We haven’t had a census since 2006, and many argue that census was … not great. The last census before that was in 1991 and many argue that census was …. also not great. And before that we had a census in 1973 but that was so bad it was cancelled. And before then we… Continue reading How many people are there in Kano?
Tag: Nigeria
Random thoughts on food imports
Nigeria, and Africa in general, has slowly become a net importer of food. Not that domestic production has not grown but consumption has grown faster than production. There are probably many factors behind this but one that I’ve been thinking about is the impact of urbanization and the competition between Nigerian historical food options, and… Continue reading Random thoughts on food imports
Damning unemployment maps
My article in Business Day yesterday was about the recently released state-level unemployment data. The article was driven by the maps below and shows the change in the percent of people in each state who stopped being fully employed. Technically this is the change in unemployment plus the change in underemployment. You can think of… Continue reading Damning unemployment maps
More on the monetary policy rate
My column in Business Day yesterday basically questioned the usefulness of the Central Bank’s monetary policy committee(MPC) and its monetary policy rate(MPR), which has remained fixed at 14 percent for almost two years now. I argue that the MPR doesn’t mean much because the CBN doesn’t really implement it but acts differently. My thinking is… Continue reading More on the monetary policy rate
What debt problem?
For a while last year I harped on and on about what looked like a country headed towards a debt crisis. Cue words like alarmist and so on being thrown around. It appears that the obvious is now becoming even more obvious. What is interesting to me though is how history tends to repeat itself.… Continue reading What debt problem?
Why you probably should not let foreign exchange dealers make agriculture policy
The Central Bank “as part of its developmental objective of employment generation and inclusive growth” is as at it again. The 41 items ban from the foreign exchange market worked so well that they have gone on to include “fertilizer” on the list of items effectively banned from the foreign exchange markets. What this means… Continue reading Why you probably should not let foreign exchange dealers make agriculture policy
Is our fiscal deficit ceiling pointless?
Nigeria’s debt has been in the news a lot recently. How much is the debt? Did this government increase it and by how much? What was the extra debt used for? Should we be worried about the ballooning (or not ballooning) debt problem? All very valid questions. One question which is set to come to… Continue reading Is our fiscal deficit ceiling pointless?
Braggadocio
No real comments to make, except that we appear have this idea that some how the world will stop spinning if we don’t shake body. GDP in billions of USD 2016 and … Foreign Direct Investment in 2017 in billions of USD If you are looking for the Nigeria bar its there. You need to squint to see… Continue reading Braggadocio
Missing the point on infrastructure
During the last administration Reno, one of the mouth pieces of government, was fond of asking an interesting question on twitter, “Has the electricity in your area improved?”. He would then use the opinions of those who genuinely experienced improvements in electricity supply as some kind of evidence that the power sector was improving. I… Continue reading Missing the point on infrastructure
Why are so many living in extreme poverty?
I was on Roundtable discussing that with other panelists. Full video embedded below.
Nonso Obikili's Blog 