Index to Nigerian Newspapers

President Muhammadu Buhari has appointed Dr. Doyin Salami to serve as his first Chief Economic Adviser. Salami, 59, is expected to address all issues on the domestic economy and present views to the President. He is expected to closely monitor national and international developments, trends, and develop appropriate policy responses and make recommendations to the President. He is also expected to pay attention to national economic policies to foster macro-economic stability, promote growth, create jobs, and eradicate poverty. Buhari has set a record as the first President since 1999 to have led the country without CEAP. Former Presidents Olusegun Obasanjo, Umaru Musa Yar'Adua, and Dr. Goodluck Jonathan all appointed CEAP. BALA Zaka believes the decision is not too late and that if he succeeds, someone else can take over from him.

Bismarck Rewane, Managing Director of Financial Derivatives Company Ltd and economist, has projected the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) will spend between $8 and $10 billion to defend the naira this year, which would drag the country's gross external reserves to between $30 and $32 billion. The FX market could face pressure in the short term, but Rewane sees the effective exchange rate gaining as the differential between the official and parallel market rates narrows. The CBN's policy direction will be influenced by global developments and the adoption of its crawling peg strategy. Bisi Adeyemi, President and Council Chairman of NBCC, highlighted the challenges posed by an unstable global market and the implications for Nigerian businesses. Rewane said inflation would accelerate in the first half of the year before decelerating, warning that it was not in the interest of the country to continue to churn out data with integrity issues. Ben Llewellyn-Jones, British Deputy High Commissioner, underscored the strong bilateral ties between the two countries and the UK's commitment to strengthening existing trade relations.

The Nigeria COVID-19 summit has stressed the need for Nigeria to galvanise other nations to call for debt relief so that resources can be channelled towards building the national bio-security and ensuring Universal Health Coverage (UHC). The summit also called for improved partnership in primary healthcare delivery and vaccination uptake, strengthening the collaboration between national and sub-national entities, and pursuing the "One Health" Strategy and the requirements under the International Health Regulation. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has also called on stakeholders across blocs to support the cause. The World Bank and IMF have warned that poor vaccination in emerging markets and developing economies (EMDEs) is a major obstacle to the recovery of the sub-Saharan African economy, and that the emergence of the Omicron variant has global implications. The global community has been debating patent-free COVID-19 vaccines and the need to democratise the process to allow African countries to produce vaccines to catch up with the rest of the world.

Nigeria's headline inflation rate rose to 15.63 per cent in December 2021, from 15.40 per cent recorded in November. This is due to global concerns over rising prices of essential commodities, leaving the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) with hard choices as they meet next week. According to the Consumer Price Index (CPI), December recorded 1.82 per cent month-on-month change to push the headline inflation rate up. This suggests that prices showed an uptick in December 2021 but dropped when compared to the corresponding period of 2020. The NBS reported that in December 2021, all items inflation was highest in Ebonyi (18.71%), Kogi (18.37%), Bauchi (17.81%), Kwara (12.32%), Edo (13.46%), Cross River (13.93%), Kaduna (13.24%), Sokoto (14.53%) and Jigawa (0.56%). Food inflation also increased to 17.37% in December from 17.21% in November, caused by increases in the price of bread and cereals, food product, meat, fish, potatoes, yam and other tubers, soft drinks and fruits.

The Naira fell to a record low over-the-counter on the last trading day of 2021, closing at N435/$. This came amid uncertainty about the market outlook as the economy wobbles into a new year. The Naira had sold at a discount of over 15% to a dollar at the official Nigerian Autonomous Foreign Exchange (NAFEX) window last year. The forward market, which measures the perception about the near-to-medium-term outlook of the Naira, moved on a much narrower range of between N452.12/$ and N453.12/$. The dollar traded for about N475/$ in the early days of last year and hit N575/$ at the height of last year's currency crisis. The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has pledged to rally convergence around NAFEX, but a full rate harmonisation has not been achieved. The recent tumbling of the Naira at the official window is being interpreted differently, with some experts seeing it as the beginning of a more liberalised market. A former Assistant Director at the CBN, Stan Ukeje, told The Guardian that the market would need to be deepened with more participants enlisted to reduce the intervention of the apex bank and make it a truly market-driven window.

The global tightening of developed economies, particularly as announced by the United States Federal Reserve System and other developed countries, has raised concerns about Nigeria's investment outlook. Nigeria's Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) is contemplating a higher interest rate, as the economy is believed to have achieved modest stability while inflation continues to raise concerns. This has sent jitters across markets with high-risk assets, with cryptocurrency losing in the first week of January for the first time since 2018. The Fed is also working towards unwinding its huge stimulus programme in March, which could trigger a massive outflow of assets from extremely risky markets, including Nigeria. Experts say the international debt market would be more expensive this year. The World Bank has warned of impending financial stress in emerging markets and developing economy (EMDE) regions due to tightening monetary measures. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has called on policymakers to prepare for spillovers from the U.S. liquidity tightening, which it warned could hit vulnerable countries hard. A regression analysis suggests that capital flows to emerging markets would weaken as the dollar appreciates relative to other major currencies. The combination of slower growth and elevated vulnerabilities could create adverse feedback loops for such economies, as the IMF highlighted in its October releases of the World Economic Outlook and Global Financial Stability Report.