Nigeria Content Online

The taps have run dry in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) and many residents are not amused.

The FCT water board, on March 7,
2010, announced that water supply within the territory will be rationed
and that only some selected districts will have full capacity treated
water supplied them.

The situation has made life
difficult for residents in the affected areas. Gab Omozwa, a resident,
told NEXT that the water board did not provide adequate publicity
regarding the rationing.

“I turned my tap for water and
nothing came out. I thought my recharge card had finished. I was
disappointed to learn that it was the rationing thing after all,” he
said.

Jibrin Ibrahim, the Director of
the FCT Water Board, said the rationing will continue until work is
completed at the phase 3 and 4 of the treatment plants in Abuja. He
said an increase in population in the city has stretched water supply
beyond estimated limits.

“You see, Abuja is a new city and
is developing,” he said. “There is space between the pace of
development and provision of water infrastructure. That is why we are
now rationing. What happened is that when the forefathers envisaged the
building of Abuja, it was not to be a business capital but an
administrative centre and the population is not to be very large. But
you can see things are changing in the country. Due to insecurity in
some parts of the country, people have now seen Abuja as a haven.
Population has grown. The infrastructure we have now is not meeting the
demand. We cannot give water to everybody 24-7. So we said, we are all
Nigerians, everybody needs water, we can ration so we can move water
from our system to every portion. Our water goes as far as Gwagwalada,
Bwari, Karu and Nyanya.”

He also explained that there are technical issues that have impeded the supply of adequate water.

“We have the problem of raw water
and that of capacity to treat the water. The raw water issue is being
addressed with the Gurara inter-basin transfer. We now have water to
augment the lower Usman dam where we have our own raw water,” he said.

“Government has also gone far with
the development of treatment plant, but there is just a little bit of
gap in the design. There were things not envisaged that cropped: there
is gap between the pipeline coming from Gurara because first of all we
take water straight to the dam and the extract water from there so that
is what has happened but we have seen that the dam has its own capacity
and the maximum you can extract from it but this population is so
high.”

Mr Ibrahim noted that the board
has a long term plan of providing adequate water that will last for
over 20 years without refilling and that the water board was designing
a system that will make it meet expected demand up to 2035.

“What we have now is 10km/hour but
we are going to have 30km/hour when we finish the construction and
commissioned the water treatment plant, which is more than 90 per cent
completed.”

High ground

Mr. Ibrahim, however, said the
rationing will continue up till end of 2011 when the project is
expected to be completed. The director also hinted that other districts
in the FCT will have water supply restored, as plans to lay pipelines
in some satellite towns have advanced.

The areas to be affected by the
rationing, according to a time table which was released by the board,
include some parts of Asokoro, Maitama, Karu/Nyanya, Garki area 11,
Gwagwalada and Bwari.

The affected areas, according to board, are on higher topography of Abuja and requires much pressure to get water to them.

But some residents of the city
were not particularly bothered with the announced rationing. People in
Nyanya and Karu said they were already used to water scarcity and have
since devised means of addressing the gap. They said water rationing is
a non- issue in the area.

“Water supply from the taps has
not been constant here. We have been buying from water vendors and have
also been fetching from the well, so water rationing is not a problem
here,” said Nwayieze Okeke, a resident of NIA senior staff quarters in
Karu.

In Gwagwalada, the story is not
different. Matthew Ikoh, a civil servant, said “right from time, we
have not been having stable water supply; but this rationing has made
things very critical for us in Gwagwalada. We don’t have the water at
all, so we rely on mai ruwa (water vendors).

Mr Ikoh said the most important
thing is for the people to get water, without necessarily being
bothered with how safe it is. Water is sold at the rate of N20 for 20
litres.

“It is not a palatable situation,”
he said. “It is like Gwagwalada problem is very peculiar. In the Abuja
city, there is constant water supply even before the rationing; but in
Gwagwalada; they give us for like four hours. Now that there is a
problem, we do not get water up to one hour and that is once in two
weeks. People buy sachet water more now, as you can see people carrying
it in bags on the street. However, it is also good business for water
vendors and the sachet water sellers. They drink and use the mai ruwa
water for other domestic activities,” he said.

