News — nigeria

Nigeria has emerged as the second biggest market for bitcoin, trading over 60,000 bitcoins, valued at $566 million, between 2015 and 2020.

Since 2017, the volume of bitcoin trade in Nigeria has increased by 19% while the highest volume of trade (20,504.50) was recorded in 2020, according to reports.

The West African nation and Africa’s biggest economy trails only the United States on Paxful, a leading peer-to-peer bitcoin market place. The sharp rise in bitcoin trade, particularly in 2020, has been attributed to the lockdown and the “End SARS” protest across Nigeria.

During the End SARS protests, the Nigerian authorities accused some foreigners and members of the Nigerian diaspora of funding the protest. And in the government’s quest to end the demonstrations, the Central Bank of Nigeria instructed private banks to freeze several organizations’ and individuals’ accounts to stop the flow of funds supporting the protests, according to Human Rights Watch.

To bypass the restrictions, the protesters switched to using bitcoin in order to raise funds to sustain the pressure on the federal government to act on police brutalities and other human rights abuses by the country’s security forces. The change to bitcoin was in no small part due to explicit advice by Twitter CEO, Jack Dorsey, who supported the protest to the anger of certain officials of the Nigerian government.

According to reports, bitcoin accounted for around 40% of the nearly $400,000 raised within a week.

The coronavirus-forced lockdown in Nigeria also saw the bitcoin trade skyrocketing, recording a 37% increase in new registrations. Paxful, which controls 52% of the bitcoin market worldwide, is the most popular bitcoin platform in Africa and Nigerians make up a quarter of its customer base with 1.3 million registered accounts.

“They mostly use the platform for peer-to-peer and arbitrage trading,” says Nena Nwachukwu, Paxful Nigeria regional manager. “Remittance is also a popular use case.” Nwachukwu says bitcoin transfers are “much cheaper and faster than using traditional money transfer operators.”

Also, cross border challenges in money transfer accounts for the growing using of bitcoins, according to Paxful chief executive officer and co-founder Ray Yussef. “Africa’s largest economy has problems and restrictions in sending and receiving money from inside and outside its borders.”

The U.S, which tops the bitcoin market, recorded a 32% decline in the number of bitcoin trades executed in 2020 while the Philippines recorded the biggest increase with 7,339% more bitcoin traded in 2020 compared to 2019, according to bitcoin.com.

China traded $181.3 million worth of bitcoin in the last five years, Canada $131.1 million and the UK $119.4 million to complete the top five bitcoin trading economies.

It was back in 2017 when Tolu Olowofoyeku, Hamid Ibrahim, and Fikayo Adeola, friends from Nigeria and Uganda, established Kugali as pan-African creative company. The comic book collection they came up with was born out of a desire to tell modern African stories—now it’s set to reach a much wider global audience than they could have hoped with a comic book.

Now Disney has announced Kugali’s science fiction series Iwájú will debut globally in 2022 on Disney+ fast-growing streaming service.

Disney Animation studios described the move as the

Iwájú, a name that loosely translates to “the future” in Yoruba, a language spoken in West Africa, is set in Lagos and will explore a number of thematic concerns from class and innocence to challenging the status quo. The creators see it as an opportunity for Disney to tell a modern and authentic African story to the world using the entertainment behemoth’s animation and distribution prowess.

“Their talents blew us away. I’m proud to announce the first of its kind collaboration to bring original long for series to Disney+,” Disney Animation studios’ chief creative officer, Jennifer Lee, said of Kugali while speaking at Disney’s investor day this week.

Disney used the investor day to unveil several major announcements extensions to its storied franchises including Star Wars and for its Marvel characters. The world’s largest entertainment company has been under pressure to expand and boost its range of content as it doubles down with its Disney + platform to compete in the so-called streaming wars with Netflix and more recently HBO in the US and globally.

