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Stocktaking is one of the year-end’s favourite handmaidens.
There are few ways better to end the last twelve months than to tote everything
that had transpired, and compare the resulting balance with the targets we set
ourselves at the beginning of the year. The gaps that then show up explain why
this is also the wish and resolution-making season. When, against the backdrop
of the many failures of the outgoing year, one resolves to approach the
challenges of the New Year differently. It affords little solace at this point
that not enough of the resolutions reached at the beginning of the year will
remain come the end of the cycle. Far more significant is the catharsis of the
process.

The process of enquiry, review, and resolve is especially
poignant in the run up to the general elections next year. On an annual basis,
we cannot claim, as a country, to have met the different targets we set
ourselves at the beginning of the year. As a country, consensus is that over
the last five decades, we have failed in every aspiration but one: “to keep
Nigeria one”. And even the utility of that aspiration has come in for some
serious questioning of late.

“How much of our fecklessness, is the result of the apparent
incompatibility of views amongst the constituents of the republic, on
everything from development paradigms, to moral schemes?”

Still, the countless gaps in our lived space push us in one
direction only. At the end of the inventorying exercise, what may we wish for
legitimately? A “better Nigeria” obviously!

This wish list is not without difficulty though.

For instance, how we define “better”. What does it consist of?
In what does it inhere? The most successful experience in living memory of a
country resolving the problem of large-scale poverty on an industrial scale is
provided by Communist China. Proceeding from this example, it is clear that
“better” need not be “democratic”.

Yet, there is that attribute of “democratic rule” that makes it
difficult to find a jurisdiction that is simultaneously democratic and failing
in the way most countries on the African continent are.

A wish list for the New
Year

Increasingly, it is clear that conspiracy theorising won’t do as
an explanation for failings such as ours. Our wish list for the New Year might
thence benefit more from focussing on the local constraints that have held
achievement of our sundry goals back for so long.

Discussing with a friend a week ago over the right person for
the office of president come next year’s elections, the limiting constraint
appeared to be a choice between a better managed economy (the focus over the
last one year of my musings on this page) and what my interlocutor referred to
as the “citizenship question”.

There was so much to do about which of the candidates currently
on offer best epitomise these values. Nonetheless, I’m still uncertain that
these constraints are antipodean enough to have generated that much heat.

Thinking back on the discussion I cannot but wonder how true its
underlying arguments are. I have no doubt that a focus on getting economic
management right lends a stronger fulcrum for leveraging this country’s growth
than concern with “citizenship issues” could.

This incidentally is not just because the latter is conceptually
more challenging. Nor is this to detract from the importance of “citizenship”
properly defined as part of the process of properly managing economies.
However, the tension between “managing the economy for growth” and “resolving
the citizenship question as an integral aspect of governance” reaches back to
the old “basis” and “superstructure” argument that lay at the heart of Marx’s
“dialectic materialism”. Easy to conclude from this, that “it’s the economy,
stupid”.

But is this all? What place does governance play in all of this?
How much would we achieve were we to appraise contestants for political office
on the strength of their grasp of the challenges faced by this economy? Or
based on their understanding of the need to (and best means of) address(ing)
the “citizenship question”.

Not much if you ask me. For be far more important are the structures,
processes, rules, and enforcement mechanisms by which the country is run. If we
do not attend to these, we strive in vain aspiring to other goals. Better
therefore to expend effort in the short time remaining on ensuring that every
vote counts and every vote is counted.

Yabo Local
Government Council in Sokoto State has spent about N100 million to
upgrade its 10 dispensaries to primary health centres.

Bala Yabo,the
chairman of the council, disclosed this on Sunday in Sokoto. Mr Yabo
said that the council embarked on the projects in its bid to take
adequate care of the health needs of the people.

He revealed that
his administration will continue to accord special attention to the
health sector through the provision of essential drugs and facilities.
He listed the benefiting communities to include Torankawa, Fakka,
Barak, Birnin Ruwa, Bafale, Alkalije, Kibiyare, Kaura Adam, Torankawa
and Gabarbawa.

‘‘We will continue
to ensure the provision of modern health facilities at all times so as
to boast healthcare services offered by the centres. We will do
everything possible at our disposal to meet the healthcare needs of the
people irrespective of political differences,” he said, he called on
the people to reciprocate the gesture by helping to protect government
properties.

