current economic recovery momentum will be sustained and strengthened.Some operators who spoke with The Nation have advocated the urgency to address the lack of supportive infrastructure and challenging monetary and fiscal policy environment that weaken the manufacturing sector’s capacity to produce goods and services for local consumption.

  • Fed Govt pays N164.7m school fees for Chibok girls at AUN

    President Muhammadu Buhari has approved N164.7 million for the payment of second semester school fess of the freed 106 Chibok schoolgirls at the American University of Nigeria (AUN) in Yola, Adamawa State.

    The President’s Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity, Malam Garba Shehu, said in a statement that the President expressed satisfaction over the progress so far made in the rehabilitation of the freed Chibok schoolgirls.

    According to him, Buhari expressed his feelings while reviewing the progress report on the affected girls.

    He said the report was submitted to the President in line with his commitment to personally monitor the rehabilitation and reintegration into society of the freed Chibokgirls.

    Shehu said the President also assured that the government would continue to provide full support for their education.

    The statement reads: “The President has approved payment of the sum of N164,763,759 million  for the second semester school fees of the 106 Chibok girls at the American University of Nigeria (AUN), Yola.

    “According to the progress report received by the President, the decision to pursue avenues in addition to military action to free the abducted girls is in the resolve to protect the lives of all Nigerians.

    “To end the insurgency in the Northeast of the country, and to fulfill one of the campaign promises of the President.

    “In line with this, the Federal Government entered into negotiations with the Boko Haram terrorist group for the release of the Chibok girls who were kidnapped from their school dormitory on the night of April 14, 2014.

    “So far, two batches of 21 and 82 girls have been freed as a result of those negotiations.

    “Three additional girls were rescued by the gallant efforts of our armed forces, bringing the total number of freed Chibok girls so far to 106.”

    Shehu noted that as a result of their experiences while in captivity, the freed girls were severely traumatised and afflicted by various ailments and injuries.

    He stated that the girls were taken to secured medical centres for attention.

    The statement further reads: “They also went through debriefing and de-radicalisation by security operatives, after which the girls were handed over to the Ministry of Women Affairs and Social Development.

    “The Ministry of Women Affairs and Social Development was assigned the main role in supervising the rehabilitation and reintegration of the girls back into society.

    “Long before the girls were released, the Federal Government had established the ‘Chibok Girls Desk’ in the ministry, responsible for acting on matters relating to the abducted Chibok schoolgirls, and serving as a channel of communication between relevant agencies and the parents and relatives of the abducted girls.”

    The media aide said that the Ministry of Women Affairs, in collaboration with the United Nations Fund for Population Activities (UNFPA), UN Women and other donour agencies, embarked on programmes earmarked to facilitate the rehabilitation and reintegration of the Chibok girls with a nine-month timeframe.

    According to Shehu, a hostel in the National Centre for Women Development was converted into a suitable shelter, where the girls were kept for the nine-month period.

    “The programme, which began in January, ended in September 2017. During the period, the 106 girls were given lessons in English, Mathematics, Biology, Agriculture, and Civic Education. In addition, they were trained on ICT and vocational skills.

    “Professionals were engaged to provide them with psychosocial therapy and one-on-one counseling to help them overcome post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).”

    The Presidential spokesman  noted that the girls were also provided with religious instruction and comprehensive care by two in-house doctors and two nurses.

    He said periodic visits from the girls’ parents to stimulate family support and reunion were sponsored and organised by the ministry.

    “Having successfully achieved the desired goals of the rehabilitation and reintegration programme, with recorded significant improvement in the academic performance of the girls, in September, a final send-off party was organised for the 106 Chibok girls.

    “They were subsequently moved to the American University of Nigeria (AUN) in Yola for their foundation studies and continuation of their education.”

    He disclosed that the AUN had successfully established a foundation school for 14 out of the 57 Chibok girls who earlier escaped when the rest of their classmates were taken to the Sambisa Forest by Boko Haram in 2014.