Disney+ has grown rapidly since debuting in November 2019 and now has 86 million subscribers globally, compared with Netflix’s  near 200 million subscribers as of the third quarter, built over 13 years.  Disney projects it will have 230 million to 260 million subscribers by the end of its fiscal year 2024 which is a huge jump from its initial projections in 2019 of 60 million to 90 million subscribers.

While Disney has had huge success with Africa-influenced tentpoles including Marvel’s Black Panther and Lion King it has no established track record of working with African creatives but it has started to move in that direction. In September, Disney Studios collaborated with Nigeria’s cinema chain FilmOne Entertainment to distribute Disney-owned films in English-speaking West Africa.

Netflix, which is much further along in working with African creatives in Nigeria’s Nollywood and South Africa’s TV and film industry, has become increasingly influential on the continent as it rolls out original shows produced by local talent, producers and executives including Queen Sono and Blood and Water and movies including Lionheart.

Africa’s animation film sector is growing rapidly with young talented animators and local collaborators create new, mostly short, features. This month saw the unveiling of Nigeria’s first animated full-lenght feature film titled Lady Buckit and the Motley Mopsters.

Last year, Netflix revealed it had partnered with Cape Town-based animation studios Triggerfish for a new series called Mama K’s Team 4, the story of an all girl-team of African spies, who also happen to be four normal Zambian teens by day.

As a young girl, Oyinda Janet Oreoluwa Akinfenwa nurtured the dreams of being a lawyer and pursued a law degree at Afe Babalola University. Naturally an introvert, she enjoys making clothes as it is her safe space.

In 2017, she made a top out of her mom’s scarf, and three years down the line, her own clothing brand, JANORE, is best known for making clothes that can be styled in different ways.

The young Nigerian, who is currently at the Nigerian law school, is pursuing her dreams to be a designer alongside her law school. She aspires to break into the international fashion scene one day and have one of her pieces on the red carpet.

She came up with her brand name JANORE by combining her two middle names and has been sewing for the last three years with much success. She did not have a clear business plan but went with the flow and now she has sold some of her works in over five different countries.

“Well, I started with what I had, and I just went for it,” she told Face2Face Africa. “The first top I made was from my mum’s scarf and then from her other clothes. Then I went into smaller materials, eventually, I bought more as I kept going.”

The 22-year-old is from a family of six and the last of her siblings. She lives and operates her fashion brand in Ibadan without getting any formal training in sewing.

“I didn’t particularly learn how to at first, it just seemed like something I could do all of a sudden,” she said. “I tried to learn the basics of sewing and cutting from a fashion designer for about a month which further helped me understand my skills better and also helped me improve but for most part, I’m self-taught.”

Akinfenwa enjoys making clothes and modeling her works and these have helped her get more creative. Her personal style has evolved along the line, she said.

She, however, does not recollect how she came about making clothes that can be styled in different ways. “It just sort of happened”, she said, adding that inspiration pours through everything around her. To date, every single design she makes requires a certain level of attention and precision.

There have been times when she has had to abandon the designs all together because they did not come out perfectly.

To her, what people wear matter a lot because it gives them so much confidence and she wants to play a part in ensuring people feel their best when they step out every day.

Currently, Akinfenwa works on the designs alone but with the influx of orders, she has a small group of people helping her to complete her orders in time for delivery.

Her biggest setback, however, is not having the luxury of time to indulge fully in JANORE because of school and certain restrictions that come with living with your parents as an African child.

She however wants to expand her brand after law school. “In next five years, I see my brand as a top go-to brand for fashion items because I plan to branch into men’s wear and over 50 branches in different parts of the world.”

The support from family, friends and social media has been overwhelming since she posted her first work on her page.

People are always waiting for the ‘right time’ to pursue their dreams but Akinfenwa believes otherwise. “You should start from where you are no matter how little or silly your ideas seem initially. You would grow, and you would be surprised with how great you can get if you keep going.