Ovie Obe smokes and stares into
space as he sits on a metallic chair in a deserted restaurant at Mile
2. In 2004, a series of events took him from Nigeria across the Sahara
desert through four African countries and, ultimately, to Europe and
then back to Nigeria, three years later. “When I came back home a
couple of years ago, I vowed never to travel again, even to the US,
except I’m going for a visit. I won’t go to anywhere outside this
country to hustle anymore. There is nothing happening anywhere. I have
tasted and I have seen. There is nothing there,” said Mr. Obe, 35,
puffing away on his cigarette .

In February 2004,
the journey that was to take him across the Sahara Desert began. “We
left Benin to Kano, from Kano to Katsina, and then to Zinder (in Niger
Republic). When we got to Zinder we bought the food that we will eat. I
was thinking it was going to be a journey that will take, like they
said, three to four days,” recalls Mr. Obe.

Never did he know
that he will spend more than eight months before he gets to his
destination, Spain. At Zinder, they bought garri, sardine, and other
accessories like blanket, and then boarded a Peugeot wagon. “We were
about ten of us, the journey was wquite okay then . ,” says Mr. Obe.
“When we got to Agadez (in Niger Republic), we spent about five days in
an uncompleted building. There is no rain, just sun. We were eating
garri, sardine and all that. When we left Agadez heading to Duruku, we
spent about seven days. The journey was not easy, a lot of problems,
stress. I told the person that brought me that he should have told me,
I don’t think I can continue this journey,” he says.

The journey begins

According to the
travellers across the Sahara; Duruku, a military camp in the desert
built with coconut thatches and palm fronds, is where the actual
journey begins. At Duruku, Mr. Obe ran out of food supplies, though his
roll of dollars, hidden safely inside his anus, remained intact. “I had
about N500,000 which I’d changed into dollars, wrapped with aluminium
foil, rolled with cello tape and palmed (inserted) into my anus. “If
you want to buy something, you’d go to a corner and push and it will
come out. You’ll just wash it. You are always with cello tape and
cigarette.” With the money he had, he paid his $200 fare to Gatrone, a
village in Southern Libya.

“We spent about 14
days on the road. That was when many of us died. It was not the
distance, it was the desert. Sometimes we passed the sand, sometimes
through the midst of rocks. I’d been hearing about desert but I had
never seen it till I saw it. When we were going, our water got
finished. No water, no food, nothing. A lot of people could not cope.
Someone would just slump and die.” On getting to Sabha, a major hub for
illegal passenger buses arriving from the Republic of Niger, Mr. Obe
tried his hands on menial jobs, for about two months, to sustain
himself.

“There was no job,
when we got to Libya we were like brooms, these hairs became bushy,”
says Mr. Obe, pointing to his head, and lighting another cigarette.

After traversing
three other inner cities, he eventually arrived at Tripoli, and then
continued to the next city. “In all these journeys, the whole Libya was
not the place for me. I see a lot of guys who were learning barometer
(welding of exhaust pipes). There are workshops, very tattered places,
no plastering, nothing. They would rent it out to kamarat (a name for
blacks by Libyans).

“So we learned the
barometer. Even if you don’t know how to do it, you’d claim that you
know how to do it. You will sit with somebody who has been doing it for
three, four days and you’ll just know it. Because the major thing is
that they don’t want their vehicles to be making noise. So they will
just bring it and we will tack it. After tacking, they’ll pay one
Dinar, almost equivalent to one Dollar.”

Road to Europe

Not satisfied with
the menial job, Mr. Obe, along with his friend and companion, decided
to find a way to Italy. From Libya, they crossed to Algeria, and
finally to Morocco. “When we got to Morocco, we moved gradually and got
to Rabat. Sometimes people cross from Rabat to Spain. But we left Rabat
to Tangier.” “From there I succeeded in crossing with balloon, an
inflated boat with a Yamaha engine that carries up to 50 people.” Mr.
Obe said that he thought he had finally struck gold getting to Europe.
But he was wrong.

After moving from
Zaragoza through Barcelona, to Valencia and Madrid, he was arrested. “I
stayed in Valencia with a friend because my intention was to go to
Germany and then US. But when I got to Madrid, I was in Torreon, where
you have most blacks.” In 2007, Mr. Obe was deported from Spain.

