Business
Review Direction Of Debts, Experts Tell FG
Economic experts have called on the Federal Government to review the direction of the country’s debts, in order to spur productivity and economic growth.
The experts expressed their views at a forum on “Nigeria’s Debt Sustainability: Issues and Way forward’’ organised by the Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI).
Managing Director, Financial Derivatives Company, Mr Bismark Rewane said the country’s debt profile would not be a concern if its Gross Domestic Product (GDP) was growing at about 8 to 10 per cent.
He said existing data showed that the country’s debt was growing at a faster rate than GDP, growing at a time that productivity level had declined resulting to less prosperity for the citizens.
The economist said borrowing to spend and borrowing to invest were two different things, and that funding fiscal debt amounted to the government borrowing to spend.
According to him, Nigeria floated its first Eurobond of 1 billion dollars in 1978, and used it to complete 25 sector specific projects, amongst which was Apapa ports, Inner Marina road and aircraft purchase.
“Tell me what roads would be completed or refinery that would be functional by the time the various bonds floated by government matures; lending should be sector specific and impactful,” he said.
He stressed that government should reset its debt profile, adding that the country was moving from debt problem to debt crisis and if left unchecked, it would result in a debt trap.
He added that elongated debt could translate to intergenerational debt.
“The solution is to increase the injection at the investment level, when you do that, it grows employment and to grow investment means that you increase the level of confidence of domestic and foreign investors.
“Also government’s policies should be well aligned, create equitable distribution of wealth and equal opportunities for citizens, strengthen tax institutions to increase revenue collections and reduce leakages,” he said.
In the same vein, , Chief Economist, Pricewaterhouse Coopers (PwC), Mr Andrew Nevin said the country had declined in per capita GDP since 2015 to 2017.
He said this was likely to decline in 2019 adding that the IMF also predicted a decline in 2020 to 2022.
“This indicates that we are getting poorer each year,” Nevin said.
He said government should eliminate fuel subsidy and dual foreign exchange rate, improve on the country’s ease of doing business, and also tap into the potential of the real estate sector.
Mr Ayo Salami, Partner, KPMG Nigeria, said there had been consistent shortfall in government’s projected revenue in the last few years, and that the country’s debt would surpass its revenue in the next five years, if the trend was left unchecked.
He urged the Federal Government to review some of its abandoned and ongoing projects.
He said the Ajaokuta Steel plant and the refineries were not generating revenue, but that the government kept pumping funds into them annually.
Salami, therefore, called for a review in cost of governance, block leakages in Customs revenues and check inefficiencies at the ports, which were contributing to cost of production and affecting economic growth.
Earlier, , President of LCCI Mr Babatunde Ruwase said the chamber was concerned about the rapidly growing public debt and its implications for the country‘s fiscal sustainability.
“The Debt Management Office (DMO) put the nation’s total debt stock (Federal, FCT and States) at N22.38 trillion (73.21 billion dollars) as at June 30.
“Debt service to revenue ratio which currently stands at over 40 per cent is on the high side, with implications on the country’s capacity to deliver infrastructure investments. Our revenue can barely cover our recurrent expenditure.
“Many state governments are still grappling with huge debt service burden which is impeding deliverables on vital developmental projects. Many other states depend largely on Federal Government grants and allocations to survive,” he said.
Ruwase said it was imperative for government to set a debt management framework that aligns with its economic growth drive, revenue profile and “ability to pay” realities.
Meanwhile, the Director-General, Debt Management Office (DMO), Ms. Patience Oniha, said its current strategy was to reduce the interest expense on government’s debt.
She said DMO hoped to achieve a debt mix of 60 per cent and 40 per cent for domestic and external debt respectively.
Oniha represented by, Director, Policy Strategy and Risk Management, Mr Joe Ugoala said DMO also planned to increase the long-term portion of the domestic debt to 75 per cent.
She said debt to GDP in Nigeria at 20 per cent was one of the lowest figures in the world.
The director general added that it was lower than the limit of 40 per cent and showed that the economy had huge fiscal sustainability space if revenue could grow faster than its current level.