“Also, do not be afraid to break some rules along the way especially if you are a creative because there is no one way to do anything. So do your thing and do not be discouraged. Turn a blind eye to negativity because it does not help anyone. Just do you,” she told

In 2009, a newlywed Jackie Aina was a military reservist in Hawaii who was bored sick and unhappy in her marriage. She quit college after two years to enlist in the military seeking new adventures. YouTube was gaining popularity at the time and Aina whiled away her boredom watching beauty vloggers. Little did she know that a little over a decade down the line, she will be one of the most sought-after beauty influencers on YouTube.

Aina has over 3.5 million subscribers on YouTube and she was the first YouTuber of color to garner over a million subscribers. What makes her stand out among other bloggers is her authenticity and advocacy for diversity in the beauty industry.

In the first video that made the certified cosmetologist go viral, she did not demonstrate her makeup prowess but let her personality pour through the screens, doing all the behind the scenes goofiness on screen. It was the end of 2014, and she did a video titled, “Makeup Trends We’re Ditching in 2015” which got over 5 million views and put her on the map.

The Nigerian-American beauty influencer has always had a knack for fashion and beauty. Her parents immigrated from Nigeria to the United States to pursue their own American dream. She was born in California’s San Gabriel Valley and the eldest of seven children: three brothers and three sisters.

“We got kicked out of a shelter, we couldn’t get to another one quick enough. And when you’re a mom of seven? It’s not easy.”

Her family struggled in the beginning especially after her parents divorced compelling them to live in shelters on three different occasions. She told Buzzfeed that she grew up with nothing; she built everything from the ground up.

Fashion was her first love because her mom would always make their clothes for them but then she also enjoyed applying makeup on her siblings whenever she got the chance to.

When her friend convinced her to start her own YouTube channel, she was hesitant because at the time there were not many African Americans in that sector.

Aina worked at MAC Cosmetics selling makeup in Hawaii. It was around that time that a 21-year-old Aina got divorced. According to her, the lack of options for people of color was so glaring. She always wanted to try new trends or learn how to do them on people with darker skin tones, but the most frequent answer was, “the trends she wanted to try wouldn’t work for her complexion.”

That was the last straw for her and eventually, she launched her channel in 2009. She made it her mission to bring diversity to the screens of her then small viewers by sharing her interests and favorite trends with people who could relate to her. At the time, she did not even know she was leading the charge to bring a much-needed representation in the beauty industry.

In recent years, she has had major collaborations with big beauty brands like Too Faced helping them to expand their foundations to include 11 new shades that work well on darker skin tones.

This paid off because, in January 2018, she was the very first person to win the YouTuber of the Year award at the NAACP’s annual Image Awards.

The award celebrated her advocacy for people of color, how she willingly shares beauty tips and techniques for people of all skin tones and the way she uses her platform to call on big beauty brands to be more inclusive with their products.

During the coronavirus pandemic, Aina once more pushed the boundaries and dared to dream a little bigger by venturing into lifestyle with the launch of her lifestyle brand FORVR Mood, which sells a variety of home products. FORVR Mood launched in August this year and the company retails silk headbands and pillowcases, with her scented candles selling fast.

“Starting a business in general is something that poses a lot of challenges but launching one throughout a pandemic was something we never prepared for,” Aina said.

“My mom’s generation has never even experienced something like this, let alone mine. So just being able to do that and do it successfully has made me so proud.”

She has not fully abandoned her makeup career as it fetches her some good income now that YouTube has been monetized. The 33-year-old still shoots and edits her own videos and comes up with original content on her own.

“My career is full of unexpected twists and turns,” Aina told Insider. “But to be honest with you, I feel like that’s been the beauty of it. I’ve always been ready to take on a challenge, and I’m always ready to take risks.”

Although the beauty industry seems saturated, Aina advises anyone who wants to venture into the field to go for it. She believes competition should never stop anyone from pursuing their dreams.

“Even though we’re all basically doing the same thing, we’re all saying it in a different voice,” she said.

“We’re all offering our own individual perspectives, our own takes, our own humor, our own personalities, and those things matter. That’s what people are looking for.”

