đ hush hush
Did you notice we took a week off? đ
The break was impromptu. Weâll plan betterÂ
In Todayâs issue:
Hushpuppi and the Deputy minister of policeâs side hustleÂ
Accountant general âreallocatingâ funds
Update on Nigeria vs separationistsÂ
CBN freezes forex blackmarket
Nigeria: consistently doing its people dirty
Happy Olympics season! It is worrisome that 10 Nigerian athletes travelled to Tokyo for this event and were disqualified because someone neglected to take them through the mandatory pre-game drug tests. Athletes deserve betterÂ
Its giving Nollywood action
Abba Kyari, Hushpuppi and the US governmentÂ
The United States has accused Nigerian Police Force (NPF) Deputy Commissioner of Police Abba Kyari of conspiring with famous global scammer, hushpuppi Â
Who is Abba Kyari?
Alhaji Abba Kyari is Nigeriaâs Deputy Commissioner of Police. He was previously the Officer-in-Charge of the SARSâ Lagos Unit.Â
Whatâs his deal with Hushpuppi?
Recall: Hushpuppi was arrested in Dubai in 2020 alongside 11 of his associates for various counts of fraud. He is believed to have defrauded over 1.9 million people of more than N168 billion.
Hush (real name Ramon Abbass) initially denied the allegations, but it was revealed last week that he has now pleaded guilty and could face up to 20 years in prison
In exchange for a lighter sentence from the USâ FBI, the fraud veteran made a plea bargain. Part of the deal was to snitch on his other conspirators; one of whom, it turns out, is Abba KyariÂ
US officials say Abbas disclosed that he paid Kyari to arrest co-fraudster Chibuzor Vincent who had attempted to undermine Hush during a $1.1 million fraud scheme.Â
The FBI claims to have evidence of SMS conversations between both of them confirming the arrest (kidnap, really). Kyari maintains that he arrested Chibuzor for kidnapping and he has never received money from Hush
Anyway, Abba Kyari is now wanted in the US. The Cable reports that the FBI has contacted the Nigerian police over his warrantÂ
The Nigeria Police Force will, in true Nigerian fashion, set up a panel to discuss what to do about KiyariÂ
Missing funds via government officialsÂ
The Senate accused the Accountant General of the Federation of âreallocatingâ N665.8 billion from Solid Mineral Development and Stabilization Funds to the INEC, the Ministry of Power, the Nigerian Army and others.
Four months ago, the Senate summoned the Accountant General to discuss a âsecret withdrawalâ of N7.5 billion from the federationâs accounts domiciled with the CBN
The Leadership details that the Senate then set up a committee to investigate and offer recommendations.Â
The committee confirmed the suspicion (+ more), and revealed that former President Goodluck Jonathan and his Vice President were part of the âothersâ who benefited from the⊠reallocation.
It was also uncovered that INEC collected about N30 billion to conduct the 2015 general elections
In consideration of the report, The Senate ordered the Accountant Generalâs office to refund all the money within 60 days. The Senate also warned the Accountant General to âensure that henceforth, payments from these special funds are strictly applied for the purpose they were createdâ.
Money Matters
CBN announced earlier this week that they will no longer sell foreign currency to black market sellersÂ
According to the CBN governor Godwin Emefiele, this ban is punishment for Bureau De Change (BDC) black market sellers disobeying the unofficial âfair ratesâ rule and reselling way above what they consider to be ideal. The CBN is also âconcerned that BDCs have allowed themselves to be used for graftâ, Emefiele said
The CBN, who have sold more to BDCs than banks and other official financial entities for years, says theyâll now only sell to banks
They also ordered banks to create a special kiosk for forex sales and create apps exclusively for forex- to make the process easier
Note: People typically prefer BDCs because banks can be difficult to deal with and tend to ration their supply.
To cement his seriousness, Emefiele avowed that people who recently applied for BDC licenses will be refunded.
How does this affect the market?
BDCs are not banned from trading, they just canât get it from the CBN anymore. Theyâll have to find alternative suppliers- many of whom will most likely sell at a higher rate, which will drive up the black market rate
This isn't the first time. In 2016, the CBN also paused sales to BDCs and these two incidents have similarities: The CBNâs reason, and oil-price related recession.