Two universities in the Niger Delta zone (University of Port Harcourt and University of Benin) have emerged winners of the South-South region in the Nigerian Engineering Olympiad (NEO) competition.
The NEO competition which took place at the Nigerian Content Tower(NCT), headquarters of the Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board(NCDMB) in Yenagoa, Bayelsa State is a nationwide engineering, innovation and entrepreneurship competition launched in 2025 by a non-profit organization, ‘Enactus Nigeria’, in partnership with NCDMB, Renaissance Africa Energy Company Limited, First Exploration & Petroleum Development Company and the Nigerian Society of Engineers (NSE).
The two Universities teams represented differently by ‘Inovation team PROTRONICS’ and ‘Innovation team VHORDE’, won their counterparts from the Igbinedion University, Okada, Edo State, Federal University of Petroleum Resources (FUPRE), Effurun, Delta State, and the University of Uyo, Uyo, Akwa Ibom State, in the competition showcasing hardware and software prototypes developed to serve as innovative solutions to real-world challenges with specific reference to Nigeria and Africa.
From UNIPORT’s ‘team PROTRONICS’ was an innovation called ‘KEYTRIC’ which the competitors presented as a ‘SMART POWER CONTROL’ that makes electricity usage effortless and automating with the use of an intelligent locking systems.
Team PROTRONICS highlighted high electricity bills, electricity fire risk and expensive smart home and gaps in existing solutions, including costly installation, lack of integration between security and energy, and dependence on the Internet as the reason for their innovative invention.
“Our innovative solution is a smart energy door lock that switches off a user’s electricity supply when they lock to leave the house.
“Our solution saves money on electricity bill, reduces the risk of electric fire accident, and is affordable to everyone”, the Uniport’s team said.
On the other hand, Team VHORDE of the University of Benin presented what it terms Intelligent Real-time Interface(IRIS) which enables visually impaired individuals to gain sight.
They pointed out that there are 4.5 million visually impaired Nigerians who are in some way incapacitated and unable to live life to the fullest.
The students displayed an IRIS pack, consisting sensors, wearable glasses, microphone, camera and Haptic feedback.
On how the IRIS works, the UNIBEN students said the smart glasses, which consist, a camera, depth sensor, and edge Artificial Intelligence(AI) processor, enables a visually impaired person to see and understand the world in real time.
“There’s an AI Compute Unit to be worn at the waist, which runs Convolutional neutral network (CNN) object detection, face recognition, and voice processing on-device”, the team said.
In a section on Business Model and Revenue Streams, the University of Benin competitors indicated production-scale pricing for IRIS Standard as N699,000 one-time purchase.
According to the team, the IRIS standard has the following functions, real-time object and scene identification, familiar face recognition, obstacle and hazard detection (haptic wristbands), natural voice interaction, Edge AI – fully offline core functions, and OTA software updates via Wi-Fi.
In an assessment of the prototypes and demonstrations made, one of the key judges of the competition, Engr. Dokubo Obongo, Manager, Institutional Strengthening, at the NCDMB, described all the presentations as “top-notch”.
He noted that there are solutions that are viable marketwise, relevant to the society and the challenges humans face, explaining that the Engineering Olympiad is a competition targeted at developing home-grown solutions from research and development from Nigerian universities.
“The idea is to see how we can proffer solutions to our own problems which means creating business opportunities”, he said.
Speaking for Enactus Nigeria, the group’s Country Director, Mr. Michael Ajayi, said the two top finalists from the six geopolitical zones would move to a boot camp for further preparation towards the main national championship, and that the best three teams would share N100 million.
He also disclosed that each of the 30 teams that displayed prototype technology in the regional competition would receive N3 million.
Team PROTRONICS of the University of Port Harcourt had as Team Lead Dr. Victor Jinn (Faculty Adviser), while the contestants were Chukwuma Sunday-Odu, Fubara David Otokini, and Ekemini Godwin Akpan, while Team VHORDE of the University of Benin had Anoint Oritsetimeyin Igorki, Oghosa Derick Osarobo, Uti Henry Eworitsewarami, Jada O. Godfrey-Ariavie, Richard O.Enegbuna, Momodu O. Olayemi, and Asemota G. Ayevbosa.
