<p>A Nigerian court has ordered the temporary forfeiture of assets and the transfer of operations of a long-disputed oilfield owned by Shell and Eni, among others, to the federal government, court papers released on Thursday showed.</p>
<p>The court orders will last until Nigeria&#8217;s anti-corruption agency concludes an investigation into how the current owners acquired oil prospecting licence (OPL) 245, the papers said.</p>
<p>This is the latest of many inquiries, including by Dutch and Italian authorities, into the 2011 purchase of the OPL 245 block which could hold up to 9.23 billion barrels of oil, according to industry figures.</p>
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<p>The Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria declined to comment. Eni did not immediately respond to a request for comment.﻿</p>
<p> </p>


Nigeria court orders temporary transfer of Shell & Eni oilfield

<p>The Nigerian government said on Wednesday that President Muhammadu Buhari is in good health, urging people to disregard what it said were false and subversive messages on social media after he travelled to Britain last week for medical checks.</p>
<p>News of the president&#8217;s medical leave sparked a flurry of talk in Nigeria that Buhari, 74, was unwell, and potentially very sick. Those claims have been fuelled by a previous illness, when he spent nearly two weeks in London last June treating an ear infection.</p>
<p>Minister of Information and Culture Alhaji Lai Mohamed said the government urged Nigerians &#8220;to disregard the subversive messages being circulated via text messaging and the Social Media, saying the fabricated messages are being orchestrated by those who feel threatened by the emerging order.&#8221;</p>
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<p>&#8220;There is no iota of truth in the messages being circulated on the health of the President, who is hale and hearty, and the purported emergency meetings of the State Governors in Abuja or anywhere,&#8221; he said in a statement.</p>
<p>Sources of the allegations about Buhari&#8217;s wellbeing are being investigated, the minister said.</p>
<p>Buhari&#8217;s predecessor, Goodluck Jonathan, was sworn in after the death in 2010 of President Umaru Yar&#8217;Adua. His illness created a power vacuum that was only filled by Jonathan, his vice president, after three months of political infighting.</p>
<p>Buhari is expected to resume work on Feb. 6, his spokesman said when the president departed last week.</p>
<p>When Buhari had been in London for medical treatment last June, the People&#8217;s Democratic Party, Nigeria&#8217;s main opposition, had said that he was &#8220;critically ill&#8221; and he had returned to Abuja to continue treatment, without giving a source for the information.﻿</p>
<p> </p>


Nigerian government denies President Buhari is unwell

<p>Africa&#8217;s no. 3 oil producer Equatorial Guinea has held &#8220;fruitful&#8221; discussions and expects a decision soon on an offer to join the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), the country&#8217;s energy minister told Reuters on Wednesday.</p>
<p>&#8220;We&#8217;ve held fruitful discussions. This is going to move faster than we expect,&#8221; said Mines and Hydrocarbons Minister Gabriel Mbaga Obiang, responding to emailed questions.</p>
<p>On Monday the energy ministry said the country had applied to join the oil producers&#8217; cartel, seeking to become OPEC&#8217;s 14th member and the sixth from Africa, an addition that would help raise the continent&#8217;s influence and profile in the corridors of global oil production and pricing. [nL5N1FD2KP]</p>
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<p>The offer to join was made when Obiang traveled to Vienna last Friday to meet OPEC officials, including representatives from OPEC heavyweight Saudi Arabia and Nigeria&#8217;s Mohammad Barkindo, the current secretary general of the cartel. He also met officials from key non-OPEC producer Russia.</p>
<p>Obiang said the small West African nation, which agreed to production cuts in 2017 as part of a coordinated agreement with OPEC and non-OPEC countries, wanted a stable global oil price and was willing to discuss further cooperation with OPEC to achieve this.</p>
<p>&#8220;We are eager to see a stabilisation of the petroleum market, and we were happy to cooperate with the current production cuts to do our part in reducing the global oversupply. We would be open to discussing future endeavours of cooperation,&#8221; Obiang said.</p>
<p>Oil prices edged higher on Tuesday ahead of weekly U.S. inventory data on evidence the global market was tightening as lower production by OPEC and other exporters drains stocks.﻿</p>
<p> </p>


Equatorial Guinea says it expects decision on OPEC membership

<p><strong>South Africa&#8217;s</strong> central bank kept its benchmark repo rate unchanged at 7 percent on Tuesday, in line with expectations, saying the near-term outlook of inflation has deteriorated while the domestic growth outlook remained constrained.</p>
<p>All 27 economists polled by Reuters expected the repo rate to be kept on hold.﻿</p>
<p>Below are comments from South African Reserve Bank Governor Lesetja Kganyago on Tuesday as he announced the central bank&#8217;s latest decision on its benchmark repo rate.</p>
<p>INFLATION</p>
<p>&#8220;The near-term inflation outlook has deteriorated. The expected inflation profile has been negatively affected by higher in international oil prices and a persistence in food price inflation.</p>
<p>&#8220;Inflation is now expected to return to within the target range during the final quarter of 2017.&#8221;</p>
<p>RAND</p>
<p>&#8220;The rand has been positively affected by the improvement in the terms of trade, following the recent increase in commodity prices.</p>
<p>&#8220;The rand was positively affected by the decisions of the ratings agencies not to downgrade the sovereign foreign credit rating to sub-investment, although this remains a risk.&#8221;</p>
<p>GROWTH</p>
<p>&#8220;The recent monthly data paint a bleak picture for the fourth quarter or 2016. Notwithstanding some improvement, consumers remain under pressure and consumer confidence remains low.</p>
<p>&#8220;The domestic growth outlook remains weak and more or less unchanged since the previous meeting of the MPC (Monetary Policy Committee).&#8221;</p>
<p>DECISION</p>
<p>&#8220;The MPC retains the view that we may be near the end of the hiking cycle however should second round effects emerge that undermine the longer term inflation outlook there may be a reassessment of this view.</p>
<p>&#8220;The MPC remains concerned that the longer-term inflation trajectory continues to be uncomfortably close to the upper end of the target range.&#8221;</p>
<p><strong>Nigeria&#8217;s central bank</strong> held its benchmark interest rate at 14 percent on Tuesday, and kept its cash reserve ratios for commercial banks at 22.5 percent, governor Godwin Emefiele said. The rate decision matched the view of most economists polled by Reuters last week.</p>
<p></p>


