I spent the weekend working on an alternative measure of economic activity for Nigeria. Something different from the regular run of the mill GDP. One new option is to measure economic activity by monitoring night lights from space. The basic idea is areas with more illumination at night are assumed to have more economic activity than areas with less illumination. [...]

Economic Literacy is a new series in which our experts review and score popular economic writing on Nigeria. In the first installment, Abimbola Agboluaje and Ladipo Oye-Somefun review and score Simon Kolawole’s article “How Not to Remove Fuel Subsidy“. Ladipo Oye-Somefun The scoring system I am using will be around four areas: Does the piece educate the reader: ie inform [...]

“Occupy Nigeria was a test-run to a revolution” -          Kayode Ogundamisi. Citizen journalist So it was that in the wee hours of Monday 16th January 2012, the series of strikes and mass protests called Occupy Nigeria for the most part came to a grinding and anticlimactic end. Just when the mass protests were reaching an unprecedented crescendo, the Labour Unions [...]

In the past 2 weeks, all that has filled our airwaves, media and social networks has been the raging issue of fuel subsidy withdrawal. The debates for and against are ever on-going, with those against unarguably being the larger numbers. Personally, I started by being vehemently against its removal as indicated in this October blog post of mine. After reading [...]

Saturday 14th January, 2012 Nigerians kept vigil, like the Christendom waiting on the conclave in Rome to announce a new pope. Indeed there was a conclave the cardinals this time being leadership of the Labour Unions and Civil society in Nigeria, the leadership of our bicameral legislature and members of the federal government which was meeting not in Rome but [...]

I have waited quite a while to write this. Perhaps I was waiting to see how the first day of the strike would turn out. The initial protest march to Gani Fawehinmi Park took place on the 3rd of January, as an immediate reaction to the removal of subsidy. The turn out that day surpassed even the most optimistic expectations, [...]

I have been one of those in favour of the removal of fuel subsidies. However for most Nigerians the problem is not that they don’t understand the logic of spending wisely. The problem is they don’t trust the government to do so. The government has used these tricks in the past and there really is no reason to believe they [...]

  ANNOUNCING A CALLOUS POLICY WITH IMPUNITY A liberalization move by the government to deregulate the downstream sector of the oil industy by removing subsidy on petrol was announced on Sunday 1st January, New Year’s Day just when Nigerians were reeling from the shock of deadly bomb attacks on Christmas day and a spate of sectarian killings in Ebonyi state, the [...]

Courtesy Vanguard Nigeria The history of Nigeria has for too long been like a bad Nollywood movie. Nigeria is that battered housewife who has taken her beatings quietly, allowed her earnings to be squandered by her wasteful, alcoholic, extravagant, unworthy husband. Even when we choose our leaders, it seems we choose to stay on our most destructive trend. Our political [...]

Additional evidence of the possibility that the road to perdition may be paved with noble intentions was provided by President Jonathan’s 2012 budget speech to the joint session of the National Assembly on Tuesday. At first blush, the budget numbers look good. The exchange rate on which the budget is based is a clear concession to the Central Bank’s new mid-point for [...]