A special slot was reserved for Dr. Elizabeth Uzoma Emenike in the history books when she emerged Nigeria’s first female ambassador to the United States after serving as the Nigerian Ambassador to the Republic of Ireland with concurrent accreditation to Iceland. Dr. Emenike was in the Nigeria Foreign Service for over 30 years ago and served in the Protocol Department, and Nigerian Embassy in Abidjan, Cote D’Ivoire, where she served for six years. Upon her return to Nigeria, she was variously deployed to other departments of the ministry, during which she represented Nigeria in numerous bilateral and multilateral missions, both at home and abroad. In this interview with United States Bureau Chief OLUKOREDE YISHAU in New York, Ambassador Emenike speaks about Nigerians in the U.S., Nigeria’s relationship with President Joe Biden administration, President Muhammadu Buhari and many more.

When you emerged as the Nigerian ambassador to the US after a tenure in Ireland, it was epoch-making because of the fact that you are the first woman to be so appointed. It has been close to two years since you began your tour of duty but not much is known about what shaped you. What shaped your world view and what was growing up like?

Growing up years, how she emerged as Nigeria’s ambassador to U.S. and what shaped her world view

I would honestly ascribe my life’s journey to the divine grace of the almighty God. God has always been my guide and rock in all I do. It is also God that gave me the quality parents that I had. So, I can comfortably say that God and my parents are the foundations of my world view. For example, my parents inculcated the habit of reading in all their children. I can easily recall that while growing up that my father subscribed to the Reader’s Digest, foreign magazines, as well as national newspapers. It was a must in our home to read bedtime stories before going to bed. Those littles things helped to shape one’s world view too. It helped one to blend when I eventually joined the Foreign Service, which very much suited my desired career hopes and aspirations.

 You don’t just have a degree. You have degrees, including a doctorate. What was it like earning all these qualifications and how are they helping you with your current assignment?

Our brains are like sponges. It contains the necessary materials that make us who we are. In several ways, it cleanses and polishes us. My parents were lovers of education, which rubbed off on me. Fortunately, I am also married to a man who is my number one fan, promoter, supporter, and a great lover of education as well. When I married him, I had both a graduate and two postgraduate degrees in sociology, anthropology, and diplomacy. But he insisted it was not enough. His view was that in our present world, every woman must be encouraged and assisted to be the very best that she can be. He sees education as a platform on which one can achieve their potentials. So, my husband encouraged and sponsored me to acquire additional graduate degrees in law, postgraduate degrees in business, and a PhD in international relations. As we all know, no knowledge is a waste. So, all these studies and research have today come handy. Of course, there is no gain without pain. As we all know, roses are beautiful, but they are known for the thorns that surround them. Most of the later degrees were obtained whilst my children were under ten years old. In life, anything is possible through the grace of God, and a determined mindset. So, I can say that the grace of God, the quality of my upbringing, and the rigours of the educational path I have gone through have made it impossible for me to be overwhelmed by any assignment, no matter how challenging.

You were in the Foreign Service before voluntarily retiring. Now you are back at the top of it. Is there any difference between your experience then and now as an ambassador?

When I joined the Foreign Service, quality training and mentorship was still available. Also, the recruitment process was meticulous and there was an enforced standard of the grade of university degree for those applying for the officer cadre. Young officers were ready and willing to apply themselves as there were senior colleagues who were equally ready to mentor new entrants. After several years of meritorious service, I decided with my husband to retire voluntarily from diplomacy. Coming back at the apex of what one calls “second missionary journey” is indeed a privilege and an honour. For this I remain grateful to President Muhammadhu Buhari for giving me this opportunity to represent him and serve our beloved country as a principal envoy.

The difference between being a career foreign service officer and an ambassador is clear. As a career diplomat, you were supervised and guided by your superiors, but as the ambassador you are the principal representative. You are expected to lead the team, mentor others, and steer the ship in whichever nation who are deployed to. You are the chief envoy, as well as the principal role model for your country. For me, my earlier experience as a career officer has helped me tremendously in my current position.

Nigerians in Ireland had a plethora of complaints before you became the ambassador there. How were you able to address the issues?

There are problems everywhere. But the truth is that problems are meant to be solved. My husband always says that “every business has a soul.” Personally, I extrapolate from that to say that every problem or challenge has a center of gravity. If you can identify it, the issue is almost as good as solved. Moreover, whatever we achieved in Ireland could have been achieved by anyone who set out to leave a positive legacy, and whose focus is to project our national interests in a positive light. That was what one set out to do from the onset, and I am happy that that was achieved.

The U.S. has arguably the largest population of Nigerians outside Nigeria. How is it being the President’s face in such a country? And what are the challenges of the assignment?

You are correct. Nigeria has a huge population of its nationals residing here in the United States. It is also to the credit of our country that most of our nationals here are professionals engaged in one productive activity or another. Nigerians here generally go about their daily business lawfully. In fact, most of them are very useful and valuable members in the various U.S. communities they reside in. So, for us as a mission, serving these quality professionals should not be as daunting as it would appear, particularly if both parties relate with each other with professionalism, courtesy, and mutual respect. Being the face of the President in the U.S.A. is the easiest part of the job as President Muhammadu Buhari is highly respected among the authorities in this country for his discipline, forthrightness, and anti-corruption disposition. If you recall that our President is a distinguished graduate of the US war college, you will appreciate even further why he is so highly regarded here. Of course, there are natural challenges in managing a mission as big as that of Washington D.C., which includes the fact that this is very huge country. For example, a direct flight from Washington to California takes as much as five hours. Also, Nigeria is one of the few countries here that have a sizable number of her nationals in almost all the 50 US states. On our part, we continue to improve on the services we render to Nigerians. We have introduced an online appointment system that eases the usual bottlenecks Nigerians encounter in acquiring new passports or renewing existing ones.

Indeed, passport acquisition was a major challenge but, we are gradually putting measured in place to tackle these challenges. Some of the steps taken were to ensure that the number of passport booklets sent to the mission was increased, thanks to the Minister of Interior, His Excellency Ogbeni Rauf Aregbosola, and the Acting Comptroller General of Immigration Mallam Idris Isah Jere. Also, ensuring that extra passport booklets were provided to assist the embassy in dealing with the backlog of application that was further exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. On July 5, 2022, the Minister of Interior visited Washington D.C. and commissioned the new enhance passport producing machine. This has ensured faster production of passports. Nigerians residing in the USA must have noticed an improvement in passport production and processing. However, let me use this opportunity to inform our citizens here in the USA, that they should always ensure that their forms are filled out correctly, and their self-addressed envelope done correctly. Any errors will delay the production and reception of their passports. We have so many undelivered passports returned to the embassy by the post office. There is also an email dedicated to consular issues. People are always advised to email their complaint to this email and are promptly responded to. We are a work in progress, willing and ready to serve.