The provision of
roads and bridges by the Ebonyi State government in 2010 has linked 156
of the 270 communities in Ebonyi State. Paul Okorie, the state
Commissioner for Works and Transport, disclosed this at the weekend in
an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria in Abakaliki. Mr Okorie
said that the communities could not access each other for years due to
lack of roads and bridges.

He listed some of
the communities to include Isu, Agba, Nkomoru in Ishielu Local
Government, which are now enjoying a seven-km road, and bridges; and
Eketube and Enyigba in Abakaliki Local Government area also provided
with six bridges.

“Ubeagu, Onyikwa,
Ogbaga, Nkaliki, Ugbodo, Okposi, Umuaghara, Uburu, Okwo, Uburu,
Nkerefi, Mgbo, Umuobuduakwu communities were also linked with their
kith and kin through the provisions of bridges and asphalted roads,” he
said.

The commissioner
said that some of the communities had existed for decades without the
opportunity of transporting their agricultural products to neighbouring
markets, adding that with the provision of roads and bridges, they
could now do so with ease.

Asian shares edged
up while the Australian dollar and commodities pared early losses as
investors bet China’s latest interest rate hike would not change the
optimistic outlook for the global economy in 2011.

People’s Bank of
China raised rates by 25 basis points on Saturday, the second rate rise
in just over two months, as part of a series of measures designed to
combat inflation which hit a 28-month high of 5.1 percent in November.

“Our economists had
expected a rate rise before the end of the year, but releasing the news
on Christmas Day itself came as a little surprise to the market,” said
Chen Xin Yi, associate vice president at Barclays Capital in Singapore.

“Nevertheless, we
believe that the well-calibrated timing reflects consideration for
minimizing unwanted financial market volatility and reducing potential
capital movement to the extent possible.” The MSCI index of Asian
stocks outside Japan rose 0.2 percent. Major markets such as Hong Kong
and Australia remained closed.

“The impact of
today’s rate move on the real economy’s growth momentum is likely to be
minimal.” said Qian Wang, chief China economist at JP Morgan.

China’s key stock
index pared earlier gains and yuan forwards were modestly higher. The
Shanghai Composite was down 0.3 percent, with weak small and mid-cap
shares offsetting mild gains in banking and insurance shares.

Japan’s Nikkei
closed up 0.75 percent, extending its recent outperformance versus
other Asian markets. The Nikkei is up over 10 percent this quarter
versus a 5.4 percent rise for the MSCI Asia ex-Japan index.

Still, Japanese
investors are entering 2011 in a bullish mood, raising equity holdings
to a 10-month high, increasing exposure to high-yield credit and
cutting back on government debt, Reuters polls showed last week.

S&P futures were a shade lower, down 0.2 percent.

Fundamentals support commodities

Commodity markets
pared early losses in response to an interest rate rise by PBOC,
focusing instead on positive fundamentals and threats to supply.

U.S. wheat had
dropped by more than 2 percent at the open before recovering to $7.81-
a bushel, down 0.2 percent, while spot gold was trading flat after
dropping to a one-week low of $1,371.1 earlier.

Crude oil futures reversed early falls, rising 0.3 percent to a two-month high.

The Australian
dollar was flat after slipping in early trading on expectations that
more tightening by China could prompt investors to sell the Aussie
after the year-end break.

Burundi’s tea export earnings fell 5 percent in November compared with the same month last year, affected by lower prices on the regional market, the country’s state-run tea board said on Monday.

Tea is Burundi’s
second largest hard currency earner after coffee, and the tea board
forecast that total earnings for this year would be higher than in the
previous year.

The tea board (OTB)
said it collected $762,794 from the sale of 309 tonnes of tea against
$807,520 from selling 298 tonnes in November 2009.

“Prices at Mombasa
market were down due to high volumes of tea offered,” said Remy
Ndayininahaze, head of the export department at OTB.

“This has had a negative impact on Burundi’s tea prices and revenues”, he told Reuters.

The landlocked
country sells 80 percent of its tea through a regional weekly auction
held in the Kenya’s port city of Mombasa, Kenya.

Mr Ndayininahaze said the average price dropped to $2.46 per kg in November, from $2.70 per kg in the same period last year.