Mr. Obe, who now
works at an outfit that provides essential services to companies in
Apapa, says the experience had been one of the lowest points of his
life.

“If you set up a small business like selling of recharge cards, if
you are wise ,you will fare better than someone who travelled. Whatever
you are doing with a rest of mind, if you are doing something genuine,
stick to that thing and just manage your life. It’s not compulsory that
everybody must drive a jeep,” said Mr. Obe.

In the last few
years, Nigeria has successfully launched two satellites: a
geo-stationary earth orbit and a communication satellite. Another earth
observation satellite, Nigeriasat-2 is due for launch in May.

Authorities are
also building small units of satellites, called Pico satellites. The
satellites, will also be used in supplying real time information on
ecological problems and emergency situations.

In this interview,
the chief executive of the Centre for Satellite Technology Development
(CSTD) Abuja, Spencer Onu, speaks on Nigeria’s progress in satellite
technology. Excerpts:

The Pico satellites

The project has
progressed. We are working very hard and as I speak to you, somebody is
already in the United States getting the components for the satellite
for us. We are going to be ready in June. By then, we must have
achieved significant milestones. We have passed beyond the design
stage, done critical review, and are now procuring major component and
subsystems. The next step is to get it space qualified by going through
a number of tests involving sending signals and receiving responses on
ground and, after that, we think of the launch. By December, we will be
ready for launch, although we missed a step in the process in terms of
frequency allocation. But we discussed with the Nigeria Communications
Commission and they advised us to use microwave, which does not require
ITU approval.

N5 billion annually from pico satellite

Normally it will
cost about $30 million to build pico satellites for such size, but we
are looking at spending $80million considering other logistics
associated with it. The economic impact is enormous, because you are
looking at satellite that can generate information worth more than a
billion naira in a year when fully operational. This will be generated
from sales of satellite imageries. We are to produce images needed for
African economies. Images such as those required for emergency
management and monitoring of projects like the Millennium Development
Goals. We are still talking with the MDGs office, to let them see what
we can offer them and what we can do together. How we are going to do
it is that the MDGs office can tell us, look we have this number of
projects in Kwara State. These are the latitudes and longitudes, these
are photographs from contractors, can you give us images of the
projects? I think what they are experiencing now is that projects
people claim to be there are not there. So, with our satellite
imageries, they can compare with images submitted by the contractors.
The satellite will be programmed in such a way that it passes through
Nigeria four times a day. When you look at our projection for the MGDs
office alone, they will need images worth about N3 billion alone in a
year. That is just a sector in Nigeria. There is the National Emergency
Management Agency and others that use Geographic Information System. We
are looking at generating about N5billion annually from Nigeria alone.
Other African countries are market for us as well.

Inadequate human capital

Our vision is
continental leadership for satellite technology development, but South
Africa seems to be ahead of us. South Africa satellite agency spends
$0.08 billion annually on their satellite programme, while Nigeria
spends $0.06 billion. They are using pico satellites in South Africa
and they have launched about two, one of them late last year. Also a
number of universities in the United States do this in conjunction with
the private sector. In the United Kingdom, the European Space Agency
runs a programme for the universities and builds about nine every other
year. Some countries have 12 or 13 of this satellites in order to get
as much information as possible.

If we want to be
leaders, then we should be steps ahead. Our sister agency in South
Africa has more than 300 PhD holders, with both support staff scientist
and engineers. As a research centre, I am the only PhD, while 5 others
are undergoing training. By our roadmap, I would have trained 50 PhD
holders. We do not have adequate human capital for the project in
Nigeria; but we are working in collaboration with international
organizations whom we have discussed with and they are willing to be
involved in the launch. We are also working on micro satellite but,
because of its size, I don’t see the work completed in the next one
year. That has 15 staff on it. It is a replica of Nigeria-sat 1.

Two more bandwidths from ITU

We are already
talking of a number of communication satellites. Nigeria has not got
any communication satellite in space. We will manufacture and hand over
to any service providers like NIGCOMSAT that will market the
transponders. That was what took us to ITU last month to make sure we
are allocated the two communication satellites. We have been allocated
the bandwidth we require for two communication satellites that will be
launched in the next five years and I can tell you that has been done.
Ministry of communications, NCC, NIGCOMSAT, NASRDA were involved to
secure two additional slots for the next communication satellites. We
are also involved in satellite transport and propulsion. Our staff will
be trained on taking satellite to space.