    The presidential aide observed that the absorption of the girls into the AUN marked the beginning of their integration into the larger society, thus fulfilling Buhari’s promise of providing the best education for them.

    “Although they have been officially handed over to their parents, the Federal Government will continue to be responsible for the payment of the Chibok girls’ school fees up to their graduation,”  Shehu said.

  • Obiano’s victory ends battle for Anambra seat

    Obiano’s victory ends battle for Anambra seat

    Governor Willy Obiano’s declaration as winner of the Anambra State election by the Independent National Electoral Commission ((INEC) yesterday ended the battle for the coveted seat in the Southeast state. RAYMOND MORDI and NWANOSIKE ONU write on the factors that shaped the election in which the incumbent trounced 35 challengers. 

    Incumbent Governor Willie Obiano of the All Progressive Grand Alliance (APGA) won last Saturday’s governorship election convincingly. He defeated his opponents in all the 21 local government with 234,071 votes, representing 55.42 per cent of the total valid votes cast.

    The All Progressives Congress (APC) flag bearer in the race, Dr. Tony Nwoye trailed him with 98,752 votes. Mr. Oseloka Obaze of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) followed closely with 70,293 votes.

    Obiano had the highest number of votes in his Anambra East Local Government Area. His APC challenger is also from the local government area.

    The governor got 20,510 votes in the local government, while Nwoye trailed behind with 5,248 votes. Obaze garnered 1,132 votes in the council, which has 72, 886 registered voters.

    At the height of polls’ collation, the Chief Returning Officer and the Vice Chancellor of the University of Calabar, Prof. Zana Akpogu, declared that Obiano have satisfied the requirements of the law and “is hereby declared winner.”

    Obiano declared that his triumph at the election is a victory for the people and not for himself or APGA. He said it is the time to build a new world for the people of Anambra, thanking them for having confidence in him, to leading the state to the promise land.

    The United Progressive Party (UPP) candidate, Osita Chidoka, who came fourth in the race, said he lost because he refused to share money like others.

    In his reaction, the political godfather of Anambra, Chief Chris Uba, said his party, the PDP, lost the election because of the impunity and the hijack of the party by former Governor Peter Obi.

    He said the last time the PDP produced a governor in Anambra was in 2003, when he made Dr. Chris Ngige governor. He described Obaze as a foreigner imposed on the party by Obi, noting that was painful for the PDP to come a distant behind APGA and APC in Anambra.

    He, however, warned the PDP to either correct the impunity during the forthcoming national convention of the party on December 9 or remain same. He said Obi should apologise to members of the party on the pages of five newspapers and he (Uba) would know what to do.

    With the landslide victory, the people have shown more confidence in Obiano and APGA as a political platform. The APGA flag bearer defeated his APC counterpart in Senator Chris Ngige’s polling unit in Alor, Idemili South Local Government Area, Anambra Central Senatorial District; in Senator Uche Ekwunife’s unit at Nri, Anaocha Local Government Area, Anambra Central; and Prince Arthur Eze’s polling unit in Ukpo, Dunukofia Local Government Area, also Anambra Central.

    The Chairman of the Willie Obiano Campaign Organisation, Chief Victor Umeh, commended the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), saying the way and manner the commission went about the process accounted for the difference.

    Umeh said that all the ad hoc staff and collation officers that took part in the election were selected by the commission in such a way that their identities were not known until the last minute.

    The returning officer, a former National Chairman of APGA, who said the party feared that the election might be rigged by the APC-controlled Federal Government in favour of its candidate, noted that the electoral umpire  shocked the people with the best election that has ever been held in the state.

    He said: “We already knew that Governor Obiano have won the election yesterday, but there was palpable tension that the result will be changed overnight. But the results declared here today suggest that the process was transparent: nothing was changed.

    “All the results we received from the local government collation centres yesterday were the actual results declared here today. This is what we wish for the country; to have an electoral process where the people will decide who becomes their leader. If we get it right continuously in this regard, this country will always have leaders that will serve them.”