Nigeria, S.A keep rates on hold

<p>Nigeria must not scare away MTN, its minister of communications said, as lawmakers investigate alleged illegal money transfers just three months after the government fined Africa&#8217;s biggest telecoms firm over $1 billion.</p>
<p>The comments by Adebayo Shittu are the government&#8217;s first statement on the latest investigation into MTN, indicating the government does not want to see the South African company punished unduly in Nigeria, its biggest market, if the latest allegations prove to be true.</p>
<p>&#8220;Nobody will say that MTN is not important to Nigeria &#8211; we must encourage them, we must not scare them away from Nigeria,&#8221; Shittu told Reuters in an interview, conducted on Friday.</p>
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<p>MTN, the largest mobile phone firm in Nigeria, threatened to pull out of the country last year during a dispute over unregistered SIM cards before the government agreed to reduce a settlement on the issue by nearly 70 percent to $1 billion.</p>
<p>The company now faces another potentially hefty penalty if an investigation by Nigeria&#8217;s upper house of parliament finds evidence that MTN Group Ltd illegally transferred $13.9 billion out of the West African country between 2006 and 2016, as alleged.</p>
<p>MTN has said it did not break Nigeria&#8217;s currency transfer rules.</p>
<p>&#8220;The presumption is that they are innocent and we pray they remain innocent,&#8221; Shittu said, referring to the investigation. &#8220;They must stay.&#8221;</p>
<p>His comments are similar to comments he made when MTN was initially fined $5.2 billion in 2015 &#8211; equal to more than two years of its Nigerian profits &#8211; for failing to cut off unregistered SIM cards. The fine was reduced last June to 330 billion naira ($1.1 billion).</p>
<p>Nigeria accounts for a third of MTN&#8217;s revenue.</p>
<p>The crux of the allegation into illegal money transfers is that MTN did not obtain certificates declaring it had invested foreign currency in Nigeria within a 24-hour deadline stipulated in a 1995 law, and so the repatriation of returns on those investments was illegal.</p>
<p>&#8220;They have a right to repatriate their profits as long as it is legitimately done,&#8221; said Shittu, adding that any time MTN is suspected of breaking the law it will be investigated, though the &#8220;facts against them must be established beyond reasonable doubt.&#8221;</p>
<p>&#8220;Everyone who is in business will have ups and downs. You don&#8217;t throw away the baby with the bathwater.&#8221;</p>
<p>Shittu said the investigation was an issue for financial regulators and did not fall within his &#8220;constitutional responsibility.&#8221; The government, however, can influence the size of the penalty, as in the case of the SIM card issue.</p>
<p>Shittu also said Nigeria planned to build and launch two new satellites using a $550 million loan from the Export-Import Bank of China, which will cover 85 percent of the cost.</p>
<p>Nigeria will finance the other 15 percent, with Shittu calling on domestic and foreign investors to take part in the funding.</p>
<p>($1 = 304.4800 naira)﻿</p>
<p> </p>


Nigeria must not scare away MTN, says comms minister

<p>Gambians celebrated in the streets on Sunday after a West African regional military force entered the capital city of Banjul and took control of the presidential palace, the symbolic seat of ex-ruler Yahya Jammeh&#8217;s 22-year authoritarian regime.</p>
<p>Jammeh, who refused to accept defeat to opposition challenger Adama Barrow in a December election, flew out of Banjul late on Saturday en route to Equatorial Guinea as the regional force was poised to remove him.</p>
<p>Hundreds of Banjul residents assembled outside State House as darkness fell after soldiers, who deployed on Sunday to secure the country, moved in to secure the compound.</p>
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<p>Cheering and singing, some revellers sought to capture the moment for posterity, posing for photos with the Senegalese troops.</p>
<p>&#8220;We are free,&#8221; said food seller Isatou Toure, 35. &#8220;Everyone is so happy that man is gone. We are happy to see (the soldiers). They protected us from Jammeh.&#8221;</p>
<p>Senegalese army officials said the force, which also includes troops from Nigeria, Ghana and Mali, met no resistance as they advanced on Sunday.</p>
<p>But even amid the celebrations, troubling details of Jammeh&#8217;s departure began to emerge.</p>
<p>Speaking to radio station RFM in Senegal, where he is waiting to return to Gambia, Barrow said that, upon initial inspection, it appeared Jammeh had looted state resources.</p>
<p>&#8220;According to information we received, there is no money in the coffers,&#8221; he said. &#8220;It&#8217;s what we have been told, but the day we actually take office, we will clarify all of it.&#8221;</p>
<p>In a news conference later in the day, Barrow advisor Mai Ahmad Fatty said 500 million dalasis ($11.45 million) had been withdrawn by Jammeh in the past two weeks.</p>
<p>The regional military operation was first launched late on Thursday after Barrow was sworn in as president at Gambia&#8217;s embassy in neighbouring Senegal, but it was halted hours later to give Jammeh one last chance to leave peacefully.</p>
<p>His departure followed two days of negotiations led by Guinea President Alpha Conde and Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz of Mauritania, prompting speculation over what, if any, terms were agreed upon to convince him to step down.</p>
<p>&#8220;He wanted to stay in Gambia,&#8221; Barrow said. &#8220;We said we couldn&#8217;t guarantee his security and said that he should leave.&#8221;</p>
<p>Barrow denied that Jammeh had been offered immunity from prosecution in exchange for leaving the country.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>&#8220;EVERYONE IS FREE&#8221;</p>
<p>Earlier in the day, the African Union and United Nations published a document on behalf of these two organisations and regional bloc ECOWAS.</p>
<p>In it, they pledged, among other things, to protect Jammeh&#8217;s rights &#8220;as a citizen, a party leader and a former Head of State,&#8221; to prevent the seizure of property belonging to him and his allies, and to ensure he can eventually return to Gambia.</p>
<p>Barrow said the document had not been signed and did not constitute a binding agreement. He also said he planned to return to Gambia soon but did not say when.</p>
<p>Jammeh&#8217;s loss in the Dec. 1 poll and his initial acceptance of the result were celebrated across the tiny nation by Gambians grown weary of his increasingly authoritarian rule. He reversed his position a week later.</p>
<p>In a video clip posted on social media that a United Nations official confirmed was filmed shortly before his departure from Gambia, Jammeh thanked Conde, seen standing beside him, as a &#8220;true friend.&#8221;</p>
<p>&#8220;Allah has decided that this is the end my time,&#8221; he said. &#8220;When you are inflicted by something that you are not happy with, don&#8217;t move away from Allah, but thank Allah because he is testing you.&#8221;</p>
<p>Rights groups accuse Jammeh of jailing, torturing and killing his political opponents while acquiring a vast fortune, including luxury cars and an estate in the United States, as most of his people remained impoverished.</p>
<p>Thousands of Gambians sought asylum abroad over the years. An additional 45,000 people fled to Senegal amid growing fears of unrest in the wake of last month&#8217;s election, according to the United Nations.</p>
<p>Hundreds of Gambians carrying sacks, suitcases and cooking pots began returning by ferry from Senegal&#8217;s Casamance region on Sunday.</p>
<p>Hawa Jagne, 22, a cloth trader, hugged her sister Fama as she stepped off the boat.</p>
<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m so relieved to see her,&#8221; Jagne said. &#8220;Everyone is free. You can do whatever you want, because this is a democratic country. You can express yourself. No one can kill you.&#8221;</p>
<p>($1 = 43.6600 Gambian dalasis)﻿</p>
<p> </p>