We have a mission
that in 2018 we will be able to produce a made in Nigeria satellite and
by 2025 we will be able to launch a made in Nigeria satellite. Those
are the things we are working towards, but we need to have the Assembly
Integration and Testing centre in place. If that is not done, our quest
for a made in Nigeria satellite will just be a dream. It is the heart
of satellite technology. The building is ongoing, about 50 per cent
completed but the equipment is yet to be procured. Contract is yet to
be signed with the Chinese because the monetary approval is not in
place.

Online social
networking got heated again as reactions pour out on President Goodluck
Jonathan’s interview session with ace entertainer, D’Banj. The goofy
interview which was aired on Silverbird Television on the night of
Thursday, March 17, 2011 has been drawing negative reactions, mostly
directed at D’Banj, real name Dapo Daniel Oyebanjo. While comments such
as “at one point D’Banj was almost kneeling to ask the President some
questions, and of course was nodding like an agama lizard even before
the President started giving his answers” are being posted on Facebook.
User @boycottdbanj was created on twitter with 82 followers already.

Many interpreted
the multiple awards winning D’banj’s behaviour during the interview to
“ass kissing” and named him a “sell out” as they criticised him for
taking up the interview in the first place. “D’banj helping the elites
destroy your future. One nod at a time,” twitter user rHuD_bOi tweeted.
And another tweeted “don’t be a Pawn. Don’t be a D’Banj. Be a Rebel.
Secure your future. Don’t let them fool you. D’banj is no Fela, no
Nkrumah, no Mandela.

D’Banj wasn’t available for comment and is yet to update his twitter profile.

President Goodluck
Jonathan, who came into office May 5, 2010 when his predecessor, Umaru
Yar’Adua died, is currently seeking election back into office under the
Peoples Democratic Party. He turned down an invitation to partake in
the National presidential debate hosted by NN24 alongside other
presidential aspirants including Nuhu Ribadu of Action Congress and
Mohammadu Buhari of the Congress for Progressive Change.

After weeks of rescheduling, the House of Representatives
briefly mentioned the Petroleum Industry Bill yesterday but shelved the
long-awaited passage after lawmakers rowed over the planned deregulation of the
sector.

The members only considered two clauses of the 405 reviewed
clauses of the bill, on Thursday – the same number earlier examined by the
senate – which spells out the bill’s introductory remarks and the purview of
its contents.

But the lawmakers, polarised between the North and the South,
expressed concerns on the contentious deregulation of the petroleum sector – a
government plan now to be integrated into the bill- and whether Nigeria’s oil
wealth is owned by the federal government as stated in the bill or the
federation.

Northern lawmakers argued that the region will be worst hit by
deregulation since transportation of fuel products will raise the retail cost;
while lawmakers from the south, insisted that the policy will serve the nation
best.

“I cannot sit here as a representative of my people and accept a
policy that will make the people of Borno State pay higher for fuel than people
in Lagos or Port Harcourt,” said Sa’adatu Sani, who heads the House committee
on Millennium Development Goals.

Southern representatives, whose members head the three
committees that turned in the PIB, responded that an open market will in the
long run introduce competition, combat high cost and as well dislodge the tiny
“cabal” that is feeding on government subsidy.

“We must be very clear, this bill is in the interest of the
country not for a particular section,” said Igo Aguma, the chairman of the
House Committee on Gas, which worked on the bill jointly with the committees on
Upstream Petroleum, Downstream Petroleum and Justice.

Ameliorating impact

As a safeguard, part of the projection is to site at least three
government-run mega filling stations in each of the 774 local governments
across the nation.

Again, lawmakers from the north protested the inclusion of a
clause vesting the ownership of petroleum in the country to “the Government of
the Federation,” asking that it be replaced with “the Federal Republic of
Nigeria.”

Both concerns were, however, overruled by the deputy speaker,
Usman Nafada, who nudged a lean plenary attended by only 15 members, to push
the final debates of the legislation before adjourning for another break.

“There may be difficulties when we start implementing them, but
over time I believe they will take shape,” he said. “For those who think that
the law is for a part because today we have oil in the south, the north too
will have oil.”

