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Nigeria’s Composite
Consumer Price Index (CPI) rose by 13.4 percent year-on-year in
October, according to the monthly price statistics report just released
by the National Bureau of Statistics.

“This is slightly
lower than 13.6 percent recorded in the previous month in the new CPI
series. The monthly change of the CPI was 0.3 percent increase when
compared with September 2010,” the report dated 16 November stated.

A Consumer Price
Index is expected to measure changes over time in the price level of
goods and services, purchased especially by households. The annual
percentage change in a CPI is usually used as a measure of inflation.

The nation’s bureau
said the urban all items monthly index rose by 0.5 percent, while the
corresponding rural index recorded 0.1 percent increase when compared
with the preceding month; and that the year-on-year average consumer
price level, as at October 2010, for urban and rural dwellers, rose by
11.5 and 15.0 percent respectively.

Food Index

The bureau said
average monthly food prices remained stable in October, when compared
with September, adding that the level of the Composite Food Index was
higher than the corresponding level a year ago by 14.1 percent.

“The average annual
rate of rise of the index was 14.9 percent for the twelve-month period,
ending October 2010. The marginal fall in the index was caused mainly
by slight decrease in the prices of some food items like yam, potatoes,
and other tubers, due to the harvest season,” the National Bureau of
Statistics said.

Lydia Olushola, an
economist and consultant at Skytrend Nig. Ltd., said for the everyday
consumer, a rise in CPI means prices of goods go up.

“The problem is
when their average wages do not increase in accordance with the CPI,
that is, if the CPI rises faster than people’s average wages, then the
consumers’ purchasing power declines. They can’t buy as much as
whatever it is they usually bought,” Ms. Olushola said.

Experts say
inflation effects on an economy can be positive or negative, as the
case may be. Inflation rates in Nigeria have peaked as high as 15.6 and
as low as 11.6 between October 2009 and October 2010.

Bismarck Rewane,
managing director, Financial Derivatives Company, a finance firm, said
“Inflation on items less farm produce increased from 1.3 percent to
12.8 in September, though that of food decreased by 1.1 percent to 14
percent, from 15.1 per cent and 11.3 percent in July respectively.
Presently, inflation is running at 13.6 percent. The current inflation
record is weak, due to fiscal spending,” adding that inflationary
pressures are likely to persist in November.

The Central Bank
said inflation depicts an economic situation where there is a general
rise in the prices of goods and services, continuously. It could be
defined as “a continuing rise in prices, as measured by an index, such
as the Consumer Price Index (CPI) or by the implicit price deflator for
Gross National Product (GNP).”

The bank said price
stability does not connote constant (or unchanging) price level, but it
simply means that the rate of change of the general price level is such
that economic agents do not worry about it. Inflationary conditions
imply that the general price level keeps increasing over time.

At the time the
barrel price of crude oil shot up, the world began to sing the biofuels
song. Biofuels were touted as a replacement for fossil fuels and the
answer to poverty and even the climate crisis. They were presented as
being both renewable and environment friendly.

Moreover, it was
said that they would not compete with food crops in terms of land
uptake, as some of them would be grown only on degraded and marginal
lands. The idea of biofuels giving fossils fuels a good fight was so
widespread that the formation of a “green” OPEC was proposed.

Research has shown
that biofuels are just as harmful to the climate as fossil fuels when
factors like loss of soil carbon and deforestation are computed. It has
been proven that the energy output is actually same or less than what
it took to cultivate, process, and transport the fuels. Thus, biofuels
are not so green.

The reality of the
push for biofuels is that they quickly metamorphosed into agrofuels –
targeting food crops and pumping foods into machines rather than empty
stomachs.The food crisis that hit the world when commodity
speculations, conversion of grains into fuels, and other factors drove
food prices up, made the mantra of agrofuels of the energy saviour of
the world to be re-examined.

Lester Brown, of
the Earth Policy Institute, warned in 2007, for instance, that the
“grain it takes to fill a 25-gallon (95 litres) with ethanol just once,
will feed one person for a whole year.” In the same year, the United
Nations special rapporteur on the right to food described agrofuels as
a “crime against humanity”, and called on governments to implement a
5-year moratorium on their production.

The Nigerian
biofuel policy has been gazetted as Nigerian Bio-fuel Policy and
Incentives No. 72 Vol 94 and is dated June 20, 2007. Let us briefly
look at what the wholesale adoption of the agrofuels highway means to
Nigeria and the world.

The push for
agrofuels has meant a massive uptake of lands for the cultivation of
oil palms, corn, cassava, sugar cane, and jatropha, among others. It
has translated to land grabs in Africa, loss of lands by pastoralists
to jatropha in Africa and India, and slave-like engagement of farmers
as mere outgrowers in many parts of the tropical world.

The rush for
agrofuels has some benefits, but the benefits have been for
agribusiness, and the losers are small scale and family farmers and
pastoralists.

In Nigeria, this
rush saw cassava as the major target, with large swaths of farmlands
being set aside for cassava to be converted into ethanol. Jatropha has
also been an attraction with one company allegedly promoting its
cultivation in Ogoni land for the production of what they cheekily call
Ogoni Oil! In many parts of Northern Nigeria, the best-watered lands,
often along rivers, have been grabbed for agrofuels cultivation.

In many cases,
communities have been cajoled to give up their lands and become farm
hands to big business on the promises of regular income and a better
life that often is nothing more than a mirage.

Bio fuel policy

The Nigerian
Bio-fuel Policy was produced, packaged, and delivered by the Nigerian
National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) without any public participation.
It follows the signature pattern of oil sector arrangements where
everything is skewed in favour of corporate actors while the
environment is opened to nothing except exploitation.