Gambians celebrate in the streets as Jammeh flees

<p>West African leaders did not agree to immunity for Yahya Jammeh during negotiations that convinced Gambia&#8217;s longtime ruler to flee into exile, Senegal&#8217;s foreign minister said on Sunday.</p>
<p>Jammeh, who is accused of serious rights violations, led his country for 22 years but refused to accept defeat in a December election. He flew out of the capital Banjul late on Saturday as a regional military force was poised to remove him.</p>
<p>The peaceful end to the impasse will allow opposition figure Adama Barrow, who was sworn in as president at Gambia&#8217;s embassy in neighbouring Senegal on Thursday, to take office.</p>
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<p>Jammeh&#8217;s decision to step down has prompted speculation over the terms agreed during two days of negotiations led by Guinea&#8217;s President Alpha Conde and Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz of Mauritania.</p>
<p>Regional leaders had not gone as far as agreeing immunity despite Jammeh&#8217;s attempts to secure this, Senegalese Foreign Minister Mankeur Ndiaye told Reuters.</p>
<p>&#8220;President Jammeh and his team concocted a declaration to be endorsed by (regional bloc) ECOWAS, the United Nations and the African Union that gave him every guarantee, essentially impunity,&#8221; Mankeur Ndiaye said.</p>
<p>&#8220;This declaration was signed by no one.&#8221;</p>
<p>The foreign minister made his comments after the AU and the UN published a joint declaration from the three bodies &#8220;with the purpose of reaching a peaceful resolution to the political situation in The Gambia.&#8221;</p>
<p>In it, they pledged, among other things, to protect Jammeh&#8217;s rights &#8220;as a citizen, a party leader and a former Head of State&#8221;, to prevent the seizure of property belonging to him and his allies, and to ensure he can eventually return to Gambia.</p>
<p>However, Ndiaye played down the significance of the document.</p>
<p>&#8220;I want to be clear on the fact that no ECOWAS head of state validated this declaration,&#8221; said Ndiaye, who added that Barrow had not been made aware of the document before its publication.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>TROOPS BEING DEPLOYED</p>
<p>Jammeh&#8217;s loss in a Dec. 1 poll and his initial acceptance of the result were celebrated across the tiny nation by Gambians grown weary of his increasingly authoritarian rule. But he reversed his position a week later, creating a standoff with regional neighbours who demanded he step down.</p>
<p>Rights groups accuse him of jailing, torturing and killing his political opponents while acquiring a vast fortune &#8211; including luxury cars and an estate in the United States &#8211; as most of his people remained impoverished.</p>
<p>Jammeh flew to Equatorial-Guinea with a brief stopover in Guinea&#8217;s capital Conakry, the office of Guinea&#8217;s President Conde said on Sunday.</p>
<p>West African troops from Senegal, Nigeria, Ghana and Mali were deploying in Gambia on Sunday as part of efforts to secure the country and allow Barrow to take charge.</p>
<p>&#8220;We will look for arms caches and detect mercenaries, so that we can restore calm,&#8221; Marcel de Souza, president of the ECOWAS commission, told reporters overnight.</p>
<p>&#8220;Adama Barrow hopes to go back as quickly as possible.&#8221;</p>
<p>A Reuters witness on Sunday saw war planes flying over the capital Banjul, which remained calm despite some concern over how the army, a pillar of Jammeh&#8217;s regime, would react to his departure.﻿</p>
<p> </p>


No immunity deal agreed for Gambia's Jammeh

<p>When it comes to fighting malaria, Bill Gates and Ray Chambers are both inspired and concerned: With victory in sight, will the world&#8217;s new leaders commit to finally beating this persistent parasite?</p>
<p>In exclusive interviews with Reuters in Davos, Gates and Chambers both voiced concern about leadership changes in the U.S. and in United Nations bodies and what these might mean for funding and commitment to global health.</p>
<p>&#8220;The imponderable is what happens with President Trump,&#8221; said Chambers, the United Nations special envoy for malaria.</p>
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<p>&#8220;We&#8217;re just not sure.&#8221;</p>
<p>Falls in deaths and infections due to the mosquito-borne parasite in the past 15 years are &#8220;one of the greatest success stories in the history of public health&#8221;, Chambers said.</p>
<p>And Gates, whose Gates Foundation commits vast funds to global health projects, said the world has never been closer to ending malaria &#8220;once and for all&#8221;.</p>
<p>But with the disease still killing a child in Africa every few minutes, those eager to finish the job are worried that the presidency of the United States &#8211; a crucial funding source for international malaria control efforts &#8211; is now passing to a man whose commitment to global health projects is uncertain.</p>
<p>And with looming leadership changes at organizations key to global health and development aid &#8211; the heads of the United Nations, the World Health Organization, the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, and the World Bank &#8211; malaria champions say the risk of setbacks is unnerving.</p>
<p>&#8220;With malaria there&#8217;s no standing still,&#8221; Gates said. &#8220;Malaria is very complicated.&#8221;</p>
<p> </p>
<p>WELL ON THE WAY</p>
<p>It is almost a decade since Gates first dared to revive what in global health circles is known as the &#8220;e-word&#8221; in relation to this ancient disease.</p>
<p>&#8220;We will not stop working until malaria is eradicated,&#8221; Gates declared in 2007.</p>
<p>Now, half the world&#8217;s nations are malaria-free, and since 2000, global malaria deaths have dropped by 60 percent. In Africa, where the vast majority of malaria deaths occur, the malaria death rate has come down by more than 70 percent.</p>
<p>But there&#8217;s still much to do. Despite a steep rise in malaria spending from 2000 to 2010, it has now plateaued.</p>
<p>Funding in 2015 was less than in 2013, with combined international and domestic sources totalling $2.9 billion. Even this is only 45 percent of what malaria experts say is needed annually to reach a target of a 40 percent reduction in malaria incidence and mortality by 2020.</p>
<p>The U.S. is by far largest international malaria donor, accounting for about 35 percent of total funds in 2015, followed by Britain, at 16 percent.</p>
<p>The U.S. government-funded President&#8217;s Malaria Initiative has been a powerful force in the past decade, and monies for that rose above £600 million in 2016 from $30 million in 2006.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>TRANSITION, RISK AND OPPORTUNITY</p>
<p>Gates said he hoped the new Trump administration would continue crucial malaria commitments, which he noted were ratcheted up by the previous Republican President, George W Bush, and maintained at those levels by President Barack Obama.</p>
<p>In a recent meeting with Trump, Gates said, they talked about malaria, among other things, and had &#8220;good discussions&#8221;.</p>
<p>&#8220;I wouldn&#8217;t say we see a huge risk of those funds going away, but (this is) a time when we&#8217;re trying to raise the ambition,&#8221; Gates said. &#8220;Whenever there&#8217;s transition it&#8217;s an opportunity. We want to step in and work with the new people.&#8221;</p>
<p>Faced with uncertainty, Gates and Chambers have convened a new global group of influential philanthropists, business people, bankers and political leaders to plug commitment gaps.</p>
<p>The End Malaria Council includes African leaders such as the President of Chad, Idriss Déby and former Tanzanian President Jakaya Kikwete; Nigerian billionaire Aliko Dangote; and Luis Alberto Moreno, head of the Inter-American Development Bank.</p>
<p>It will work on new ways to help affected countries and regions fight their own malaria battles, with the hope that this will encourage major donors to stay on board.</p>
<p>&#8220;There&#8217;s a real desire coming out of the United States government, the UK government and others to see endemic domestic countries contribute more of their own capital towards fighting these diseases,&#8221; said Chambers. &#8220;We need innovative, unique and creative ways of financing this.&#8221;﻿</p>