 Passport renewal is a major challenge for Nigerians in the U.S. How do you intend to make it as easy as renewing an American passport?

Not necessarily. Of course, there are challenges in rendering certain service everywhere. It is, however, important that Nigerians understand that apart from the mandate to represent Mr. President in our host countries, the primary duty of any mission abroad is to serve its citizens. So, any ambassador worth his or her salt would work acidulously to serve the best interests of our citizens. The Nigerian mission in Washington D.C. is working acidulously with the immigration services to ensure hitch-free passport renewals for all Nigerians. Certainly, we have not gotten there yet. But with the cooperation of the Nigerians residing in the US and others considered in the service chain, some of these hitches will eventually become a thing of the past. Those who have approached our embassy in recent times can readily attest to the vast improvement in our services.

A lot of Nigerians in the U.S. have all manners of immigration challenges related to the manner of their relocation. Has this created any challenges for you as the ambassador?

Not really. As I said earlier, as an ambassador part of my mandate is to attend to the needs of Nigerians within my diplomatic, professional, and patriotic capacity. I am here to serve the Nigerians residing in this nation. It is, however, important to note that this issue is not peculiar to Nigerians alone. We deal with the issues as they come, and no two cases are the same.

The Foreign Service usually has financial challenges. Are our embassy and consulates in the US insulated from this?

The problem of fund insufficiency in our missions was a longstanding issue until the present administration came onboard. I must appreciate Mr. President who has continued to ensure that our missions all over the world are provided with the necessary resources to function, despite the prevailing domestic financial challenges. There is no doubt that due to the size of the United States, her importance in the global order, and the fact that every conceivable country is not only represented here, but is competing for space, means that out mission in the US needs higher levels of funding for optimum performance. We trust that this is being looked into.

What has been your relationship with the Biden administration?

My relationship with the Biden administration is excellent. Indeed, they were looking forward to my arrival as Nigeria’s first female ambassador. All doors were wide open for me from the State Department to Capitol, and the White House. President Biden was very warm in receiving me and expressed his respect for President Muhammadu Buhari, particularly Mr. President’s commitment to democracy and free and fair general elections in 2023. I can confidently tell you that under President Buhari, Nigeria is a valued ally of the United States. Both nations continue to collaborate in various areas of our foreign relations, and we work to continue to allow this relation to flourish.

The 2022 United Nations General Assembly meeting is Mr. President’s last one. What are the major takeaways for Nigeria?

It is a thing of great joy that Mr. President’s participation in this year’s UNGA meeting is general adjudged to be the best outing of Nigeria in recent years. Even Nigerians of all persuasions, as well as foreign nationals, applauded the contents, quality, and delivery of Nigeria’s message by Mr. President. Indeed, his speech that the world would be a better place when the will of members of the United Nations “is harnessed for positive collective action” still resonates within international diplomatic circles. Every one of us who accompanied him to this year’s UNGA meeting was very proud of our President, and proud to be Nigerians. Indeed Mr. President’s personality and presence in most of these events made Nigerians proud in New York.

Aside from being a diplomat, you were a teacher. Which is your favourite? And do you see yourself returning to teaching after your turn of duty?

I am the daughter of a teacher. My mother was in the teaching profession and my father though not an educator, played an active role in ensuring that our homework was done as well as giving extra coaching lessons. They as careers guidance and counsellors. My husband and I are doing exactly that with our children. We are very involved in their education. With these foundations, teaching is a second nature. My classmates in the university and even in my secondary school will tell you that I was always ready to give further explanation and help people understand topics when approached.

One can provide teaching on a voluntary basis. In the western world, there are avenues through which experienced individuals can volunteer in the educational sector, often on a pro bono basis. If we appreciate that teaching is also a form of mentoring, it is likely that I may go back to teach.

Any last words for Nigerians in the U.S?

Nigerians are very law abiding. They are known to be well educated, hardworking, and entrepreneurial. Their American hosts admire them for these qualities. My advice is that Nigerians should maintain these qualities for which they are associated with. Sincerely, I am proud of the achievements of Nigerians here in the U.S. They, indeed, are the real ambassadors of our country and should keep up the good work.

Although the United States, Brazil, Spain, France, Germany, United Kingdom, Peru, Colombia, Canada, and Mexico are the most affected countries, accounting for 86.7 per cent of monkeypox cases reported globally, Nigeria and Africa lead in terms of monkeypox deaths worldwide. In this report, MOSES EMORINKEN asks if Nigeria, which accounts for the highest burden of the disease and deaths in Africa and the world, has used the recent outbreak as a wakeup call to develop the local capacity for early detection and better management for future medical emergencies

They are all conditions typically referred to as zoonotic diseases: COVID-19, monkeypox, Lassa fever, yellow fever, Ebola, Marburg, etc. They are caused primarily by pathogens that affect animals and, at some point in time, crossed the animal-human interphase, and then became adapted to transmission from human to human. Hence, they became established as a cause of human disease.

The predictions globally by reputable health bodies, including the World Health Organisation (WHO), is that there may be an increasing risk of diseases that are caused by zoonotic pathogens. An important part of this prediction is mostly due to human activities and encroachment of natural habitats of the animals, climate change etc. Usually, according to experts, because humans go around not taking proper care of their environment, one in which they coexist with animals, pathogens that primarily cause diseases in animals are going to frequently spill over into humans. These pathogens have the potential of causing epidemics because they can quickly cause very large outbreaks very quickly.

Today, the world is at war on all health fronts: fighting wars on epidemics and pandemics, one of the latest entrants being the monkeypox. As of September 22, 2022, not less than 105 countries across the globe have reported at least one case of monkeypox, since its recent outbreak in May this year. While no region of the world has been spared, the WHO has assessed the global risk of the disease as moderate. However, it assessed the risk in the European region and the region of the Americas as high; while it assessed as moderate the African region, Eastern Mediterranean region and the South-East Asia region. The risk in the Western Pacific region is assessed as low-moderate.

Recall that the International Health Regulations (IHR) Emergency Committee on the multi-country outbreak of monkeypox held its second meeting on July 21, 2022. Having considered the views of committee members and advisors, as well as other factors in line with the IHR (2005), the WHO Director-General, Dr. Tedros Ghebreyesus, declared monkeypox outbreak a public health emergency of international concern and issued temporary recommendations in relation to the outbreak. The WHO noted that since May 13, a high proportion of cases have been reported from countries without previously documented monkeypox transmission. This is the first time that cases and sustained chains of transmission have been reported in countries without direct or immediate epidemiological links to areas of West or Central Africa. From over 16,000 confirmed laboratory cases from seventy-five (75) countries in July, in about two months, the number of cases increased by nearly four-fold. 64,561 confirmed cases reported from 105 countries, with 26 deaths as of September 22, 2022.