The policy allows
for massive tax breaks and all manners of waivers – exempting the
operators from taxation, withholding tax and capital gains tax. They
are also exempted from paying import duties and other related taxes on
the importation and exportation of biofuels into and out of Nigeria.
Moreover, for the first 10 years, such companies would not have to pay
excise duties and would also not be required to pay value-added tax.

For what is known
as the seeding stage, Nigeria is expected to engage in large-scale
biofuels importation. This appears to follow the path already well
oiled by the NNPC, a path where Nigeria exports crude oil and still
depends on imports of petrol to meet our domestic needs. Starting off
with massive biofuels import may be a clever way of not kick starting
the use of the fuel but of entrenching the dependence on imports, while
the farms point at unreachable possibilities.

The biofuels policy
also recommends a most liberal loan system for the industry, with the
funds coming from an ‘Environmental Degradation Tax’ that would
probably include fines from gas flares. The policy expects to profit
from continued massive environmental degradation in the oilfields of
the Niger Delta, rather than taxing polluters and utilising the funds
to detoxify the degraded Niger Delta environment. The policy aims to
benefit from the crude oil and also from the damage inflicted on the
land and the people.

Instead of
requiring that the biofuels sector strictly obeys the Nigerian EIA Act
of 1992, this policy requires the Federal Ministry of Environment to
“prescribe standards” for the conduct of Environmental Impact
Assessment of biofuels projects. It appears the plan is to ensure the
subversion of subsisting laws and regulations.

The policy says
nothing about the social and other impacts assessments that an industry
of this sort requires. The idea is to build up sacred cows, as seen in
the oil industry with its jaundiced joint venture arrangements that
allow fines and charges (including community development project costs)
to be computed as production costs and, therefore, never touch the
profits of the oil companies. In addition, it sees local farmers as
outgrowers, with no sense of ownership or control in the entire scheme.

The present
Nigerian biofuels policy must be repealed and public debate opened over
what sort of policy is needed for this sector.

Telecommunications
services subscribers in Eket, southern Akwa Ibom, are lamenting the
persistent poor quality of service provided by the operators.

The News Agency of
Nigeria (NAN) reports that the poor services have taken a negative toll
on businesses that depend on Internet connectivity.

NAN checks in Eket
revealed that such organisations have suffered decline in productivity
and profitability within the past two months.

It was gathered that contractors and vendors to Mobil Producing Nigeria at the Qua Iboe oil fields are among the affected group.

The contractors
need Internet access to participate in the online bidding and
contracting process introduced by the oil firm three years ago.

Car makers are
focusing on early electric vehicle challenges, such as charging
infrastructure and driver wariness, as mass market launches of many
models draw near, executives told the Reuters Global Autos Summit.
As carbon dioxide
emission legislation tightens, car makers are looking to full electric,
hybrid, and plug-in hybrid technology to cut emissions. Thierry Koskas,
head of French car maker Renault’s electric vehicle project, told the
summit on Monday electric vehicles would account for around 5 percent
of the world car market by 2016.
Mr. Koskas
reiterated a longer-term forecast by Renault chief executive, Carlos
Ghosn, who said EVs could account for one in 10 new car sales by 2020.
Mr. Koskas said the ramp-up would be gradual: “Probably in 2016, it
will be half of that.”
Renault, with
Japanese alliance partner, Nissan Motor Co Ltd., is aggressively
pushing electric vehicles – the two partners are investing 4 billion
euros together in such cars.
Other manufacturers are less optimistic
Allan Rushforth,
vice president of Hyundai Motor Europe, told the summit, at the Paris
office of Reuters: “We believe hybrids and electric vehicles are a
long-term proposition. The 10-year share of the European market for
those vehicles is probably single digit.”
Mr. Koskas added:
“One of the limits is the adoption ratio, how quickly people will move
to the new technology. That is something we observe in a lot of
industries – when you introduce CD, DVD, Blu-ray, you have early
adopters who jump straight away and people who wait.”
Charging stations
Nissan’s Leaf takes
to the roads of some European markets early next year, while Renault’s
Kangoo and Fluence electric models are due to go on sale in September
2011.
The French carmaker’s Twizzy mini-vehicle and Zoe urban car models will be available from the second half of 2012.
Mr. Koskas said a
less-powerful version of the Twizzy would be launched for drivers over
16 years old who do not yet have a licence.
Carmakers are
scrambling to ensure charging stations are in place at car parks,
supermarkets, and on streets to ease anxiety about the distances
vehicles can travel before needing a top-up.
Renault and Nissan
together have around 80 partnerships with local authorities, national
governments, and businesses to get charging points in place.
Green technologies
are in focus in Europe, as the first mass-market EVs, including PSA
Peugeot Citroen’s iOn and C-Zero, based on Mitsubishi’s iMiEV, prepare
to take to the roads.
Early sales of
fully electric vehicles are not expected to reach high numbers and will
mostly be to businesses, but the first few thousand cars will road-test
charging points and give an idea of the technology’s potential.
Gildo Pallanca
Pastor, chief executive of Monaco-based electric sportscar maker,
Venturi, told the summit his company is working on two- and
three-wheeled models.
Venturi may open up its capital to investors to help fund its growing series of electric vehicle projects, he said.
Venturi, which
sells the Fetish electric sports car for around 300,000 euros, also has
a deal in place with France’s PSA Peugeot Citroen to deliver electric
Berlingo vans.
It also plans to
start production of the Eclectic, a small car with solar panels, late
next year, and this year set a world EV speed record of 515 kilometres
per hour.
Reuters