However, cumulative
earnings rose to $16.9 million from 6,854 tonnes sold between January
and November. OTB earned $14.2 million in the same period in 2009, from
the sale of 5,923 tonnes.

Total revenues up to November have already exceeded 2009 earnings of $16 million.

“We are confident
that 2010 earnings will go beyond those of the previous year, due to
high volumes and improved quality of our tea,” said Mr Ndayininahaze.

The tea sector in Burundi employs 300,000 smallholder farmers in a nation of 8 million people.

The board projects
tea output to reach 7,500 tonnes this year from 7,000 tonnes in 2009,
due to good climate conditions and the use of fertilisers.

Cocoa arrivals at
ports in top grower Cote d’Ivoire have inched ahead of last year
despite a political crisis threatening to tip the country back into
civil war, exporters said on Monday.

Some 577,000 tonnes
of beans made it from the farms to port by December 26 since the start
of the season in October, up from 565,122 tonnes last year, according
to a consensus estimate by exporters, who count truckloads arriving to
the docks.

“It is true that
the country is facing political difficulty, but we are trying to do
what we can. The cocoa has been available in large quantities for a
while now and our objective is to export it the best we can,” said an
official at an export company in San Pedro.

Cote d’Ivoire has
been in turmoil since a November 28 election in which both incumbent
Laurent Gbagbo and his rival Alassane Ouattara claimed victory,
sparking a violent standoff the U.N. says has killed more than 170
people.

Fears of a disruption to supplies have raised cocoa futures to four-month highs in recent weeks.

An exporter in
Abidjan said that the post-election turmoil has led some buyers to
stockpile beans, allowing them to catch up on sales when things calmed
down, but leading to some quality problems when they are finally
shipped to the port.

“The beans are
stockpiled for too long in the countryside in poor conditions leading
to an increase in moisture and humidity,” he said.

Exporters estimated
around 70,000 tonnes of beans were delivered to the West African
state’s two ports between December 20 and December 26, up from around
32,000 tonnes in the same week last year.

Some investors at
the Nigerian capital market have threatened a liability lawsuit against
the management of the Nigerian Bottling Company (NBC) should it insist
on paying N43 per share as pay-off price for compensating them.

The management of
the NBC, bottlers of Coca Cola and other drinks, had, two weeks ago,
notified the Exchange of its “proposed scheme of arrangement between
the company and its members, involving a cancellation of part of its
share capital.” The proposed scheme envisaged a cash payment of N43 per
NBC share as consideration to the minority shareholders.

Meanwhile,
following the proposed cash payment, the demand for the NBC stock has
increased; hence, pushing up its value significantly. The price of
stock, which was at N30.03 per share before the announcement was made
fortnight ago, now stands at N38.30 per share as at Thursday;
representing an increase of 27.53 per cent in two weeks.

David Amaechi, an
executive member of the Shareholders Association of Nigeria, said,
“With this development, investors can no longer accept the proposed N43
per share,” adding that any pay-off price that is less “N80 per share”
will result into “us (shareholders) filing a liability lawsuit against
the NBC.” Sunny Nwosu, national coordinator of the Independent
Shareholders Association of Nigeria, said it is good that the price is
currently going up “because we are not accepting the proposed N43 per
share. In fact, it is not yet agreeable that they should delist because
we helped to create credibility and value for the company.” Mr Nwosu
said, “We are the only people that trade on their share to get such a
value. Therefore, if they feel strongly that they want to bring in
fresh funds into the business, they also ought to have taken us into
confidence to say we need this amount of fresh funds. On the ration of
shareholders’ holdings, we could as well be asked to bring an amount to
the company; which they did not do.” He said if investors had given
value and respect to a company and the firm plan to delist “it should
be able to discuss with us and we’ll agree on the buyout price.
Everywhere in the world, if there is such a buyout, it carries heavy
premium. In other words, we are not agreeing to the delisting of Coca
Cola bottler until we agree on a reasonable buyout price.”

Investment rights

A legal team at
Oserogho & Associates, business solicitors, said the minority
shareholders of a company “have the right to bring derivative actions,
in the name of the company, where wrongdoers are the controlling
directors of the company, who have by their actions or inactions or
omissions infringed upon the individual rights of the minority
shareholders.” They said investors need to acquaint themselves with the
plethora of judicial authorities included in the provisions of the
Companies & Allied Matters Act which are available to all
shareholders, including the minority shareholders, to protect their
investment rights.