The global health body noted further that the ten (10) most affected countries globally are: United States (24,040 cases), Brazil (7,115 cases), Spain (7,083 cases), France (3,943 cases), Germany (3,590 cases), United Kingdom (3,585 cases), Peru (2,221 cases), Colombia (1,653 cases), Canada (1,379 cases), and Mexico (1,366 cases). Together, these countries account for 86.7 per cent of the cases reported globally. It said: “In the past seven (7) days, 25 countries reported an increase in the weekly number of cases, with the highest increase reported in Chile. 32 countries have reported no new cases in the past 21 days. In the past 7 days, one country reported their first case. Countries which reported their first case in the past 7 days are Bahrain (16 September).”

According to the United States Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (US CDC), people with monkeypox get a rash that may be located on or near the genitals (penis, testicles, labia, and vagina) or anus (butthole) and could be on other areas like the hands, feet, chest, face, or mouth. The rash will go through several stages, including scabs, before healing. The rash can initially look like pimples or blisters and may be painful or itchy. Other symptoms of monkeypox can include fever, chills, swollen lymph nodes, exhaustion, muscle aches and backache, headache, respiratory symptoms (e.g. sore throat, nasal congestion, or cough).

Nigeria leads as Africa accounts for 54% of monkeypox deaths globally

As of September 22, 2022, the WHO Emergency Dashboard revealed that the African region accounted for about 54 per cent of all monkeypox deaths worldwide; that is, 14 out of 26 deaths. In Nigeria, as of September 13, 2022, there have been 318 confirmed cases with seven deaths, according to the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC). This makes Nigeria the country with the highest burden of the disease and deaths in Africa. It also leads the world in the number of deaths.

The WHO report, which aggregated confirmed cases of the disease from January 1st to September 22, showed that the region of the Americas had the highest number of confirmed laboratory cases, 39,355 cases. It is closely followed by the European Region with 24,371 cases. Others are: African Region, 588 cases; Western Pacific Region, 173 cases; Eastern Mediterranean Region, 53 cases; and South-East Asia Region, 21 cases.

The global health body’s epidemiological data obtained by The Nation further revealed that the outbreak continues to affect young men primarily; with 97.4 per cent (31,295 of 32,125) of cases with available data being men, with a median age of 35 years. Also, while most transmissions occurred in party settings, 90.9 per cent of the cases with sexual orientation were from gays, bisexuals and other men who have sex with men. Among the cases who reported at least one symptom, the most common symptom is any rash, and is reported in 85 per cent of cases, followed by fever at 57 per cent, and systemic and genital rash (41.6 per cent and 30.1 per cent, respectively).

Monkeypox: The Nigerian outlook

Nigeria reported its first human case of monkeypox just one year after it was first reported in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) in 1970. The country had a few cases until 1977 and 1978, and then, for 40 years, monkeypox disappeared from view, only to re-emerge in 2017. Since 2017 till date, Nigeria continues to detect cases of the disease, with this year’s record of confirmed cases and deaths totally eclipsing the combined number of confirmed cases and deaths in the years 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, and 2021. In the year 2017, 88 confirmed cases were recorded; 2018, 49 cases; 2019, 47 cases; 2020, 8 cases; and 2021, 34 cases. However, as at the time of this report, 318 confirmed cases with seven deaths had been report this year.

The NCDC Director-General, Dr. Ifedayo Adetifa, while speaking during an interview on Channels Television on September 20, 2022, said: “The re-emergence of monkeypox drove the NCDC back to achieve a few things because it is one of the very first stimuli to set up the digital surveillance system so that we can see things in real-time. This led to the rollout of our surveillance outbreak response management and analysis system, which is now deployed countrywide and in every local government.

“In 2017, we didn’t have diagnostic capacity for monkeypox. Indeed, we did not have diagnostic capacity for monkeypox probably since 1978, and maybe that contributed to not detecting many cases, however few they would have been. We depended on partners and external bodies to help the diagnostics of monkeypox in 2017, 2018 and the likes, but we have established national capacity for diagnosis of monkeypox, and of course, subsequently sequencing capacity for monkeypox to be able to look at the genetic makeup of the virus and hopefully pick up if there are any changes.”

He added: “What we have seen in the last two weeks is that there are few people who appear to have both chickenpox and monkeypox at the same time, and both conditions actually look alike. But it sort of may be an additional risk factor for very severe disease, which is actually not surprising, given that you have two viruses that are going toe-to-toe with a compromised immune system and the likes.

“We are fighting wars on many fronts. But the important thing is that it is not just us, but we depend a lot on the states that are the front lines. Until recently, most States have no budget line for emergency response and all of that. What is happening now, although to a varying extent, is that the states are playing catch up. You have a very vibrant Lagos State for example, with demonstrable efficiency in public-private partnerships that are leveraged for health and even for pandemic response. You also have states like Kano and Lagos that have budget lines for emergency response.

“There are efforts to mobilise domestic resources and efforts to access national provision for emergency funds in the Basic Health Care Provision Fund, and whatever may happen when the Public Health Emergency Bill gets passed soon. States are increasingly recognising that if there is a weak link, we all go down. What we should be aspiring towards as a country is a resilient health system, and it starts from primary health care. And if you have universal health coverage it means that people don’t have any concerns about the cost for accessing quality healthcare.”

Health experts confident in Nigeria’s containment capacity

Speaking with The Nation, the Registrar/Secretary-General of the West African Postgraduate College of Medical Laboratory Science, Dr. Godswill Okara, said he is confident that Nigeria will leverage on the experience garnered from the fight against Ebola and COVID-19 to better curb the transmission and community spread of the monkeypox virus.

He said: “We have a good network of laboratories now. We have a good surveillance system in place. It is a question of leveraging on that to ensure that a good surveillance network across the country is implemented. That way, we will be able to put it under control. The good thing is that the fatality of monkeypox is not as high as that of Ebola and COVID-19. We should be able to put it under control sooner than later. The NCDC has already activated the emergency operation centre. They are on top of it, out in the field collecting data, and giving information to health workers and the public on what to do in order to contain the disease. I don’t think the outbreak calls for any panic at all.

“Going forward, there is a need to invest extensively in laboratory capacity building. This is because when it comes to fighting infectious diseases, detection, diagnosis, monitoring of treatment, surveillance and control, the laboratory is at the very centre of it all. There is a need for states and local governments to invest appropriately in laboratory capacity building, both in manpower and infrastructural facilities cannot be overemphasised.