Malaria champions unnerved by Trump uncertainty at crucial time

<p>Nigeria has ratified the Trade Facilitation Agreement (TFA), making it the 107th World Trade Organisation (WTO) member to do so. Only three more ratifications from members are needed to achieve the two-third threshold that will bring the TFA into force.</p>
<p> Nigeria&#8217;s instrument of acceptance was submitted to the WTO today by the Minister for Industry, Trade and Investment Dr. Okechukwu Enelamah (<a href="http://www.fmiti.gov.ng/">www.FMITI.gov.ng</a>).</p>
<p> Enelamah met with WTO Director-General Roberto Azevêdo on the margins of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, to mark the deposit.</p>
<p> “Nigeria&#8217;s ratification of the Trade Facilitation Agreement is a reflection of our commitment to the WTO and a rules-based economy. It is evidence of President Muhammadu Buhari&#8217;s commitment to rapidly implement his presidential initiative on the creation of an enabling environment for business,” Enelamah said.</p>
<p> “Nigeria would like to see a strengthened WTO that reflects the development principles of developing countries like Nigeria and we praise the effectiveness of DG Azevêdo in this regard,” he added.</p>
<p> On November 10, 2014, Nigeria submitted its Category A notification to the WTO outlining which substantive provisions of the TFA it intends to implement upon entry into force of the Agreement.</p>
<p> The TFA will enter into force once two-thirds of the WTO membership has formally accepted the Agreement and ratification is a means of expression for a country to be legally bound by a treaty.</p>
<p> Concluded at the WTO’s 2013 Bali Ministerial Conference, the TFA contains provisions for expediting the movement, release and clearance of goods, including goods in transit. It also sets out measures for effective cooperation between customs and other appropriate authorities on trade facilitation and customs compliance issues. It further contains provisions for technical assistance and capacity building in this area.</p>
<p> According to a 2015 study carried out by WTO economists, full implementation of the TFA would reduce members’ trade costs by an average of 14.3 per cent, with developing countries having the most to gain. The TFA also has the ability to reduce the time to import goods by over a day and a half while also reducing time to export by almost two days, representing a reduction of 47 per cent and 91 per cent respectively over the current average. The TFA also has the potential to increase global merchandise exports by up to $1 trillion.</p>
<p> In addition to Nigeria, some other African countries that have ratified are Botswana, Niger, Togo, Côte d’Ivoire, Kenya, Zambia, Lesotho, Mali, Senegal, Swaziland, Gabon, Ghana and Mozambique.</p>
<p> The TFA broke new ground for developing and least-developed countries in the way it will be implemented. For the first time in WTO history, the requirement to implement the Agreement was directly linked to the capacity of the country to do so. In addition, the Agreement states that assistance and support should be provided to help them achieve that capacity.</p>
<p> A Trade Facilitation Agreement Facility (TFAF) was also created at the request of developing and least-developed country members to help ensure that they receive the assistance needed to reap the full benefits of the TFA and to support the ultimate goal of full implementation of the new agreement by all members. </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>


Nigeria ratifies the Trade Facilitation Agreement

<p>West African nations launched a military operation in Gambia on Thursday, Senegal&#8217;s army said, aiming to install its new President Adama Barrow and remove longtime ruler Yahya Jammeh, who refuses to step down despite an election loss.</p>
<p>Barrow took the oath of office on Thursday at Gambia&#8217;s embassy in Senegal, calling for international support from West Africa&#8217;s ECOWAS bloc, the African Union and the United Nations.</p>
<p>The intervention, led by a Senegalese general and dubbed Operation Restore Democracy, involves &#8220;significant&#8221; land, air and sea resources, according to a Senegalese army statement.</p>
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<p>&#8220;This action aims to re-establish constitutional legality in Gambia and allow the new elected president to take office,&#8221; it said, adding that the operation was being carried out under an ECOWAS mandate.</p>
<p>A local Senegalese government official saw a military convoy including tanks in Diouloulou, near Senegal&#8217;s border with Gambia on Thursday morning. And soon after Barrow&#8217;s swearing in, Senegal&#8217;s army spokesman told Reuters its forces crossed into its much smaller neighbour.</p>
<p>Nigeria, which pre-positioned war planes and helicopters in Dakar, is also part of the operation, but it was not immediately clear if it too had crossed the border.</p>
<p>Ghana has also pledged troops.</p>
<p>&#8220;This is a day no Gambian will ever forget,&#8221; Barrow said after taking the oath, which was administered by the president of Gambia&#8217;s bar association. &#8220;Our national flag will now fly high among the most democratic nations of the world.&#8221;</p>
<p>&#8220;I hereby make an explicit appeal to ECOWAS, the (African Union) and the UN&#8230; to support the government and people of the Gambia in enforcing their will, restoring their sovereignty and constitutional legitimacy,&#8221; he said.</p>
<p>The U.N. Security Council on Thursday backed ECOWAS&#8217;s efforts to ensure Barrow assumes power, and the United States said it supported Senegal&#8217;s intervention.</p>
<p>ECOWAS has been attempting to persuade Jammeh to quit for weeks, and has failed to do so, despite his increasing political isolation and last ditch efforts to reason with him overnight.</p>
<p>Jammeh, in power since a 1994 coup and whose mandate ended overnight, initially conceded defeat to Barrow following a Dec. 1 election before back-tracking, saying the vote was flawed.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>&#8220;THE DICTATOR IS OUT&#8221;</p>
<p>Hundreds of Gambians celebrated in the streets, cautiously at first, and then gradually in larger numbers as they realised the security forces looking on were not going to open fire.</p>
<p>Cars whizzed up and down the highway lined with iron-roofed shops in the pro-Barrow Serrekunda district of Banjul, with horns honking and people hanging out of the windows.</p>
<p>&#8220;The dictator is out,&#8221; shouted pharmacist Lamine Jao, 30, as others cheered and whistled in agreement. &#8220;It&#8217;s just a question of time. We&#8217;ll soon flush him out. Believe me,&#8221; he said.</p>
<p>During the brief inauguration speech, Barrow asserted his new role as commander and chief of Gambia&#8217;s armed services, ordering soldiers to stay calm and remain in their barracks. Those who did not would be considered rebels, he said.</p>
<p>ECOWAS and the African Union have said they will recognise Barrow from Thursday and nations including the United Kingdom and France were quick to congratulate Barrow.</p>
<p>U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres in a statement pledged &#8220;his full support for his (Barrow&#8217;s) determination, and ECOWAS&#8217;s historic decision, with the unanimous backing of the Security Council, to restore the rule of law in The Gambia so as to honour and respect the will of the Gambian people.&#8221;</p>
<p>Barrow gave the oath in a tiny room in Gambia&#8217;s embassy in the Senegalese capital, Dakar, and many of those present broke into the Gambian national anthem once he had completed it.</p>
<p>Outside the building on a residential street amid a heavy security presence, dozens of Gambians listened to the ceremony through loudspeakers.</p>
<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s very sad to be swearing in a president in someone else&#8217;s country,&#8221; said Fatou Silla, 33, a businesswoman who fled Gambia with her son a week ago.</p>
<p>Fearing unrest, thousands of Gambians have fled, the United Nations estimates.</p>
<p>A senior aide to Barrow said that arrangements would be made for him to return to Gambia though it was unclear when or how.</p>
<p>At a bar in the Gambian capital Banjul&#8217;s popular Senegambia strip, people crowded around a television to watch the swearing in and cheered and danced when it was over.</p>
<p>&#8220;We have been suffering for 22 years and now things will be different,&#8221; said a cashier who only gave her name as Fama.</p>
<p>As tour companies moved out hundreds of European tourists, shops, market stalls and banks in Banjul remained closed. Police circulated in trucks and soldiers manned checkpoints.</p>
<p>It was unclear what Jammeh&#8217;s next move would be.</p>
<p>He faces almost total diplomatic isolation and a government riddled by defections. In the biggest loss yet, Vice President Isatou Njie Saidy, who has held the role since 1997, quit on Wednesday, a government source and a family member told Reuters.</p>
<p>Gambia&#8217;s long, sandy beaches have made it a prime destination for tourists but Jammeh, who once vowed to rule for &#8220;a billion years&#8221;, has also earned a reputation for rights abuses and stifling dissent.</p>
<p>He has ignored pressure to step aside and offers of exile.﻿</p>