2016: low oil prices led to a depreciation of the Naira; 2020: the pandemic cut global demand for oil.
Whatâs happening with the reserves?
While oil activity is picking up, Nigeriaâs forex market is still suffering mostly due to imports. Stears business (paywalled) reports that imports have increased by 85% since 2019, which is suppressing the oil marketâs recovery.
So the ban could be the CBNs way of preserving their forex reserves to save the Naira from depreciating any further. It could also be that CBN doesn't have enough forex reserves to service everyone.
Outlook: The result of the 2016 ban was further depreciation of the Naira caused by a combination of demand outweighing supply and BDCs using alternative suppliers drove the exchange rate up. Experts fear this will happen again
PremiumTimes fears that, âIf not properly implemented, there will be a major increase in inflation rate because the cost of goods and services will move up, because a lot of them are dollar-based.â
Perhaps weâll hack exports? Emefiele announced at the Monetary Policy Committee meeting last week that the Central Bank has given a total of N756.51 billion to 3,734,938 smallholder farmers, cultivating 4.6 million hectares of land.
Nnamdi Kanu, Sunday Igboho vs âNigeriaâ
According to his lawyer, the FG has kidnapped Mr Kanu⊠again.Â
The Department of Secret Service- the guys tasked with keeping Kanu imprisoned- were meant to take him to the Federal High Court in Abuja on Monday the 26th of July for his trial, but the prosecuting lawyer claimed that Mr Kanuâs absence was due to âlogisticalâ issues.Â
Kanuâs lawyer, Ifeanyi Ejiofor refuted this claim. He said his client had been moved out of Abuja without the court or the Lawyerâs authorisation, and his team does not know where Kanu is
Kanuâs legal team also assert that they were turned back when they went to see him on Thursday 29th.Â
According to Kanuâs counsel,British Council reps attempting to see Kanu have also been turned away.Â
Likewise, Yorubaland separationist Sunday Igboho was arrested in Benin last week while attempting to board a flight to Germany.
The Benin police official who confirmed Igbohoâs arrest said he will be âextradited to Nigeria as soon as the two countries agree on conditionsâ. In response, Igbohoâs lawyers said they are not aware of any extradition requests
His lawyers also revealed that he is being accused of âcrimes against people and properties in Beninâ which they find âtotally baselessâÂ
Recall: In July, The DSS raided Igbohoâs home in Ibadan and killed 2 unarmed people.Â
This raid was days after Igboho officially declared himself an advocate for Yorubaland to become a separate state because Nigeria is âunsafe for southernersâ. Similar to Nnamdi Kanuâs dedication to Biafranâs independenceÂ
Meanwhile, Nigeria records 3,016 abductions, 3,868 killings in first half of 2021
On HealthÂ
Good(?) news:Â
German drugmaker, BioNTech, has announced plans to develop a malaria vaccine. They're planning to begin clinical trials by the end of 2022.
COVID
As COVID-19 numbers start to rise again (over 500 cases in Lagos this past week), FG has ordered the reactivation of isolation centers nationwide to âprepare them for any possible surgeâÂ
According to the ââMinister of Health, Osagie Ehanire, as of July 25th, Nigeria had confirmed a total of 170,895 COVID-19 cases, and 2,132 fatalities.Â
To support, CBN has given over 40 pharmaceutical companies access to their notoriously uncooperative COVID Intervention FundÂ
The Pharmaceutical Society of Nigeria however noted that this might make very little difference as majority of the equipment needed have to be imported and the Nigeriaâs pharmas are unable to access forex from The CBN
Cholera
The Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) on Tuesday, reported that 479 people have died in the current Cholera outbreak in the country.
According to the NCDC, over 19,305 cases have been recorded in Delta, Plateau, Abuja and 15 other states since January 2021.
2 weeks ago, Daily Post reported that 7 infected people died in FTCÂ
Other news
NNPC reveals petrol oil consumption in Nigeria has increased by over 100% (AriseTV)
While at the Global Education Summit in London, Boris Johnson (UK prime minister) and Buhari agreed that it would be best that âjudicial process runs without interference, no matter who was involvedâ. (Leadership)