“The frequent outbreaks of these epidemic-prone diseases tell us that now is the time to invest appropriately in the laboratory sector. That is also what informed ECOWAS and the West African Health Organisation in activating the inauguration of the West African Postgraduate College of Medical Laboratory Science so that across the ECOWAS region, across the West African group of states, there will be a coordinated effort for personnel capacity building, as well as infrastructure. This is what is really needed to put these frequent outbreaks under control.”

Dr. Ejike Orji, a public health advocate and former Chairman of the Medical Sub-Committee of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Ministerial Expert Advisory Committee on COVID-19, in a chat with The Nation, urged the government at all levels to ramp up community engagement, especially with the community of healthcare workers at the primary and secondary; in order to increase their index of suspicion for the diseases, and how to take appropriate steps to report to the authorities for necessary action. He also stressed the critically important role of community engagements with the people and their leaders and heads – traditional and religious. Noting that misguided human behaviour can crumple all efforts of the government at curtailing the spread of the disease, he advocated for more enlightenment interventions and more risk communication to the people, especially on how to protect themselves and prevent spread by reporting cases to the authorities.

He said: “Once a disease is contagious, airborne, and starts spreading, the chances are that it will continue until you put some mitigating strategies in place. The most important thing is to alert healthcare workers, both at the secondary and primary level. This ensures that once they see patients with these sorts of symptoms or signs, they should bubble it up immediately to the authorities so that immediate remedial actions can be taken. We are doing community engagement and public education as we speak in the FCT.

“The disease is contagious as opposed to one that is airborne. That means if you know anybody that has it, you need to keep a distance. The WHO came out some months ago to say that it has been shown that the disease can also be spread by droplets just like COVID-19. However, it is not as significant in terms of transmission dynamics as that of COVID-19. The important thing is to start to build awareness. This thing can go anyhow, so it is not good to leave it and say it will contain itself. There should therefore be an increase in community engagements. Both public and private sector primary healthcare workers should be trained on the ability to have a high alert of suspicion and pick it up well before it becomes established.

“Another key investment in public health security is in terms of molecular laboratories. If you look at the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic, we rose from about three or four molecular laboratories in Nigeria to over 150, both public and private. We have to make sure that we do not deform those molecular laboratories, and then increase the scope of testing. Concerning the laboratories, everything is in demand and supply. Molecular laboratories are very expensive to run. If it is a private laboratory, and there is no demand for the testing, he or she will not continue to put in money. They will decommission it and repurpose the laboratory for other things. However, for the public laboratories, that is where the NCDC will have to take a leap and strategically look at the laboratories they have to support nationally.

“This is where strategic deployment of resources becomes key. If it is for things that will guard against things like pandemic, you will now have to strategically support the laboratories through the gateways of the country, for states like Lagos, Abuja, Kano, Port Harcourt, Katsina, and others, where we have a lot of people coming in from outside the country. I am so hopeful about this country because of the way we responded to the COVID-19 pandemic, from just about four laboratories to over 150 laboratories within a three-year period. This is phenomenal. Maybe we don’t need the over 150 laboratories now that the pandemic is diminished considerably. We need strategic deployment of resources to look at the ones that can help us respond. If there are any pandemics, the ones that are moribund can easily be brought up.”

The regular collapse of the nation’s power grid has become a worrisome tale, raising questions on the handling of the energy sector, the supposed interventions aimed at addressing the bad situation and the huge amount of money that goes into power projects. DAMOLA KOLA-DARE reports on what experts say is the way forward

Despite promises of improvement, reports of national power grid collapse have become worrisome tales. Incessant national power grid collapse comes across as a troublingly familiar trend as the nation literally shuts down when it occurs.

Last week, Nigeria’s fragile national electricity grid suffered its seventh collapse in 2022, temporarily throwing the entire country into another total blackout as usual. Before the latest collapse, the last time the grid collapsed was in August; it was occasioned by the shutdown of the country’s power supply infrastructure by protesting members of the National Union Electricity Employees (NUEE). On July 20, it was also the same tale of woes as the grip collapsed again. It reportedly crashed to zero megawatts in less than three hours. The Nation reported the sequence of its collapse. It crashed to zero megawatts at 11:28 am and 12:00 pm before it was restored to 4Mw with only Omoku and Shiroro producing 3mw and 1mw.

At 12:48 pm, it rose to 40mw and was sent to Abuja Electricity Distribution Company (AEDC).  Other Distribution Companies (DisCos) were left with zero unit. It collapsed again to 0Mw by 14:59pm. When the grid collapsed in June, President Muhammadu Buhari had announced that his administration would decentralise the national grid using renewable mini-grids. He also said “once signed into law, the constitutional amendment bill recently voted through parliament would  allow state governments to generate and transmit their own electricity, further facilitating investor participation in our market and enabling states and local businesses to transmit excess supply to the grid.”

The Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) also assured   Nigerians of   improvement in the nation’s power sector effective from July 1, 2022. The Chairman of NERC, Sanusi Garba, said the TCN, generation companies (Gencos) and distribution companies (Discos) would sign contracts which compels them to ensure that 5000MW of electricity is generated and distributed.

He said the contracts were part of the ongoing reforms in the power sector initiated and supported by the government, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), and other stakeholders pushing for improvement in the nation’s electricity industry.

Garba said any of the parties who failed to comply with the terms of the contracts would face sanctions. He noted that achieving the targeted 5000MW would depend on compliance of parties involved. He said: “So what we are trying to do is, consumers require the service, the Discos should commit to buying this electricity from those who are generating it. Gencos that are generating the power must commit to buy the fuel to generate that electricity, and the only way it can be done and in a sustainable manner is if it is underpinned by contracts.

“And if any of the market participants defaults, then obviously, there will be consequences for not providing what you said you will do. That is the basic explanation of what we are doing, which will take effect from first of July. So, we are going to start with 5000MW. Discos will commit to buy and Gencos will commit to generate and ensure that gas is there to provide this power by paying for gas. So, there will be no stories of ‘I don’t have gas to produce.’”

When the grid collapsed in March, the Minister of Power, Abubakar Aliyu noted that the Federal Government had upgraded the Okpai, Odukpani, and Alam VI power plants to improve power supply. He also said the government was planning to begin negotiations with Nigerian Agip Oil Company (NAOC) to create the new Okpai 11 power plant on the grid.

According to him, the new power plant would contribute 400 megawatts to the grid. He said: “We wish to reassure all electricity consumers that all relevant agencies involved in the restoration of normality in power supply have been charged to act in the context of the emergency state of the industry.”