W.African military enters Gambia to install new president

<p><strong>This new arrival in the MSCI African equity universe has a lot going for it, including the right conditions for a banking sector boom. Renaissance Capital outlines the risks and opportunities in an economy which the IMF estimates is on course to double every decade.</strong></p>
<p>This piece could have the shortest shelf-life of any piece since one of our equity analysts published on the great Iraq opportunity just weeks before ISIS took over half the country.</p>
<p>Indeed, last night reading <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2017/01/10/the-events-in-ivory-coast-last-week-were-a-textbook-case-of-mutiny/?postshare=7631484683086642&amp;tid=ss_tw&amp;utm_term=.4155ed869f27">this report</a> on army mutinies in Ivory Coast (and related tweets about Burkino Faso) nearly encouraged me to pull the release. That article concludes “ Soldiers in Ivory Coast have mutinied in 1990 (twice), 1993, 1999, 2000 (twice), 2002, 2003, 2008, 2014 and now 2017. They are the most mutinous military in the region, and likely the continent. Their history of revolts precedes the country’s civil war. Resolutions that go far beyond payments will be needed for Ivory Coast to break this cycle.”When I was in Abidjan last week, the initial mutiny of 6-7 January seemed to have been resolved. But in the last few days, two soldiers are reported to have died, and the gendarme temporarily seized a port. The noise is calming down in the afternoons according to one Reuters journalist when Africa Cup matches are televised, but this does look serious.  </p>
<p>But we are frank about the political risk, and I think we correctly identify the likely macro threat stemming from these mutinies – which is fiscal.</p>
<p>It seems that the numbers an economist loves – stable, strong, sustainable growth – are not what a population likes.  Despite the incumbent winning the 2015 presidential and then the 2016 parliamentary elections  (just last month), there are big demands for more pay across the country.  It reminds me a little of Zambia in 2011 and arguably the US in 2016 – growth is not good enough unless the population feels real incomes have risen substantially.  </p>
<p>None of this is a great way to encourage interest in this piece – which focuses on what is the best macro in Africa – and suggests investors who can stomach illiquidity ($1m trading volume a day) should look at the country.  The numbers are pretty amazing – across the board improvements over the last five years, from the Ease of Doing Business to a 52% rise in GDP, to new IPOs, a double of the banking sector, low inflation, a stable currency, a small current account deficit and a budget deficit of just 4% of GDP.  Read this and weep, rest of the world. ﻿</p>
<p> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="/media/19308140/rencap_19jan2017.png" width="480" height="288" alt="Rencap _19Jan 2017"/>﻿</p>
<p>In a world convinced that Africa Rising is no longer a theme – this country has been acting as a strong economic challenge to that pessimism (indeed many in Africa are doing well  – but the theme has been under assault by problems in the top three economies, Nigeria, SA, and Egypt until recently, as well as Mozambique).  If Ivory Coast can manage what looks to be a growing challenge to state authority – this bullish story will encourage investors in.  For more detail – see the <a href="http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/scr/2016/cr16383.pdf">IMF EFF report</a> issued here.</p>
<p>There has been little reaction to the mutiny in the past 10 days or so.</p>
<p> </p>
<p> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="/media/19308147/rencap_19jan2017_2_595x324.jpg"  width="595"  height="324" alt="Rencap _19Jan 2017_2"/>﻿</p>
<p>     ﻿Ivory Coast – 2032 Eurobond price over 5 years ﻿﻿</p>
<p>To see the full report: <a href="https://research.rencap.com/eng/default.asp" target="_blank">Thoughts from a Renaissance Man: Ivory Coast – the best macro in Africa?﻿  </a></p>


Op-Ed: Ivory Coast – the best macro in Africa?

