Nigeria

Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari is due to complete his second and final four-year term in 2023 and the battle over who will succeed him is already heating up, placing further pressure on an already strained economy, Bloomberg News reported. Buhari has thus far shied away from endorsing his deputy, Yemi Osinbajo, for the position, twice slighting him by opting not to transfer power to him while traveling abroad. That may diminish his chances of securing the top job.

Nigeria’s banking industry is opening the lending taps to avoid penalties, bowing to central bank demands to unlock credit to help revive the economy, Bloomberg News reported. Banks raised their loan-to-deposit ratio to 64% in the third quarter, one percentage point shy of the minimum target imposed by the central bank, according to Bloomberg calculations using quarterly banking data released by the National Statistics Bureau. The monetary authority gave banks until the end of the year to meet the threshold or hand over half of the shortfall to the central bank without earning interest.

Nigerians are set to become poorer for the fourth year in a row, with economic growth, estimated by the IMF at 2.3 per cent, undershooting the 2.6 per cent increase in population, the Financial Times reported. The fund does not see this scenario reversing before 2022, a grim prospect for the 200m people in a country whose gross domestic product per head is a little over $2,000. Despite lower global prices, the oil sector has made modest progress this year. Production is up thanks to the Egina oilfield coming on line and fewer acts of sabotage by militants in the Niger Delta.

A judge in London said on Friday he would grant an Irish-owned company the right to seek to seize some $9 billion (€8.1 billion) in assets from the Nigerian government over an aborted gas project, The Irish Times reported. Process and Industrial Developments Ltd (P&ID) was awarded $6.6 billion in an arbitration decision over a failed project to build a gas-processing plant in the southern Nigerian city of Calabar. With interest payments, the sum now tops $9 billion – some 20 per cent of Nigeria’s foreign reserves.

The collapse of the oil price that began in 2014 was bad news for Nigerian banks, The Economist reported. A quarter of their lending was to oil and gas firms. Many businesses were left reeling after a currency crisis. The economy stuttered, then plunged into recession. Before the oil slump just 3% of loans were not being paid back. By 2017 some 15% had gone sour. The oil shock underscored an old truth: in choppy waters, it helps to be a big ship. The country’s large banks made tidy profits and now sit on sufficient capital.

Nigeria expects to raise around 750 billion naira ($2.45 billion) from tax defaulters by the end of the first half of this year, the country’s tax chief said on Tuesday. The OPEC member, which has Africa’s largest economy, in 2017 emerged from a recession brought on by low oil prices and authorities have in the last few years sought to boost non-oil revenues, Reuters reported. Crude sales make up two-thirds of national revenue.

Abraaj Group, the private-equity firm that collapsed after defaulting on debt, will get a 70 percent stake in C&I Leasing Plc by converting a $10 million loan into equity in the Nigerian company, Bloomberg News reported. “Abraaj knows that pulling out $10 million will be detrimental to the growth of the business, so rather than cash out, they decided to convert,” C&I Chief Executive Officer Andrew Otike-Odibi said by phone from Lagos. Once done, C&I plans a rights issue or an initial public offering that may dilute Abraaj’s stake to about 30 percent, he said.

Nigeria’s fourth-biggest wireless carrier 9mobile, formerly known as Etisalat Nigeria, repaid part of a loan taken from a group of banks following its acquisition by Teleology Holdings Ltd, Bloomberg News reported. “The money has been distributed to the banks,” Abiola Rasaq, head of investor relations at Lagos-based United Bank for Africa Plc, one of the institutions that received a payment, said by phone. The reimbursement is expected to improve the asset quality of the creditor banks that had classified the loan as non-performing, he said.

The Nigerian government faces a daunting challenge to close a shortage of 17 million houses, Bloomberg News reported. Gripped by poverty, Nigeria has no formalized title-deeds registry and most homes consist of informal structures on land passed down through generations. Rapid urbanization is also causing a proliferation of slums and shanty towns. Buhari’s drive to clear a backlog of mortgage applications comes ahead of a tough re-election bid next year and as the economy struggles to recover from 2016’s contraction.