He noted that the Federal Government was poised to purchase and install a Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) system to forestall incessant breakdown. The SCADA system is a software deployed to monitor and control an electrical grid system based on the information from the substations within that system. “We wish to assure Nigerians that the federal government is working assiduously to deliver on the much-needed reforms and investments, including SCADA, that are critical to improving the capacity and reliability of the national grid,” he added.

In 2013, when the Federal Government privatised 11 electricity distribution companies (DISCOs) and six generating companies (GENCOs), it was part of plans to expand and upgrade electricity transmission. On the whole, it was to reform and steady the ship of an apparently troubled sector. Despite all that, Nigeria’s power system largely remains epileptic, producing and distributing a paltry 4,000 megawatts to over 200 million citizens.

Sequence of grid collapse

Data gathered showed that in 2010, Nigeria’s electricity sector experienced 42 total and partial crashes; 19 in 2011; 24 in 2012; still 24 in 2013; 13 in 2014; and 10 in 2015. In 2016, the number grew to 28; it came to 21 in 2017; 13 in 2018; 11 in 2019; and four in 2020.Similarly, in the first quarter of 2021, one power collapse was recorded; in the second, it was one, while in the third quarter, two collapses occurred, which brought the total for last year to  four. This year, on January 17, the national collapsed; another collapse followed twice in March and twice again in April.  Dearth of gas, water management problems, gas pipeline vandalism, among others, were fingered as culprits.

The   national power grid comes across as shaky, frequently experiencing crashes. Last week collapse has made it to more than seven times it has collapsed in 2022. From 2010 to the first half of 2022, the power grid suffered at least 222 partial and total collapses.

However, the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC), said:” The stability of the grid network showed improvement in 2020, as the number of total system collapses declined from the previous years.  The improvement in the grid stability is attributable to the tighter enforcement and adherence to the provisions of the Grid Code, which mandates free governor control at grid-connected power plants.”

Efforts to promote power generation and transmission

There are hundreds of ongoing projects and initiatives, including the Presidential Power Initiative (PPI), a government-to-government initiative to address the power drift. The country is part of the West African Power Pool (WAPP), a specialised agency of Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) that includes 14 of the 15 countries in the regional economic community. It was created to develop power generation, transmission and infrastructure. It is also aimed at coordinating power exchange among the ECOWAS member states.

In 2018, the World Bank announced it was financing a $486 million International Development Association credit for the Nigerian Electricity Transmission Access Project (NETAP), as part of the Transmission Rehabilitation and Expansion Program (TREP).  The TREP is aimed at supporting the rehabilitation and upgrade of the nation’s electricity transmission lines and substations. This is to boost  power transmission network and capacity and  allow Discos to improve reliability and supply to consumers.

Checks revealed that TCN has raised over $1.6 billion through TREP.   In June 2020, $120 million was approved by government for the construction of the Kashimbila multipurpose dam in Taraba State which is expected to generate 40 MW.  It also signed a six-year, N1.15 trillion deal with Germany firm, Siemen AG for an electrification project to increase power to 25,000 megawatts in 2023.

The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation’s (NNPC) Abuja 1350-megawatt power plant, which received a $1.16 million from USTDA, would also benefit from the Ajaokuta–Kaduna–Kano (AKK) gas pipeline being constructed. The power plant is being built by U.S. companies GE and Continuum Associates, in partnership with the NNPC. The NNPC also plans to build two more power plants in Kano and Kaduna, bringing the total capacity of the three projects to 4600 MW of electricity production capacity.

Also, the Federal Government announced that it plans to sell about 2,000 MW of unused electricity from Nigeria to four West African countries of Niger, Togo, Benin, and Burkina Faso through the proposed $570 million, 875 km, and 330 kv Northcore Power Transmission Line project. The Northcore project is funded by the World Bank, African Development Bank, and the French Development Council.

The African Development Bank is also partnering with the country on a $410 million transmission project and investing   additional $200 million through the Rural Electrification Agency (REA) to make electricity available. In 2020, the World Bank approved an additional $750 million Power Sector Recovery Operation (PSRO) loan to ensure the supply of 4,500 MW/h of electricity to the national grid this year. In 2019, it also approved a $550 million loan for Nigeria to develop mini grids and solar systems. With all these interventions, it is not yet Uhuru for Nigeria’s power sector.

Economic cost of poor power supply

Incessant grid collapse and power outage come at a huge cost to the nation’s economy. The cost of power outage in Nigeria is estimated at around $28billion – equivalent to 2 per cent of her Gross Domestic Product (GDP). According to the 2020 Doing Business Report, unrestricted access to electricity is one of the major drawbacks   for the private sector.

Therefore, it is imperative to improve the power sector. Also, the non-oil sectors of manufacturing and services will be crucial to unlocking economic growth and advancement. The World Bank Country Director for Nigeria, Shubham Chaudhuri, stated that the lack of stable power had hampered investment and job creation which would empower 100 million citizens and deliver them from poverty. He said: “The lack of reliable power has stifled economic activity and private investment and job creation, which is ultimately what is needed to lift 100 million Nigerians out of poverty.”

Power vital to industrialisation and development

Business tycoon, Goodie Ibru, noted that the power sector or the electricity supply industry is crucial to the industrialisation and development of any economy.

“Nigeria has for most part of its history as an independent country been plagued with the problem of inadequate power supply, which is becoming more and more acute because of the growth of the economy and population. On the league table of electric power generation globally, Nigeria is far behind, as the following figures show: China is the world’s largest producer of electricity, with 7.8 million Gigawatts per hour (GWh), followed by the United States (4.3 million GWh), and India (1.6 million GWh) in the third position.

“South Africa, with a population of 59 million (2022), comes in the 21st position with 240,000 GWh; Egypt (population of 102m (2020), 23rd position globally with 199,000 GWh; Algeria (population of 44m (2020), 41st position, 79,000 GWh; Morocco (population of 37m (2020), 38,000 GWh; Libya (population of 6.8m (2020), 67th, 32,000 GWh; and Nigeria (population of 206m (2020), 70th position globally, 29,300 GWh,” he said.

A former minister of power, Barth Nnaji, said manufacturers cannot survive without stable electricity. He also said the nation needed an industrial power supply, which would remain a pipedream if the power problem is not holistically tackled. According to him, huge cost of self-generation affects profit. “For instance, if the cost of electricity is about 40 per cent by using diesel, how can you profit? It is not possible because the cost of production alone is so high,” he said.

