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Declining Crude Oil Prices and the Nigerian Naira

With entire industries across the country currently shut down due to the Coronavirus, one source which had continued to generate the much-needed cash and foreign exchange for the Nigerian government was the sale of crude oil, albeit at lower prices . This week, prices declined even further, causing Nigeria’s Bonny Light crude oil blend to sell for around $12 and $13 per barrel. Despite the low price of crude oil, Nigeria currently has about 10 million barrels of unsold crude oil, and traders expect this number to increase in the following weeks and in the month of May. These low prices (compared with prices from 12 weeks before) and the inability to find buyers for the 10 million barrels at such low prices can be traced to the Coronavirus pandemic which is still spreading across the globe. With factories shut down, and transportation and other economic activities put on hold across Europe and Asia (some of Nigeria’s major buyers), there simply is not enough demand to match oil ...

Withdrawing your pension before retirement... today

“Without prejudice to subsection (1) of this section, any employee who disengages or is disengaged from employment before the age of 50 years and is unable to secure another employment within four months of such disengagement may make withdrawal from his retirement savings account in accordance with the provisions of section 7(2) and (3) of this Act” – Pension Reform Act, 2014. I have not had to quote the provisions of any Acts or Laws since I made the switch from being an International Tax consultant to being a Strategy and Transactions (M&A / Corporate Finance) advisor in 2016. It feels like a lifetime ago, and it was only about 13 months after the switch that I left Lagos for Stuttgart. Amidst the thoughts of uncertainty that plagued me as I prepared to leave home in August 2017, for a country where I did not know anyone or speak the language, I also wondered “what would happen to my pension when I leave?”. I managed to convince myself to deal with the present and onl...

Preserving vitality and sanity amidst all of the COVID-19 negativity

"Where there's life, there's hope". These words, famously echoed by Stephen Hawking, have never been more apt than in the situation we currently find ourselves in. The world is going through one of the worst crisis in modern history - healthcare, economic, political, etc., all happening at the same time, and it is difficult to predict when things will get back to normal, if things will ever get back to normal or what the new normal would be. There is an overwhelming amount of information that is being circulated across various media platforms. The substance of the information overload ranges from the educative, to the humorous. However, a significant amount of the information that comes to the mainstream are about negative occurrences around the world. A lot of negativity is being passed around in the form of news and statistics. While it is important to stay informed about what is going on around the world, it is also important to recognise the impact that all ...

Smart Investing with Nosa

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