Meanwhile, market
watchers have suggested that the Nigerian Stock Exchange should place
the NBC’s share on “technical suspension” to protect price movement on
the stock. Wole Tokede, the spokesperson for the NSE, however said he
is not sure if the Exchange will consider the option of technical
suspension.

China’s Christmas
Day interest rate rise and a severe blizzard that blanketed the
northeastern United States left U.S. share prices weak and the U.S.
dollar lower in thinly traded markets on Monday.

The Dec. 25 rate
increase by the People’s Bank of China was the second in just over two
months, and while the timing just before year-end may have been a
surprise, the move itself was not.

European stock
markets fell in response to China’s move, although with the UK on
holiday until Wednesday, trading activity was limited.

Global share prices
were mostly lower on Monday but are still hovering near highs of more
than two years. Commodity prices were mixed, with oil off a 26-month
peak, gold down marginally but grain prices generally stronger.

The euro rose to its best levels in a week against the greenback.

Shanghai’s
benchmark stock index SSEC fell 1.9 percent on the day, down 15.127
percent year-to-date as investors have been anticipating tighter
lending policies by the central bank in an effort to slow rising
inflation. “In the long run, this is going to be
healthy for the Chinese economy, but the instinctive market reaction is
that this is going to be bad for global demand, giving investors a
reason to sell off equities,” said Quincy Krosby, market strategist
with Prudential Financial in Newark, New Jersey.

In mid-morning New
York trade, the Dow Jones industrial average .DJI fell 29.40 points, or
0.25 percent, at 11,544.09. The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index .SPX
lost 1.07 points, or 0.09 percent, at 1,255.70. The Nasdaq Composite
Index .IXIC dropped 8.24 points, or 0.31 percent, at 2,657.36.

In Europe, the FTSEurofirst 300 .FTEU3 ended 0.87 percent lower at 1,137.49.

The MSCI index of
Asian stocks outside Japan .MIAPJ0000PUS rose 0.04 percent with Japan’s
Nikkei N225 closing up 0.75 percent, extending its recent
outperformance in Asia.

The MSCI All
Country World index .MIWD00000PUS dipped 0.21 percent, and the Thomson
Reuters global stock index .TRXFLDGLPU lost 0.26 percent.

China’s central
bank said on Saturday it would raise the benchmark lending rate by 25
basis points to 5.81 percent and lift the benchmark deposit rate by 25
basis points to 2.75 percent.

On Monday, the PBOC
took aim at inflation once again by saying prudent monetary policy
would be helpful in combating price pressures and asset bubbles.

Euro gains

The normally thin
post-holiday trading was made more so by a severe blizzard that shut
down some commuter transport networks, forcing New York trading desks
to operate with skeletal staffing.

The euro rose after shaking off losses below its 200-day moving average — $1.3087, according to Reuters data.

A move below that
level is usually indicative of more losses. While fears that a
euro-zone debt crisis could spread have pushed the euro below the
200-day moving average in five of the last six sessions, it has
rebounded swiftly each time. It was last up 0.15 percent at $1.3135
EUR=.

“With no economic
news, we’re focusing on these technical factors, and that push above
the 200-day average has been a catalyst for the euro,” said Omer
Esiner, strategist at Commonwealth Foreign Exchange in Washington. “And
with London off and the blizzard in New York, things are very subdued.”
The dollar rose 0.07 against the yen at 82.92 JPY=, after dropping to a
three-week low in Asian trading hours.

The Australian
dollar fell as low as $0.9987, though it clawed back to $1.0025 AUD=,
nearly flat on the day. The currency hit a six-week high of $1.0067
last week.

U.S. Treasuries prices trimmed losses after the auction of $35 billion in two-year notes at 1 p.m. (1800 GMT).

Benchmark 10-year
notes reversed course to trade 1/32 of a point in higher price, pushing
the yield down to 3.39 percent US10YT=RR.

Oil prices pulled
back from a 26-month high in light of China’s action, which countered
the influence of severe cold weather in the United States and Europe.

U.S. light sweet
crude fell 0.46 percent, to $91.09 per barrel, and spot gold prices
XAU= fell $4.71, or 0.34 percent, to $1379.50.