‘Nigeria should generate 1.26m Gwh’

Ibru continued: “Incidentally, Nigeria is the largest economy in Africa and the 27th in the world, with a GDP of $514 billion; and South Africa has the third largest economy in Africa after Egypt with $330 billion. If we benchmark South Africa, taking into consideration that our population is three-and-a half times bigger than theirs, and that our economy is one-and-a-half times theirs, then our power generation should be about 1.26 million GWh. Meanwhile, what we produce is a paltry 29,300 GWh. This shows how grave our power supply challenge in Nigeria is.”

With expanding population, the country will need to increase power generation by 2030. Yet, about 47 per cent of Nigerians do not have access to electricity and those who do, experience regular power cuts. According to experts, the nation will need to invest in excess of $100 billion in the next 20 years.

The way forward

Prof. Moses Oludayo Tade of the WA School of Mines, Minerals, Energy and Chemical Engineering, Curtin University, Australia, advocated more investment in hydro-electric generation facilities. He said: “Only about 17 per cent of the large hydro resources and about 2 per cent of the available small hydro resources have been deployed in Nigeria.

“Hydropower remains one of the most reliable energy resources in terms of returns on investment, operation, maintenance and the economy of scales etc. Hence, more investment in hydro generation facilities can be of immense benefit towards achieving both energy and environment sustainability.”

Tade also said there are suitable sites and highlands in the country for setting up ‘Pumped hydro energy storage’ system'(PHESS) facility. “Adequate geographical, hydrological, geological, and topographical surveys and mappings of the suspected regions within the country need to be carried out. It now accounts for 530,000 possible PHESS sites, amounting to 22 million Gwh energy storage identified, using the geographical information system (GIS),” he said.

However, for Ibru, the way to go is complete privatisation of the power sector. His words: “The solution is for us as a nation to completely privatise the power sector, including the Transmission Company of Nigeria, as the United Kingdom did 31 years ago, and provide the right market conditions without price controls for investors to come in at every segment of the value chain to invest and tremendously transform our electric supply industry and provide the basis for the full growth and development potential of the economy to be released.”

Nnaji called for the creation of regional grids as way out of Nigeria’s power problem. He noted that regional grids would bring about reliable and quality supply of electricity. He said: “As a nation, we shouldn’t be talking about 3,000, 4,000, 5,000mw of power in a country of 200 million people. We cannot have just national control of power. You can have a national power grid, but there should be regional grids, and there is nothing in the constitution preventing it.

“States don’t have enough money to build their own power plants except maybe Akwa Ibom and Rivers States and the smaller plants built by Lagos State, but typically, it’s very costly and capital intensive. But if you have regional grids, then states can now work with the private sector to build reliable power projects. You can have that in different places, reliable, quality electricity.”

The NERC, in a statement, noted that it was exploring ‘options for the enforcement of under-frequency load shedding scheme that had been put in place to provide an added layer of security for the grid in the case of a sudden loss of generation.’ Whether or not this will resolve the lingering problem of power outages remains in the realm of mere conjectures.

The Russia-Ukraine war has exacerbated the global supply chain disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and its variants, forcing firms across the world to rethink their business models in order to mitigate and/or respond to unforeseen global shocks. But without the political will to walk the economic diversification talk, invest in the development of raw-materials locally, and offer policy incentives to reduce the dependence on input purchases and key components, there are fears that Nigeria’s economy and manufacturing firms may not recover fully from the crises. Assistant Editor CHIKODI OKEREOCHA reports.

Some years ago, precisely mid-June 2014, diversification became the buzzword for Nigeria’s economic managers. It was in the wake of the debilitating recession that hit the economy following the sharp slump in oil prices at the international market. From over $120 per barrel in December 2013, oil price tumbled to around $60 per barrel in December 2014. It later crashed to as low as $28 per barrel, the lowest in 12 years, setting off a major crisis in Nigeria’s finances, which later pushed the economy into a recession.

Although the economy managed to exit the recession in 2017, the crisis was considered a blessing in disguise.  It was seen as a fresh impetus for Nigeria to vigorously pursue economic diversification by leveraging the non-oil export sector, particularly manufacturing and agriculture.  The idea then was to leverage diversification to wean the economy from its age-long over-dependence on oil revenue, earn foreign exchange, drive industrialisation and create jobs.

Sadly, however, the implementation of the diversification agenda has continued to lack steam.

Fast forward to 2022, the acute shortage of raw materials and intermediate input that hit the global economy, including Nigeria, has again pushed diversification to the front burner. Indeed, the COVID-19 pandemic and its Omicron and Delta variants caused the first drastic global decline in manufacturing since the financial crisis of 2008/2009. It has since unleashed global supply chain disruptions of unprecedented magnitude.

This is because China, which is the epicenter of the virus, and also the second largest economy in the world, is a major supplier of input for manufacturing companies around the world, Nigeria inclusive. With over 70 per cent of manufactured goods in Nigeria said to be imported, and China representing Nigeria’s biggest trading partner, with about 19 per cent of its imports sourced from the Asian giant, it is easy to see why the fortunes of local manufacturing firms have continued to dip since March 2020 when the virus entered Nigeria. Since then, many manufacturers and service providers across virtually all the sectors have been experiencing acute shortage of raw materials and intermediate input. And by implication, their capacity utilisation, employment generation (and retention) and adequacy of products’ supply to the domestic market have been badly hit.

The United Nations Industrial Development Organisation (UNIDO’s) ‘Industrial Development Report (IDR) 2022’ indicated that 71 per cent of firms experienced input shortages following the outbreak of the pandemic. It jumped to 77 per cent for firms that participate in global or regional value chains, according to the report’s survey data from 26 countries. The UNDP report, which was accessed by The Nation, last week, however, added that the on-going armed conflict in Ukraine has also exacerbated the disruptions in global production networks, as both Ukraine and the Russian Federation are highly integrated in global production.

Since February 24, 2022, when Russia launched an all-out military invasion of Ukraine, its impact on the availability of energy and other key commodities such as food and minerals, and consequently on their prices has been devastating, as both Russia and Ukraine are major exporters of energy and commodities. Russia is the second-largest exporter of crude oil in the world, making its oil supplies major determinant in the direction of crude oil prices. It also boasts one of the largest producers of natural gas and clean energy globally. Ukraine, on the other hand, is one of the main suppliers of wheat, sunflower oil and corn. It is also one of the main European producers of fertilisers. But the war has since stopped the production of these items, as manufacturers do not have the raw materials and even the ability to work – due to the threat of Russian missile strikes and other consequences of hostilities.