By: Ariwera Ibibo-Howells, Yenagoa
The Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) has officially unveiled the Simplified Customs Advanced Declaration System (SCADS) at the international wing of the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja.
The move is aimed at improving passenger clearance, compliance and customs operations.
This was contained in a statement by the NCS spokesperson, Abdullahi Maiwada, and made available to Newsmen in Abuja.
Maiwada explained that the platform, designed to simplify baggage declaration for inbound international passengers, aims to reduce manual bottlenecks, improve transparency in revenue assessment and enhance operational efficiency at Nigeria’s international airports.
Speaking at the inauguration ceremony, Deputy Comptroller-General of Customs in charge of ICT/Modernisation, Oluyomi Adebakin, said the deployment of SCADS marked another major step in the service’s digital transformation agenda.
Adebakin said the initiative became necessary to address operational challenges encountered on the service’s previous passenger declaration platform earlier this year.
She explained that rather than allowing the setbacks to slow operations, the service chose to develop a stronger and more efficient alternative.
“When the earlier platform experienced operational challenges, we chose not to see it as a setback.
“We saw it as an opportunity to build something better, stronger and more efficient,” she said.
According to her, the newly introduced SCADS platform allows passengers to declare items before arrival, thereby reducing clearance time while improving compliance and operational integrity.
“For passengers, this system creates the opportunity for advance declaration before arrival. It means faster clearance, easier compliance and smoother movement through our airports,” she added.
Adebakin said that the system would eliminate subjective revenue assessment by ensuring that duties were being automatically generated based on declared items, their quantities and actual values.
“When we talk about revenue collection, it is not about collecting more or less. It is about collecting the right revenue. With this system, assessment will now be more objective, accurate and driven by data,” she said.
Earlier Comptroller Customs Area Controller, FCT Area Command, Victoria Alibo,described the selection of the command for the pilot phase as a vote of confidence in its operational capacity.
Alibo said the new platform integrates passenger baggage and e-commerce declarations into a single digital framework designed to support global Customs best practices.
“SCADS is designed to simplify declarations, reduce clearance time, eliminate manual bottlenecks and align our operations with international standards,” Alibo said.
She said that the pilot phase would run for five days, from May 18 to May 22, during which officers would evaluate the system in a live environment ahead of nationwide deployment.
The event was attended by senior Customs officers, officials of the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria, partner government agencies, technical teams, and other key stakeholders in Nigeria’s aviation and border management ecosystem.
By: CHINEDU WOSU
Olubiyo, said this in an interview with Newsmen to Monday in Abuja.
He said energy theft occurs at both the consumer and institutional levels across the electricity value chain from generation to transmission and distribution.
According to Olubiyo, at the consumer level electricity theft includes metre bypass, illegal connections and unauthorised access to power without proper billing.
According to him, some customers would dig underground cables directly to their homes or businesses without being metered, while others exploit estimated billing systems to consume electricity without payment.
“Whether through metre bypass or illegal connection, many customers are using electricity for free. That is energy theft,” he said.
He also alleged that institutional energy theft exists within the power sector, particularly through defective, obsolete, or wrongly installed metres used in monitoring electricity generation and distribution.
He said that wholesale metres installed at critical interfaces among generation companies (GenCos), transmission companies, and distribution companies (DisCos) were often out-dated or improperly configured.
He said those could lead to inaccurate readings and inflated subsidy claims.
“If 4,000 megawatts is generated and 7,000 megawatts is recorded, that is energy theft because the excess energy does not get to consumers,” he stated.
The expert further said some operators in the sector allegedly exploit maintenance and repair contracts through inflated contract sums and possible collaboration with vandals.
He also cited the deployment of secure pole-mounted metres in military barracks as an example of how technology can curb metre tampering and unauthorised access.
He, therefore said the sector had to urgently address infrastructure decay, weak regulation, poor investment, and corruption within the value chain.
Otherwise, according to him, Nigeria’s electricity industry will continue to face liquidity challenges, revenue losses and unstable power supply.
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