<p>West African troops were poised to intervene in Gambia on Thursday after President Yahya Jammeh&#8217;s mandate expired and overnight talks to convince him to stand down failed.</p>
<p>Senegal has deployed hundreds of soldiers to its shared border with Gambia and Nigeria has pre-positioned war planes and helicopters after regional bloc ECOWAS said it would remove Jammeh if he did not hand over power to challenger Adama Barrow, who won an election in early December.</p>
<p>Gambia&#8217;s capital, Banjul, was quiet overnight and on Thursday morning. Shops and banks remained closed as military helicopters flew overhead and police trucks patrolled largely empty streets.</p>
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<p>Mauritanian President Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz led last ditch talks with Jammeh in Banjul on Wednesday before meeting Senegal&#8217;s President Macky Sall and Barrow in Dakar overnight.</p>
<p>Isatou Toure, a senior Barrow aide, said the mediation effort failed to make any headway but Barrow would be sworn in at some stage on Thursday.</p>
<p>It was unclear what Jammeh&#8217;s next move would be. In power since leading a coup in 1994, he now faces almost total diplomatic isolation and a government that has all but collapsed from defections.</p>
<p>In the most senior loss yet, Vice President Isatou Njie Saidy, who has been in the role since 1997, quit on Wednesday, a government source and a family member told Reuters.</p>
<p>Gambia&#8217;s long, sandy beaches have made it a prime destination for European tourists but Jammeh has also earned a reputation for rights abuses and stifling dissent.</p>
<p>Both ECOWAS and the African Union have said they will recognise Barrow as president from Thursday.</p>
<p>Toure said the inauguration would definitely go ahead but it was not clear where it would take place as Barrow was in Senegal and the organising committee is in Gambia.</p>
<p>Plans to hold the ceremony at the national stadium in Banjul have been dropped but two diplomats said they expected Barrow to be sworn in at the Gambian embassy in Senegal.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>TROOPS ON STANDBY</p>
<p>Senegal&#8217;s army said on Wednesday that it would be ready to cross into its smaller neighbour, which it surrounds, at any point after midnight. Nigeria has deployed aircraft to Dakar and a navy ship to the region. Ghana has also pledged troops.</p>
<p>A spokesman for Nigeria&#8217;s president told the BBC that troops would only intervene on the request of Barrow once he had been sworn in.</p>
<p>&#8220;What the Senegalese said about the midnight deadline was to put pressure on Jammeh. It was a show of muscle,&#8221; a diplomat in the region told Reuters.</p>
<p>The United Nations said at least 26,000 people fearing unrest have fled to Senegal and tour operators have sent charter jets to fly hundreds of European holiday makers out of the country.</p>
<p>Jammeh, who once vowed to rule for &#8220;a billion years&#8221;, has so far ignored calls by world powers and regional leaders to step aside and avert a conflict.</p>
<p>He says the electoral commission was under the influence of &#8220;foreign forces&#8221;, and has challenged the result in the Supreme Court &#8211; which currently lacks the judges necessary to preside over it.</p>
<p>Gambians celebrated in the streets when Jammeh unexpectedly conceded to Barrow, a real estate developer who once worked as a security guard at an Argos store in London. But a week later, the president changed his mind and security forces have cracked down on critics.</p>
<p>It was the latest in a long line of eccentricities from a leader who had said only Allah can remove him from office, claimed to have a herbal cure for AIDS that only works on Thursdays and threatened to slit the throats of homosexuals.﻿</p>
<p> </p>


West African forces poised for Gambia intervention

<p>African tech startups raised funding in excess of US$129 million in 2016, with the number of startups securing funding up by 16.8 per cent compared to the previous year.</p>
<p>According to the <a href="https://gumroad.com/l/AHAPM">DISRUPT AFRICA TECH STARTUPS FUNDING REPORT</a> released today, 146 startups from across Africa raised US$129,113,200 in funding over the course of 2016.</p>
<p>This displays substantial growth in the number of startups to raise funding as compared to the previous year, although the overall total amount of funding recorded declined.</p>
<p>South Africa, Nigeria and Kenya remained the three most popular investment destinations on the continent, accounting for 80.3 per cent of funds secured. Meanwhile, Egypt experienced over 100 per cent growth in fundraising, making it the fourth ranked destination.</p>
<p>Of the nine sectors analysed in the report, the fintech sector received the most backing in 2016, with startups in this space raising a combined US$31.4 million.</p>
<p>New to this edition, the report also makes available data on the startup acquisitions which took place in 2016; as well as the results of surveys relating to preferences and trends within the entrepreneur and investor communities on the continent.</p>
<p>“2016 was another great year for African tech startups and investors. Our ecosystem progressed in leaps and bounds over the course of the year, which is evidenced by strong growth in the number of startups raising funding, and an encouraging expansion of ecosystem activity across the continent. We’re excited to present the Disrupt Africa Tech Startups Funding Report 2016, and hope it helps chart the rise of Africa’s entrepreneurs,” said Gabriella Mulligan, co-founder of Disrupt Africa.</p>
<p>“The general theme of 2016 has been more rounds, but with fewer standout tickets than in 2015. The African tech space has not been immune to the economic pressures faced by other sectors, but it is proving extremely resilient. The fact more startups raised funding in 2016 than ever before demonstrates the vitality of this sector, and we expect investor interest to grow and grow over the course of 2017,” said Tom Jackson, co-founder of Disrupt Africa.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><em>For more information, or to order the report, please visit <a href="http://disrupt-africa.com/funding-report/">disrupt-africa.com/funding-report</a>, or email Gabriella on <a href="mailto:gabriella@disrupt-africa.com">gabriella@disrupt-africa.com</a>, or Tom on <a href="mailto:tom@disrupt-africa.com">tom@disrupt-africa.com</a>.﻿</em></p>