Why Nigeria is worse hit

Admittedly, headwinds from the COVID-19 pandemic and now, the Russia-Ukraine war, were externally-induced. However, the scale and severity of their impact on the Nigerian manufacturing sector have been particularly telling; this is hardly unsurprising. For one, Nigeria, at present, does not have functional institutions and strong internal economic mechanisms to respond appropriately to both shocks, which is why global inflation and rise in energy cost induced by the conflict in Europe, for instance, are manifesting in Nigeria, which has since been battling record inflation. Inflation rate in Africa’s biggest economy and most populous country soared to an all-time high of 20.52 per cent last month August, up from I9.52 per cent recorded in July, according to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).

The NBS said the increase was fueled by increase in food prices caused by disruptions in the supply of food products, higher production costs and continued depreciation of the naira.  This is hardly unexpected, given the fact that manufacturers’ input prices have continued to spike as prices of items such as diesel, which most firms depend on for powering their factories, have skyrocketed to as much as over 200 per cent, causing unbearable rise in cost of production.

The Director General of Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (MAN), Mr. Segun Ajayi-Kadir, somehow confirmed Nigeria’s lack of strong internal economic mechanisms to respond appropriately to global shocks when he said “…the series of global occurrences and the lessons learnt demand that national governments begin to take drastic measures to manage these phenomena proactively going forward.”

In making the demand, Ajayi-Kadir drew attention to highlights of findings of MAN CEO’s Confidence Index (MCCI) for the second quarter of 2022, which showed that the business ambiance in Q2 2022 was beset by numerous macro-economic, regulatory and externally-induced challenges, compounded by the lingering backlashes of COVID-19 pandemic and the Russia-Ukraine war.

The MCCI is MAN’s quarterly research and advocacy publication. It measures changes in pulse of operators and trends in the manufacturing sector quarterly, in response to movements in the macro-economy and government policies, using primary data mined through direct survey on over 400 CEOs of MAN member-companies. Ajayi-Kadir, in the publication, which was made available to The Nation, insisted that: “It is important for the government to intentionally create an anticipatory policy framework that will facilitate automatic stabilisation of the economy in the event of domestic or global shocks, while addressing the familiar operating challenges limiting the performance of the sector.”

He listed some of the familiar challenges that affected manufacturing operation, particularly in the quarter under review, to include high cost of local and imported raw materials, insecurity within the industrial areas, shortage of skilled manpower, high cost of transportation, inconsistency in government policies and foreign exchange difficulty.

Nigeria’s import-dependency is sore point

According to development experts, the impact of the afore-mentioned crises would not have been this devastating had Nigeria’s prevailing economic structure, namely her high-consuming mono-cultural economy been reversed. For instance, a Directing Staff at the National Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies (NIPSS), Kuru, Jos, Plateau State, Prof. Tunji Olaopa, argued that Nigeria’s current economic structure has become unsustainable and must be reversed. He said if Nigeria must drive economic growth on the path of sustainable industrialisation, the authorities must, as a matter of national survival, and with redoubled urgency, creatively confront and resolve her high-consuming mono-cultural economic structure.

Prof. Olaopa, who is a University of Ibadan-trained political scientist, spoke at a ‘High-Level Conversation with UN Deputy Secretary General, Ms Amina Mohammed, on Sustainable Development Goals’ organised by MAN, in Lagos, recently. Its theme was ‘Industrialisation: A Pathway to Achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).” The political scientist said any conversation on policy and business remodeling to drive Nigeria’s economic growth on to sustainable industrialisation must necessarily focus on rethinking and reversing the current economic structure.

“The point is that this economic structure is not sustainable and now, more so, as the global demand for crude oil is disappearing with a global accelerating shift to greater adoption of clean and environmentally-friendly technologies and industrial processes that rely on alternative energy sources order than oil,” he said.

The expert recalled that since the 1960s when Nigeria struck oil in commercial quantity, the country has reached an unenviable point where she consumes what it does not produce. “This is the most significant and counterintuitive occurrence in Nigeria’s development. And in economic theory and the principle of comparative advantage, a country ought to produce more and consume less of products for which she has a comparative advantage,” the erudite scholar and consummate technocrat said. He said as a country, going forward, Nigeria’s entire policy architecture must be redirected much more creatively and urgently to reverse the consumption-production discrepancy.

Wealth creation and investment expert, Dr. Olumide Emmanuel, agrees that Nigeria’s financial and economic woes, including her inability to withstand global shocks, stemmed from the fact that “Nigeria is not a producing economy, but a consumption economy.” “Since we are not producing anything as a country, there is nothing to bring into our economy as foreign exchange. The only means of dollar earning we have is through crude oil, but sadly, we are selling it back through refining of crude oil abroad and also by buying it back through importation of the refined petroleum products,” he said.

Dr. Olumide, who is also the Chief Executive Officer, Common Sense Group, a company with interest in real estate, training and seminars, consultancy and investment, told The Nation that Nigeria’s non-producing, high-consuming economic structure was responsible for the continued fall in the value of the naira against major international currencies particularly the dollar. “I am not worried about the state of the naira at the moment. Why should anyone be surprised at the state of the naira? Nigeria is not a producing economy but a consumption economy. What are we producing here that will make the naira strong? Since 2016, I have been telling whoever cared to listen that the naira will exchange for N1, 000 to a dollar,” he said.

For the National President, Nigerian Association of Chambers of Commerce, Industry, Mines and Agriculture (NACCIMA), Ide J. C. Udeagbala, the need to urgently prioritise policies that will improve domestic production cannot be over-emphasised. Udeagbala, apparently worried by the current state of the economy, particularly the declining national output, warned that the economy faces a likely recession by the end of this year unless government implements a policy that places priority on improving domestic production. The NAACIMA boss, who gave the warning in Lagos at the Association’s Third Quarter Press Briefing to review the state of the economy and NACCIMA’s contributions on key issues and policies for inclusive economic growth, said the economy grew by 3.11 per cent in the first quarter of 2022, a slight reduction from 3.98 per cent in the fourth quarter of 2021, according to NBS.

Udeagbala said while NACCIMA acknowledges the positive growth statistics published by the NBS for the second quarter 2022, the Association’s concern was based on the possible false sense of security that these statistics may create, because the second quarter of 2022 may not fully capture the supply and value chain disruptions brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic and the Russia-Ukraine conflict. He said the private sector was concerned that external shocks brought about by the Russia-Ukraine conflict have put immense pressure on the economy’s productive capacity, noting that as a matter of fact, Nigeria’s GDP growth rate has been dropping on a quarter-by-quarter basis since the 5.01 per cent growth recorded in the second quarter of 2021.

