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Nigeria’s President Buhari launches $2.5 billion Dangote Fertilizer Plant. To whose benefit exactly?

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President Muhammadu Buhari of Nigeria was in Lagos on Tuesday, the commercial capital of Nigeria for the launch of what experts have called the largest fertilizer plant in Africa owned by Africa’s richest man, and President/Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Dangote Group, Alhaji Aliko Dangote.

According to the official website of the plant, Dangote Fertiliser Plant is Africa’s largest Granulated Urea Fertiliser complex. The plant occupies 500 hectares of land in Lekki Free Trade Zone, Lagos Nigeria. It was built at a cost of $2.5 Billion.

Also at the inauguration of the $2.5 billion project were dignitaries including Lagos State Governor Babajide Sanwo-olu, Central Bank of Nigeria Governor Godwin Emefiele, and Nigeria’s Minister of Trade and Investment Niyi Adebayo.

With food being a basic necessity of life and growing food shortage across the world that has been further enhanced by the ongoing Ukraine/Russia war, the use of fertilizers is central to sustainable productivity in the agriculture sector as the shortage of fertilizers has contributed to the worsening food crisis with about 250 million people going to bed hungry and Africa spending more than $35 billion on food imports annually as it continues to grapple with low agricultural productivity.

The launch of the Dangote plant is timely as many African soils are unable to supply crops with the nutrients they need due to infertility and degradation that has stemmed from inappropriate land-use practices over several centuries.

Beyond serving the Nigeria and Africa fertilizer market, the plant is said to be established to produce 3 million metric tonnes per annum of urea fertilizer in phase 1 which is above Nigeria’s current level of fertilizer consumption in the country which is 1.5 million metric tonnes.

While delivering his speech shortly after the mega project was commissioned, Alhaji Aliko Dangote, said that the products from its newly commissioned fertilizer plant are already in the African market as well as the United States, Brazil, India and Mexico.

 

If things turned as they seem, the new fertilizer plant should mean a major leap in Nigeria’s agriculture sector with President Muhammadu Buhari’s many agric-based initiatives. However, the peculiarity of Nigeria informs that enthusiasm should be with caution. Amidst the many challenges of industrialization in Nigeria, fingers are crossed on the efficiency of the plant, hopefully, it does not go the way of the Dangote tomatoes processing factory that has repeatedly shut down operation.

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Kenya: Parliament approves appointment of Kamau Thugge as central bank governor

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Months after throwing open the position for the country’s top banker, Kenya’s parliament has approved the appointment of Kamau Thugge as the country’s central bank governor.

The National Assembly on Wednesday approved the
appointment of economist and senior civil servant who was nominated by President William Ruto as the next apex bank chief.

Thugge, who served as principal secretary in the finance ministry until mid-2018, was nominated after serving as one of the president’s senior economic advisers since late last year.

He shook off competition from others shortlisted candidates like Adan Mohamed, who served in the cabinet from 2013-2022, with four others also interviewed for the role.

The new central bank governor will be faced with the immediate pressure of stabilizing the country’s monetary policy as the East African giant currently faces a shortage of funds amidst rising public debt.

Despite the odds, the World Bank in a report earlier today expects growth to edge up to 5.0% in 2023, underpinned by a recovery in agriculture.

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Ghana presents ‘working proposal’ for debt restructuring— IMF sources

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West African country, Ghana has made a major move at resolving its debt crisis as the country has presented debt restructuring proposal to its creditors.

According to sources quoted by Reuters, a “working proposal” has been submitted to help the country escape its worst economic crisis in a generation.

One of the sources revealed that the proposal was a first attempt to engage the official creditor committee after its formation in May. It should be recalled that the Paris Club last month announced that official sector of creditors of Ghana had formed a committee co-chaired by China and France for debt restructuring talks.

The plan is to end restructuring of domestic debt before turning to negotiations with its official bilateral creditors and international bondholders, a government official said.

Ghana is one of several cash-strapped countries facing unprecedented delays in getting bailouts as China, its biggest bilateral creditor with about $1.7 billion of debt and Western economies disagree over how debt relief should be structured.

The first formal review of the programme will hold in the coming months as an IMF team will visit Ghana between 8th and 15th of June.

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