    According to Umeh, last Saturday was not the first time APGA will be securing a landslide victory in a governorship election, recalling that “in 2013, Obiano won in 20 out the 21 local government areas in the state. But he won in all the 21 councils this time around, because of the great work he did in virtually all the communities. So, you can see that the mandate was unanimous: no local government shied away from giving him maximum support.

    “Again, APGA has shown that it is the dominant party here; the people believe in it because it represents their political life. By the time Obiano completes his second term, the party would have governed the state for 16 years.’’

    Umeh said APGA has offered good governance in the last 12 years, thereby making the state secure and stable.

    Confirming his early belief that the people will not gamble, by voting for somebody they do not know, he added: “Good governance is very rare in Nigeria; any place you see it the citizens will grab it. That’s what the people of Anambra haws done.”

     

    Why Obiano won

    One of the biggest factors that aided Governor Will Obiano’s victory is incumbency. Naturally, Obiano exploited it throughout the electioneering campaign period. His billboards and posters were the most visible throughout the major roads in the state. One can hardly find billboards and posters of the other candidates on major roads in the state. Opponents have accused the party of destroying their billboards and posters.

    In terms of performance, Obiano may not have performed to everyone’s expectation, but he exploited the fact that he is in power by embarking on last minute developmental projects to garner votes in areas his opponents are expected to have block votes.

    In his campaign, Obiano tried to whip up the same sentiments that worked for the party in previous elections. One of such is to position APGA as an Igbo party. Owing to this sentiment, APGA has been winning elections since 2003. Though former Governor Peter Obi and the late Chukwuemeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu’s son, Emeka Jnr., have refuted the claims of APGA that the former warlord warned the Igbo not to abandon the party, their words have certainly not made impact in the minds of the people of Anambra, who take APGA as their own.

    Besides, the party is well rooted in the state. So, it has its own die-hard supporters, who believe he has done well under the circumstance he finds himself.

    Another factor responsible for Obiano’s re-election is the zoning arrangement. In the spirit of the zoning arrangement, the two other major parties – the APC and the PDP – picked their candidates from Anambra North, which is favoured to occupy the governorship seat in the next four years. But the odds favoured Obiano, who is entitled to only one more term of four years.

    Although both Nwoye and Obaze who are from Anambra North like the incumbent signed an undertaking pledging to do only one term to complete the eight years allotted to the zone, electorates from Anambra South were more favourably disposed to back Obiano as a matter of expediency.

    Observers say the political titans from the zone were more comfortable with Obiano, because his continuation would provide the shortest route for the zone to grab power.

     

    President Buhari

    Despite being the national leader of the ruling party, the President did not interfere in the conduct of the Anambra elections. His father-for-all role was on display when he ordered the reinstatement of the security details of Obiano, who were withdrawn by Inspector-General of Police (IGP) Ibrahim Idris, few days to the election.

     

    INEC

    Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) is one of the major beneficiaries of the Anambra governorship election, having conducted it without the usual hiccups that always characterized the exercise in the country.

    Though there were few complaints of late arrival of materials in some places and malfunction of the card reader machines, but the election has been adjudged the best so far in the land.

     

    Obiano

    He is the incumbent governor of the state, who was pressurised to relinquish his office by the opposition. But his dogged nature, sincerity and straight forwardness paved the way for him during the election on Saturday

    Many people had written him off in the election, but his open mind and politics of anti party by some members of other political parties gave him victory.

     

    Police

    The masses had lost confidence in the Nigeria police especially,  when it comes to issues of conducting elections in the country because of the way they bully,  harass and intimidate innocent souls.

    But the comportment of the police men including rank and file and maturity displayed by them had given  the people a new hope in the police

     

    APGA

    The party has really proved with the Obiano victory that it is no longer a party, but a movement for the voters in Anambra State. The party defeated the PDP, despite the backing of Obi, who dumped APGA for the then ruling PDP after ruling the state for two consecutive terms.