Number of African tech startups raising funding up by 17% in 2016

<p>The World Economic Forum today issued a report proposing a shift in economic policy priorities to respond more effectively to the insecurity and inequality accompanying technological change and globalization. <em>The Inclusive Growth and Development Report 2017</em> concludes that most countries are missing important opportunities to raise economic growth and reduce inequality at the same time because the growth model and measurement tools that have guided policymakers for decades require significant readjustment.</p>
<p>The Report finds that annual median incomes declined by 2.4% or $284 per capita across 26 advanced economies between 2008 and 2013 (or most recent period available). Developing countries fared much better, with median incomes rising by an average of 10.7% or $165. However, 23% of them experienced a decline in median per capita income of 9%, as compared to 54% of advanced countries experiencing a decline of an average 8% or $1044 per person equivalent to $2,505 per average household.</p>
<p>The Report argues that sustained, broad-based progress in living standards, a concept that encompasses income as well as economic opportunity, security and quality of life, should be recognized by policymakers as the bottom-line objective of national economic performance rather than GDP growth.  It proposes a new policy framework and set of measurement tools to guide the practice and assess the performance of countries accordingly. </p>
<p><strong>Inclusive Development Index (IDI)</strong>. The report ranks countries based on 12 Key Performance Indicators of inclusive development. Providing a more complete measure of economic development than GDP growth alone, the Index has three pillars:  <em>Growth and Development</em>, including GDP growth, labour force participation and productivity, and healthy life expectancy; <em>Inclusion</em>, including median household income, poverty and two inequality measures; and <em>Intergenerational Equity and Sustainability</em>, including adjusted net saving (including natural capital depletion and human capital investment), demographic dependency ratio, public debt and carbon intensity.</p>
<p><strong>51% of the 103 countries for which these data are available saw their IDI scores decline over the past five years,</strong> attesting to the legitimacy of public concern and challenge facing policymakers regarding the difficulty of translating economic growth into broad social progress. In 42% of countries, IDI decreased even as GDP per capita increased. A chief culprit was wealth inequality, which rose in 77% of economies by an average of 6.3%.</p>
<p>Some countries rank significantly higher in the IDI than GDP per capita, suggesting they have done a relatively good job of making their growth processes inclusive, including countries as diverse as<strong> Cambodia</strong>, the<strong> Czech Republic</strong>,<strong> New Zealand</strong>,<strong> South Korea</strong> and<strong> Vietnam</strong>. By contrast, others have significantly lower IDI than GDP<br /> per capita rankings, indicating that their growth has not translated as well into social inclusion; these include <strong>Brazil</strong>, <strong>Ireland</strong>, <strong>Japan</strong>, <strong>Mexico</strong>, <strong>Nigeria</strong>,<strong> South Africa</strong> and the <strong>United States</strong>. </p>
<p>Richard Samans, Member of the Forum’s Managing Board said, “There is a global consensus on inclusive growth, but it has been far more directional than practical. To respond more effectively to social concerns, economic policy needs a new compass setting, broad-based progress in living standards, and a new mental map in which structural reform is reimagined and reapplied to this task, with chief economic advisers and finance ministers prioritizing it every bit as much their traditional focus on macroeconomic, financial supervisory and trade policy.”   </p>
<p><strong>New Framework or “Growth Model</strong><strong>.”</strong>  The Report suggests that 15 areas of structural policy and institutional strength together constitute the underlying “income distribution system” of modern market economies and are the crucial tools available to policymakers to strengthen economic growth and social inclusion in tandem. It argues that rising inequality reflects mainly “a lack of attention to this policy ecosystem rather than an iron law of capitalism.” Moreover, for many countries such a reimagined process of structural reform encompassing both demand- and supply-side elements also offers the best hope for boosting economic growth given their limited monetary and fiscal policy space in the aftermath of the 2008-09 financial crisis.  <br />  <br /> The Report also includes <em>policy</em> metrics &#8212; 140 Policy and Institutional Indicators across the 15 policy domains that have the potential to drive both stronger growth and wider social inclusion. These permit countries to benchmark their institutional strength and policy incentives in these areas against their peers.<br />  <br /> <strong>Education and Skills Development </strong>– access; quality; equity<br /> <strong>Basic Services and Infrastructure </strong>– basic and digital infrastructure; health-related services<br /> <strong>Corruption and Rents </strong>– business and political ethics; concentration of rents<br /> <strong>Financial Intermediation of Real Economy Investment </strong>– financial system inclusion; intermediation of real economy business investment<br /> <strong>Asset-building and Entrepreneurship </strong>– small business ownership; home and financial asset ownership<br /> <strong>Employment and Labour Compensation </strong>– productive employment; wage and non-wage labour compensation<br /> <strong>Fiscal transfers </strong>– tax system; social protection<br />  <br /> <strong>An Agenda for Global </strong><em>Inclusive </em><strong>Growth</strong>.  Based on its findings, framework and tools, the Report proposes a coordinated international initiative to combat the prospect of secular stagnation and dispersion (chronic low growth and rising inequality) by placing progress in median living standards – people – at the heart of national policy and global economic integration:</p>
<ul>
<li>Major economies to undertake mutual effort to address their structural weaknesses within this Frameworkwith support of OECD and other international organizations, potentially by expanding and reprioritizing the G20 Enhanced Structural Reform Agenda, launched during China’s recent presidency.</li>
<li>All countries experiencing labour market challenges related to the Fourth Industrial Revolution toset national investment targets and public-private implementation strategies across five areas of human capital formation:  active labor-market policies (training); equity of access to quality basic education; gender parity; non-standard work benefits and protections; and school-to-work transition. Data indicate few countries are well positioned.</li>
<li>International financial institutions toembrace this reformulation and reprioritization of structural economic policyin their public signaling, country advice, and development cooperation programs as well as catalyze a scaling ofblended, public-private financing of sustainable infrastructure– crucial for attainment of the SDGs &#8212; by shifting from direct lending to risk mitigation, co-investment, aggregation and project development.</li>
<li>Trade and investment cooperation to be refocused from the negotiation of formal new norms such as free trade agreements to the facilitation of trade and investment activity <em>within as well as among</em> countries, particularly in respect of SMEs, services and value chains, encouraging convergence around best practices and standards to reduce frictions and boost development impact, while increasing capacity-building assistance for these purposes.</li>
</ul>
<p>The Report was developed as part of the Forum’s multistakeholder System Initiative on <a href="mailto:https://www.weforum.org/system-initiatives/economic-growth-and-social-inclusion"><em>Economic Growth and Social Inclusion</em> </a> and includes written contributions from five international organizations, three companies and one G20 government highlighting their contributions to this challenge.</p>


Decline in living standards in advanced countries highlights need for new model

<p>Gambian President Yahya Jammeh declared a state of emergency on Tuesday after refusing to hand power to opposition leader Adama Barrow, who won an election last month.</p>
<p>State televison said the emergency would prevent a power vacuum while the supreme court rules on Jammeh&#8217;s petition challenging the election result.</p>
<p>That suggests Jammeh will stay in power beyond Thursday, when Barrow was due to be sworn in as president.</p>
<p>Regional leaders have threatened to intervene militarily if Jammeh does not step down and on Tuesday a senior Nigerian army source said Nigeria and other West African states were preparing a military force.</p>
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<p>&#8220;I&#8230;hereby declare a state of public emergency throughout the Islamic Republic of Gambia,&#8221; Jammeh&#8217;s declaration said.</p>
<p>The state of emergency banned &#8220;acts of disobdience&#8221; and &#8220;acts intended to disturb public order&#8221;.</p>
<p>Jammeh took power in a coup in 1994 as only the second president since Gambia&#8217;s independence in 1965 and his government gained a reputation for torturing and killing perceived opponents, rights groups say. In 2015, he declared that the country was an Islamic Republic.</p>
<p>Pro-democracy activists across Africa welcomed his defeat and his refusal to step down has provoked an internal crisis as well as a test of mettle for regional leaders.</p>
<p>Gambia&#8217;s top judge on Monday declined to rule on Jammeh&#8217;s election petition and in a political blow to the president, the ministers of finance, foreign affairs, trade and the environment have resigned, according to ministry sources. [nL5N1F64IT]</p>
<p>The Nigerian source said that defence chiefs of staff of West African countries met on Monday to discuss strategies to remove Jammeh.</p>
<p>&#8220;Some West African countries will be contributing troops, including Nigeria, for the operation,&#8221; said the source, adding that the United Nations and African Union had offered support to regional body ECOWAS for the plan.</p>
<p>State television said on Monday Finance Minister Abdou Kolley was being replaced by Benjamin Roberts, the Minister of Tourism. Finance ministry sources said on Tuesday Roberts had also resigned.</p>
<p>Ministry sources said other government figures, including Foreign Minister Neneh Macdouall-Gaye, had left the government and the country. The mayor of the capital Banjul has also resigned, according to sources at the city council. [ID:nL5N1EZ6A9]</p>
<p>Hundreds of Gambians have fled into Senegal, Gambia&#8217;s only neighbour, fearing for their safety because of the turmoil, and Senegalese authorities have increased security. Barrow is also in Senegal, his aides say.</p>
<p>&#8220;We are scared. There are soldiers with guns all the time,&#8221; said Awa Sanneh, 25, from Birkama in Gambia, who was leaving with two children and 24 other family members.</p>
<p>One of the smallest countries in Africa, Gambia is reliant on tourism and one main crop, peanuts, to fuel its economy.﻿</p>
<p> </p>