The House is to resume sitting April 19 after elections. Mr.
Nafada said the House, yet to complete work on other major bills including the
Anti-terrorism and Money laundering bills, will pass the long-standing
Petroleum Industry Bill upon resumption.

The Ogun State governor, Gbenga Daniel yesterday said he is
still keeping some secrets close to his chest but will open a can of worms
before May 29, 2011 when his tenure ends.

Mr Daniel spoke at an event held at the International stadium
Sagamu to honour his administration. He told organisers of the event, the
Academic Staff Union of Secondary Schools of Nigeria (ASUSS), Ogun State
chapter, that, “no amount of intimidation will stop your governor from standing
firm. And let me assure you that I will stand firm till the last day. By the
special grace of God, we will hand over the mantle of leadership to people that
you are going to be proud of. I don’t know who but God knows,” he said.

“There are a lot of people who want to go in through the
backdoor; they are the people who have gone to get kangaroo judgment. There is
no doubt that there was a lot of thunderstorm in Ogun State. Not many people
believed that we are going to be here till today. Even, as I stand before you,
those people are not relenting,” he said.

Speaking to the large number of teachers in attendance, Mr
Daniel declared that he has done his bit, pointing out, that “Ogun State will
never be the same again. There is no doubt that when a country or a state is
progressing, some people will not just understand the kind of magic we are
using. Let me assure you that there is no magic, but it is the work of God”.

For ₦2000 only

Mr. Daniel added that his investigation revealed that those who
booed him during the presidential rally in Abeokuta, the state capital, were
given N2,000 each by their sponsor. He said they have confessed to him. “On
Saturday, they hired some people. We have found out; they hired people to the
stadium in Abeokuta. The people that they hired have now come to us to confess.
Some of them from the Lagos State College of Education, Ijanikin; some of them
from the Polytechnic in Lagos confessed. They said each and every one of them,
they paid them ₦2000 each to come to the rally to come and boo OGD,” the
governor said.

Earlier in his welcome address, President of the teachers group,
Tunde Folarin, said the programme was designed to appreciate the governor’s
gestures to the teachers in the last eight years of his administration.

“Today is a day to show considerable appreciation for crucial
contributions of the OGD-led administration to we teachers, especially in the
Secondary School sector, so as to motivate you in your path of fulfilled
destiny,” Mr Folarin said.

The presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP)
in the April 9 election, President Goodluck Jonathan may not participate in the
presidential debate holding this evening in Abuja. The debate, which is being
packaged by NN24, will be held at the Transcorp Hotel, Abuja between 6 and 9pm.

The organisation had last Friday held the vice presidential
debate which was attended by Fola Adeola of the Action Congress of Nigeria
(ACN), Tunde Bakare of the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) and John
Odigie-Oyegun of the All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP).

Vice President Nanamadi Sambo, who is also the running mate of
Mr Jonathan, stayed away from the event.

It was gathered yesterday that though the President sent his
security details to the organisers to clarify issues relating to the security
of the venue ahead of the debate, he may not show up.

Spokesman of NN24 Presidential Debate Committee, Shagari Sambo,
told NEXT yesterday that Mr Jonathan may likely participate in the debate
because of the signals coming from the Presidency. He did not, however,
elaborate beyond adding that the event will hold whether the president shows up
or not.

Abba Dabo, the director of media and publicity of the
Presidential Campaign Council (PCC) of the PDP, said yesterday that the
president may not take part in the presidential debate. He said Mr Jonathan is,
however, willing and ready to participate in the one planned by the other
groups that are collaborating with the Broadcasting Organisation of Nigeria
(BON).

Wider reach

He told NEXT in a telephone interview that the one organised by
BON will have a wider reach, hence Mr Jonathan has decided to participate in
it. Mr Dabo added that the vice presidential debate organised by NN24 did not
have wide coverage and reach.

Mr Jonathan had made earlier pledges through his aide that he
and his deputy were willing to participate in presidential debates.

Ibrahim Modibbo, spokesman of the Nuhu Ribadu Campaign Organisation,
confirmed to NEXT yesterday that the ACN standard bearer, will attend the
debate.

“Yes, Nuhu Ribadu will be there and in fact we are looking
forward to this debate,” Mr Modibbo said in a telephone interview.

