News Express Africa Business Radio

The power crisis in Nigeria is like a malignant disease, infecting the nation’s economy and causing its citizens untold suffering. Small businesses are especially vulnerable, as they struggle to shoulder the burden of providing their power, while individuals face daily frustrations and hardships. Every day, across Nigeria, the power situation has become like a slow poison, creeping into every corner of life. For businesses, it’s a death by a thousand cuts, as profits dwindle and costs mount. For individuals, it’s a constant reminder of their country's shortcomings, a constant frustration. And for the economy as a whole, it’s a drag on growth, an obstacle to progress. The broader consequences of the situation are far-reaching, affecting everything from the cost of living for ordinary citizens to the overall productivity of the economy. As a result, Nigeria’s ability to develop and grow economically is being seriously undermined by the challenges facing the electricity distribution companies (DisCos). These challenges have created a vicious cycle, in which the inefficiencies of the DisCos are leading to an even greater demand for government intervention, which in turn is further straining the country’s already tight finances. 

A Dataset Showing Nigeria’s Top 10 insurers by gross written premium (GWP) is giving analysts the encouragement to suggest emerging dynamism in the country’s insurance landscape that could position it for enhanced growth and greater development. The data do not, however, show that insurance penetration in Africa’s most populous country and its largest economy by gross domestic product (GDP) size, is about to improve, but a combined gross premium of N472.6 billion by the 10 top insurers is given comfort to analysts to suggest that something positive lies ahead for the industry. Analysts say the emerging dynamism in the Nigerian insurance market going by the dataset can be seen in the increasing growth of life business against a general business which is traditionally the industry’s mainstay; the fact that indigenous insurers are still holding ground as far as industry leadership is concerned; that bankers have moved into insurance to dominate and bring banking industry Midas touch to the industry to give it a shakeout; and the data showing that the frontier for growth is in the composite model, while that of competition lies in microinsurance, Takaful and insurtech.

In a Nigerian Economic landscape where 2024 poses major challenges for businesses, a survey conducted by multinational insurance and risk management giant, Allianz, and published in its 13th Allianz Risk Barometer, Nigerian business leaders participating in the global survey have identified changes in legislation, cyber and microeconomic developments as the joint top risks that companies will face in Nigeria this year.
big issues facing companies right now – digitalization, climate change and an uncertain geopolitical environment. Many of these risks are already hitting home, with extreme weather, ransomware attacks and regional conflicts testing the resilience of supply chains and business models. The fast pace of change, and the growing interconnected nature of risk, likely necessitates a shift up in gear for many companies when it comes to risk management.

A disastrous eight years of Buharinomics, the clueless management of the Nigerian economy under former president Muhammadu Buhari, and a shaky Tinubunomics of the months-old current Presidency of Bola Tinubu are unravelling the extraordinary danger the Nigerian economy faces under the All Progressives Congress (APC) which appears to do more politics than economy management, multiple concerned analysts said over the weekend. “Buhari got us into this cul-de-sac. He was not only clueless about the economy, but there was a free reign of baseless economic policies driven by individual, rather than national, interest,” said a university politics professor who did not want to be named.

A Raft of Initiatives is emerging and getting launched at the ongoing U.N. climate summit, COP28, in Dubai aimed at boosting clean energy and reducing the world’s dependence on fossil fuels, details rolling out of the event show. One of the most widely supported initiatives is expected to lead to a cut in the share of fossil fuels in global energy production, and reduce the greenhouse gas emissions that are driving climate change. Wide support for the initiative is bolstered by its ambitious goal of tripling the world’s renewable energy capacity by 2030 leading to a huge cut in fossil fuels’ contribution to the world’s energy mix. The pledge to triple renewable energy capacity by 2030 was just one of many initiatives that have emerged at the COP28 summit aimed at decarbonising the energy sector and meeting the goal of net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. One of the key commitments was made by the European Union, the United States, and the UAE, which pledged to phase out unabated coal power by expanding the use of nuclear power, reducing methane emissions, and ending investment in new coal power plants

Africa’s economic landscape as the next frontier for global investments was on song for three days last week in Marrakech, Morocco, where the African Development Bank (AfDB) led by President Akinwumi Adesina of Nigeria, and its development partners successfully showcased the continent’s value chains to international investors, attracting more than 1000 delegates to what is now globally recognised as a go-to annual event for serious financial deals closure, the Africa Investment Forum (AIF) Market Days. To underscore its now global attraction and success, this year’s AIF’s Market Days had no fewer than 80 Japanese companies including at least 50 business leaders, entrepreneurs and investors among the over 1000 delegates in attendance