The sunny side of input shortages

According to experts, supply chain disruptions can open up an opportunity for firms to rethink their business models with the aim of mitigating and/or effectively responding to unexpected shocks, which is key to strengthening firm resilience. For instance, data on Indian manufacturing firms collected by UNIDO during the COVID-19 pandemic showed that among a sample of around 400 manufacturing firms, 80 per cent experienced input shortages as a result of the corona crisis. Asked about the main strategies implemented to deal with these shortages, one-third of all firms stated that they were substituting raw materials and/or using alternative inputs. Also, around one-fifth introduced process innovations to address the input shortages, meaning that disruptions can in fact spur input substitution and improve production efficiency.

However, Industrial Country Diagnostics Studies conducted by UNIDO in several lower-income countries reveal that the lack of an effective policy context and regulatory environment is one of the major bottlenecks to business development. UNIDO said governments can also play a crucial role in improving firms’ preparedness for crises and global value chain disruptions by developing suitable emergency plans and fostering new capabilities to locally produce strategic components for manufacturing production processes.

Unfortunately, however, Nigeria has so far not been able to develop any suitable emergency plans, let alone foster new capabilities to locally produce strategic components for manufacturing production processes. This is despite the fact that raw materials sourcing ranked top, in order of intensity, of issues that plagued the manufacturing sector in Q4, 2021, for instance. This must be why MAN President, Ahmed Mansur, has never stopped drumming it into the ears of government that the need to create plausible incentives for investment in the development of raw materials locally through the backward integration and resource-based industrialisation initiates has never been compelling.

At the core of the Backward Integration Policy (BIP) was the need to create a competitive supply value chain and reduce dependence on imported raw materials. Businesses pursue backward integration with the expectation that the process will result in cost savings, increased revenues, and improved efficiency in the production process. The belief is that leveraging BIP to source raw materials locally for production will help save scarce foreign exchange, boost capacity utilisation in the sector and also curb the difficulties experienced at the ports while waiting longer time for the shipments of imported raw materials.

On the other hand, the adoption of the policy of resource-based industrialisation by the government was aimed at utilising the country’s abundant natural resources to sustain the manufacturing sector. The imperative of BIP, for instance, is not lost on the Managing Director of Nigerian Breweries Plc, Hans Essaadi. He said the company’s adoption of backward integration as its primary strategy for import substitution has helped it address the challenge of forex scarcity and remain profitable in difficult times.

Speaking on the topic ‘Backward Integration and the Promotion of Made in Nigeria Goods’ at the 2022 Employers Summit organised by the Nigeria Employers’ Consultative Association (NECA), Essaadi said Nigerian Breweries Plc, had invested heavily over the years in Research and Development (R&D) in the sorghum value chain. According to him, the investment has delivered enormous gains, particularly with the local production of malted sorghum and malted syrup, replacing the imported high maltose syrup since 2019.

Essaadi explained that the company’s local cultivation of sorghum varieties had assisted a great deal in reducing the amount of foreign exchange expended on the importation of sorghum which has impacted the cost of production for both non-alcoholic and alcoholic products in the last few years. He stated that the success story of the cultivation of sorghum varieties could be attributed to the level of support and collaboration between the research team and the farmers, adding that the investment has gone a long way to support livelihoods in the entire agricultural value chain.

“I am happy to inform you that we now use more sorghum varieties in our non-alcoholic drinks than in our beer. This aligns with our goal to boost our position as the proud number one Malt Beverages & Beyond Company in Nigeria and become a reference point in sustainability and responsibility,” he said.

Essaadi called on the Federal Government to offer more incentives to investors in the agricultural sector, particularly players in the manufacturing industries, to enhance backward integration, promote locally-made goods, and invariably grow the country’s GDP. However, it is doubtful if Essaadi’s call and indeed, those of other manufacturers on government to rethink and resuscitate the BIP and resource-based industrialisation, hit the right chord particularly now that campaigns for the 2023 elections are gradually gathering momentum.

Similarly, their repeated calls on government to resuscitate the existing national refineries to produce fuels locally have also gone unheeded. This is despite MAN’s warning that, in the short term, the disruption occasioned by the invasion of Ukraine by Russia will continue to heavily ruffle the global energy space and upset the supply of petroleum products, thereby causing persistent increase in the price of refined petroleum products including Automotive Gas Oil (AGO), otherwise known as diesel.

The Association, while noting that the recent short supply and over 200 per cent increase in the price of diesel were part of the backlashes from the on-going invasion of Ukraine by Russia, also said “In the long run, it will result in enormous increase in the prices of other manufacturing inputs like wheat, maize, fertilisers and the raw materials.”

It added that by the time the current domestic reserve of manufacturing inputs is exhausted, in the face of acute shortfall in supply, “We are afraid that the prices of manufactured products will soar.” MAN lamented that, “Ironically, the Nigerian economy is completely dependent on importation of refined petroleum products, including diesel, and other vital manufacturing raw materials and there are currently no sufficient alternatives.”

The diversification road less-travelled

Nine years after Nigeria’s evidently failed to diversify her economy in the aftermath of the mid-June 2014 crisis, which saw oil price drop drastically, diversification has once again come to the fore, this time forced by externally-induced headwinds namely, COVID-19 and its variants and the Russia-Ukraine war. Will the government, working with the private sector, this time, cease the opportunity of both crises to walk the talk on diversification? Will government pluck the political will to incentivise and galvanise the real sector, particularly manufacturers, which is key to the successful implementation of the diversification agenda?

Although oil price has since been rebounding, the preponderance of opinion is that the revenue effect of the Covid-19 pandemic, which is related to the drop in oil price, in the first instance, would not have been so devastating if successive administrations had pursued diversification with vigour. While Nigeria, admittedly, lacks control over oil price, which is internationally determined by market forces, the consensus of experts and stakeholders is that the colossal management failure of the nation’s economic mangers and gross negligence of the ruling class prevented the country from anticipating issues that will drive oil prices up or down.

According to them, such colossal management failure has continued to manifest in the inability of successive administrations to take advantage of periods of high oil prices in the past by applying the nation’s oil wealth to the provision of infrastructure to support high growth non-oil sectors such as manufacturing and agriculture and diversify the economy. If the nation’s earnings from oil had been invested in the provision of critical infrastructure such as steady and reliable electricity supply, the economy and Nigerians would have been reaping the benefits now, and the benefits would provide some buffers against the current global crises. Had the Federal Government summoned the political will and vigorously pursued economic diversification, the real sector would have been sufficiently galvanised to help mitigated the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and the on-going conflict in Europe.

However, despite the emphasis on leveraging the non-oil export sector, particularly manufacturing, to diversify the economy, earn foreign exchange and create jobs, the implementation of the diversification agenda has continued to lack steam. For instance, relevant government agencies have failed to improve the quality of export products. The nation’s decrepit infrastructure has also not been fixed.