It was not however clear if the CPC candidate, Muhammadu Buhari
will participate in the debate. Both his spokesman, Yinka Odumakin and that of
the party, Rotimi Fasahakin could not be reached as their telephones handsets
were switched off.

They were believed to be in the campaign field with Mr Buhari,
who was in Kebbi and Sokoto States yesterday. But a source in the party
confirmed that the former military head of state is prepared to participate in
the event.

On his part, the ANPP flag bearer, Ibrahim Shekarau has
reportedly given his word that he will attend the event. Meanwhile, NN24, in a
statement yesterday, said the debate would go ahead today.

Mr Sambo, who signed the statement also said that accreditation
and seating arrangements have been reserved for about 40 journalists. The
presidential debate is coming ahead of another one being packaged by the
Nigeria Presidential Debate Group, which is billed to hold on March 28-30.

Unlike the NN24 debate, which will have only four participants,
all the 19 presidential hopefuls in the April election will participate in the
three-day event.

Also on Thursday, the leaders of the debate group reportedly
held discussions in Abuja with the leadership of the political parties whose
flag bearers are participating in the debate, to fine-tune the procedure for
the event.

During the vice presidential debate last week, Messrs Bakare,
Adeola and Odigie-Oyegun frowned at the refusal of their PDP counterpart to
show up, noting that it was a display of arrogance on the part of the vice
president.

Amnesty
International has urged the Nigerian government to check the rising tide of
political, ethnic and religious violence threatening the April general election.

In a
statement issued on Thursday, Amnesty International said that so far, more than
50 people have also been killed since July 2010 in conflicts directly related
to elections.

According
to the statement, Human rights defenders, who will play a key role in
monitoring the April election, are facing increased threats and violence with
no adequate protection from the security forces.

The group
urged political parties and candidates to put justice, security and human
rights at the heart of the election campaign, in order to break Nigeria’s
nationwide cycle of violence.

Impunity

The human
rights group said Nigerian authorities have failed to bring suspected
perpetrators to justice, or to prevent further human rights abuses.
Investigations, it said, are infrequent and often inadequate and hardly anyone
has been convicted for the killings.

“The
Nigerian authorities must act to protect people’s lives and all political
candidates should denounce violence and tell their supporters to campaign
peacefully,” Tawanda Hondora Amnesty International’s Deputy Director for Africa
said.

“Candidates
should tell voters what they will do to stop the senseless killings and improve
security and justice in Nigeria. The Presidential Debate on Friday 18 March is
an excellent opportunity to make such a commitment,” he added.

The
statement added that despite these deaths, there have been no national
campaigns against election violence, and very few arrests.

Mr. Hondora warned that “When no-one is
brought to justice for violence, this sends the message that you can get away
with murder.”

Poor investigation

“The
authorities have also failed to competently prosecute those responsible for the
Jos and Plateau State violence, and the results of previous government
investigations into reasons behind the violence have never been made public.

“The
security forces have reacted with wide ranging abuses such as enforced
disappearance, extrajudicial execution, and sweeping arbitrary detention,”
Amnesty International added.

In Borno
state, where Boko Haram has been blamed for attacks on security forces,
government officials and religious leaders a local resident told Amnesty
International that “After the killings [by Boko Haram]… they come and arrest
all those people around [the area]… Now, if an incident happened in an area you
will see most of the neighbours packing out of the area.”

“We were
taken to SARS [Special Anti-Robbery Squad], Abuja. It’s known as the abattoir… we were not
alive. We had no food, no water… One
cell held about 45 of us… There were five small children there too,” another
resident described his detention as a Boko Haram suspect to Amnesty
international.

The human
rights group is of the view that poor police investigation is undermining
efforts to bring suspected perpetrators to justice.

Meanwhile, the international organisation will
today launch a website, Eyes on Nigeria. The website,
http://www.eyesonnigeria.org, “employs new monitoring tools and technologies to
expose and visualise human rights abuses and situations in which human rights
are at risk throughout Nigeria, including through active monitoring of harmful
gas flaring in the Niger Delta region.”

The expansionary tendency of the 2011 appropriation budget
passed by the Senate on Wednesday would yet again put the Central Bank of
Nigeria (CBN) under to introduce liquidity tightening much quicker than it
ought to.