Gambian President Jammeh declares state of emergency

<p>Nigeria&#8217;s efforts to secure funds from international lenders to help haul it out of recession have stalled because it has not submitted the required economic reform plans, according to one of the banks and sources close to the matter.</p>
<p>The government has been in loan talks with the World Bank for a year. It had told the lender it would present its proposed reforms to make the economy more resilient and attractive to investment by the end of December, according to Western diplomats and a Nigerian official who declined to be named as they are not authorised to speak publicly.</p>
<p>But this has not happened and as a result of the delay, which the government has not explained, the Washington-based bank has not been able to consider a loan yet, the sources said.</p>
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<p>Nigerian finance minister Kemi Adeosun and the World Bank declined to comment.</p>
<p>The African Development Bank (AfDB), meanwhile, is holding back the second tranche of a $1 billion loan for Nigeria, AfDB president Akinwumi Adesina told Reuters on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.</p>
<p>&#8220;We are waiting for the economic policy recovery programme and the policy framework for that,&#8221; said Adesina, without specifying when the AfDB had expected to receive the reform plans.</p>
<p>Nigeria has said it is seeking to borrow $4 billion in total from the World Bank and other foreign institutions and $1 billion through Eurobonds to plug a yawning budget deficit and fund badly needed infrastructure projects.</p>
<p>The country, which relies on oil revenue for most of its income, has been hit hard by the sharp fall in crude prices since 2014 and is struggling to drag itself out of its first recession in 25 years.</p>
<p>It is unclear why the government has not submitted reform plans to the international lenders. The funding deadlock could throw into doubt badly needed infrastructure projects planned for this year, including new roads and improvements to power infrastructure.</p>
<p>The failure to secure the funds, and to present a reform programme, could also deter some investors from Nigeria&#8217;s planned $1 billion Eurobonds sale in March.</p>
<p>A Nigerian financial source said the government was working with a consultancy on putting together a package of proposed reforms. The source, who declined to be named as the matter is confidential, did not elaborate.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>RECORD BUDGET</p>
<p>Nigeria needs money to help plug a budget deficit of 2.2 trillion naira ($7 billion) for 2016 and to help fund a record budget of 7.3 trillion naira for 2017 which is aimed at stimulating the economy.</p>
<p>It has been holding talks with various institutions and China over the last year to borrow funds but apart from a $1 billion loan from the African Development Bank, at a rate of 1.2 percent, nothing has been made public.</p>
<p>The Abidjan-based AfDB has paid out an initial $600 million in November but is awaiting the economic reform proposals before it disburses the rest of the money.</p>
<p>It is unclear how much money Nigeria is seeking from the World Bank, or whether the lender was pushing for any specific economic reforms from the government.</p>
<p>The diplomatic sources, however, said the bank wanted to see how Nigeria planned to lower its dependence on oil revenues and boost investment, which has been hit by a high official exchange rate for the naira currency.</p>
<p>Nigeria&#8217;s central bank, backed by President Muhammadu Buhari, has kept the naira rate to the dollar at 40 percent above the unofficial &#8211; or parallel &#8211; market rate, which has dried up dollar supplies on official channels.</p>
<p>The policy has also made investors reluctant to commit new projects as they expect the central bank will have to devalue the naira eventually as oil production has been hit by an insurgency in the Niger Delta oil hub.</p>
<p>The central bank has also imposed hard currency curbs making impossible the import of almost 700 goods, which has forced dozens of plants to close running out of spare parts.</p>
<p>Adesina told Reuters on Tuesday that the currency rate problem needed to be addressed by the government in its reform programme, which he said the AfDB was coordinating with the World Bank.</p>
<p>&#8220;We are being clear that the quantitative restriction in terms of access to FX is what&#8217;s creating huge gap between parallel market rates and official rates,&#8221; he added.</p>
<p>($1 = 314.5000 naira)﻿</p>
<p> </p>


Nigeria's efforts to secure international loans hit deadlock

<p>At least 70 civilians were killed in Tuesday&#8217;s Nigerian Air Force strike on a refugee camp and more than a hundred were wounded, the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement said on Wednesday.</p>
<p>The air force has said an unknown number of civilians were killed and wounded in the mistaken strike in Rann, northeast Nigeria. It said the attack was intended to target Islamist militant Boko Haram fighters.</p>
<p>Medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) has said 52 were killed and 120 were wounded.﻿</p>
<p>MSF said the strike occurred in Rann in Borno state, the epicentre of the jihadist group&#8217;s seven-year-old bid to create an Islamic caliphate. Regional military commander General Lucky Irabor located it at Kala Balge, a district including Rann.</p>
<p>Irabor, who said it was too early to determine the cause of the mistake, told journalists an unknown number of civilians had been killed, adding that humanitarian workers from MSF and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) were injured.</p>
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<p>&#8220;MSF teams have seen 120 wounded and 50 dead following the bombing,&#8221; said Charlotte Morris, a spokeswoman for the medical charity. &#8220;Our medical and surgical teams in Cameroon and Chad are ready to treat wounded patients. We are in close contact with our teams, who are in shock following the event.&#8221;</p>
<p>A spokeswoman for ICRC said six Nigerian Red Cross members were killed and 13 were wounded.</p>
<p>The insurgency has killed more than 15,000 people and forced two million to flee their homes, many of whom have moved to camps because it has been too dangerous to return home.</p>
<p>The air strike came amid an offensive against Boko Haram by Nigeria&#8217;s military over the last few weeks. President Muhammadu Buhari said last month a key camp in the jihadist group&#8217;s Sambisa forest base in Borno state had fallen.</p>
<p>A statement issued by the presidency said the air strike was a &#8220;regrettable operational mistake&#8221; that happened during the &#8220;final phase of mopping up insurgents in the northeast&#8221;.</p>
<p>Boko Haram has stepped up attacks in the last few weeks as the end of the rainy season has enabled its fighters to move more easily in the bush.</p>
<p>A video featuring an audio recording purporting to be Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau, which was posted on social media late on Monday, said the group was behind twin suicide bombings at a university earlier that day which killed two people and injured 17 others.﻿</p>
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