Razia Khan, regional head of Research, Africa, Global Research
at Standard Chartered Bank at a media presentation in Lagos yesterday said a
major problem with the outlook is that it gives a false hope that all is well.
“Raising recurrent expenditure creates an expectation that this is the amount
that would be received every year such that if revenue drops, it becomes
difficult to cut back.”

The Senate approved a budget of N4.971 trillion as against
N4.538 trillion presented by President Goodluck Jonathan. Out of the amount,
N2.467 trillion or 54.4 per cent was earmarked for recurrent (non-debt)
expenditure, while N1.562 trillion or 34.4 per cent is for capital expenditure.
“Such higher spending, everything being equal will lead to higher inflation.”

According to Razia, the budget outline does not add real value
to the economy as such huge spending on recurrent expenditure have shown in the
past. “Other African countries are making more progress than Nigeria in terms
of increasing revenue earnings as a percentage of GPD (gross domestic product).
The huge amount that we have seen and the increasing debt burden that is
required to sustain the budget is worrying,” she said.

More transparency

While Nigeria still holds much promise to investors, she called
for more transparency on how resources are allocated. “Another source of
concern is the run down in the foreign exchange reserves. You can see how
reserves rise at the beginning of the month and fall at the end of the month.
The uncertainty for investors is that it is not necessarily transparent.
Investors want to know about what the future risks are.”

She said Nigeria would need to pay more attention to its debt
market, particularly the sustainability of the debt level especially with the
figures approved for the 2011 budget just passed by the Senate. “Nigeria is
still within comfortable level but we worry about the rate of increase and what
the borrowings are for. We can’t look at debt ratio in isolation but how much
of future earnings of Nigeria are going to be ring fenced to be able to pay.”

Nigeria’s potential She however said Nigeria has the potential
to double the size of her economy within the next 10 years if it maintains the
current trajectory of 7 per cent annual growth in gross domestic product (GDP),
adding that African economies are the focus of many global financial players.
“The growth momentum in Africa has been strong. Perhaps, more meaningfully in
our view is that policy makers in Africa are reacting to the global financial crisis
themselves, using monetary instruments to address the issues.”

According to her, the youth dependency which used to be the case
in much of Africa is changing as many of the youth are growing into working age
due to a change in demography. “With the exception of Asia and the middle east,
much of the rest of the world are contending with an aging population.

She said the regulator would need to keep its focus on the
exchange rate in order to achieve a more balanced portfolio. Contrary to
expectations, she advised the CBN not to embark on huge devaluation of the
naira. “What we will not recommend is a big devaluation in the naira because
that will create more problems in the economy. It may lead to increase in
prices. There is nothing to stop the CBN from adjusting it up gradually in
response to higher demand. Why ignore the signals coming from the market. If
you keep supplying foreign exchange just to keep exchange rate steady and
demand keeps rising, then you are creating a situation which is simply problematic.
The band could move up to N151 for example. ” She said the plan by the CBN to
begin foreign exchange forwards may reduce demand pressure.

The CBN has said it would commence sales of foreign exchange
forwards from Wednesday, 23rd March, 2011.

Writer Lola
Shoneyin has been longlisted for the Orange Prize For Fiction for her
novel, ‘The Secret Lives of Baba Segi’s Wives.

The book, published
in the UK by Serpent’s Tail and in Nigeria by Cassava Republic Press,
depicts a raucous polygamous household presided over by Baba Segi,
husband to four wives and father to many children. It is the first
novel by Shoneyin, author of three poetry collections and one
children’s book.

She is one of nine
debut novelist on the longlist of 20 international writers. Shoneyin is
only the second Nigerian writer to make the Orange longlist. Chimamanda
Ngozi Adichie won the prize in 2007 for ‘Half of a Yellow Sun’, her
novel about the Biafran war.

Established in
Britain in 1996, the Orange Prize is awarded annually for writing by
women. It comes with a cash prize of £30,000 and the presentation of a
miniature sculpture known as the ‘Bessie’.

Also on this year’s longlist is British/Sierra-Leonean author
Aminatta Forna whose book, ‘The Memory of Love’, has already won this
year’s Commonwealth Writers’ Prize for the Africa Region. The Orange
shortlist will be unveiled on April 12 and the winner announced in
London on June 8.