President-elect Joe Biden's incoming economic team unveiled Tuesday pledged to take urgent action as soon as they are sworn in to correct an economy struggling from the global coronavirus pandemic.

Speaking in Wilmington alongside Biden, Treasury Secretary Nominee Janet Yellen described the economic crisis brought on by the COVID pandemic as an "American tragedy" and warned that without quick action to address it, the damage will get worse.

Yellen spoke about the "historic crises" of the pandemic and the economic fallout resulting from it, as well as the "disproportionate impact" it's had on "the most vulnerable among us."

Talking about the pandemic that has cost 268,000 American lives, Yellen referenced the "lost lives, lost jobs" and struggles Americans face "to put food on the table and pay bills and rent."

She went on to say that "it's essential that we move with urgency" because "inaction will produce a self-reinforcing downturn causing yet more devastation." She pledged to Americans that the Treasury would be "an institution that wakes up every morning thinking about you."

In Biden’s team is Nigerian-born Adewale Adeyemo, who would serve as the new Deputy Treasury Secretary. Adeyemo will work with Janet Yellen, the nominee for Treasury Secretary. He'd be the first Black person to serve in the role.

"The challenges before us today are unlike anything we have ever faced", Adewale, better known as Wally Adeyemo told the audience.

"... I know that what the President-elect so often reminds us of is true. The American people can do anything when given a chance. And I'm honored to be a part of this talented team and to work with them and all the American people to build an economy that gives everyone that chance and turns our nation once again from crisis to hope. " he added.

Moments after, Biden's choice to run the White House budget office said social programs helped her family when she was a young girl being raised by a single mother in a Boston suburb and she pledged to promote those same programs when she's in office.

Neera Tanden said her mother faced hard choices after divorce left her to raise two young children. She said her family survived on food stamps and federal housing vouchers until her mother got a job and eventually bought a house.

Tanden said she wants to give people the same chance at a fair shot.

Tanden would help prepare Biden's federal budgets as director of the White House Office of Management and Budget. Word of her expected nomination has encountered early disapproval from some Republican senators who will vote on whether she becomes the first woman of Indian descent to lead the office.

The new administration would be sworn in on 20 January 2021.

A huge debate on the regulation of social media has come up recently, following recent chaos that came after the #ENDSARS protest. Once more, people are arguing whether social media spaces should remain avenues of free expression or whether it’s time for the government to step into this space. However, many have overlooked the more important question of why we need social media even in political turmoil.

For a movement which pulled as much weight as that of #ENDSARS, mainstream media was mostly ineffective in following it leading to social media being at the forefront of covering the movement. This raises the question of how important social media and freedom of expression have become to individual liberty. 

From a hashtag on Twitter, the movement grew with young people around the country sharing their stories of police brutality which led to the realization of the enormity of the problem and then to a call to action. While mainstream media was slowly catching up to the magnitude of this movement, social media users made it trend and also ensured it attracted an audience both locally and internationally, drawing attention to the plight of young Nigerians. 

The human rights abuses against protesters were mostly documented by private individuals and shared on social media. Many of these events were not covered by mainstream media. The live video of the Lekki Massacre which was watched by over 150,000 people serves as infallible proof of the event which has otherwise been consistently denied. Despite the fact that the chaos that ensued cannot be directly blamed on social media interactions, social media has become the scapegoat in Nigerians’ quest for a return to sanity and safety. 

This important help social media provided comes barely a year after the uproar surrounding the social media bill and reaffirms why the bill had to be resisted and why any attempt to bring it up again must be vociferously challenged. The question of whether the movement would have gathered as much traction as it did or whether the human rights violations committed during this period would have been covered up if social media was being regulated by the government now has a clear answer.  

The government’s obvious attempts at covering up these events—the denials, terming it fake news, the persecution of protesters—freezing of their bank accounts, terming them threats to the nation and the fact that many of the key figures in the protests have had to flee the country for their lives is proof that we can’t trust this same government with control over what we can and cannot share on social media.

One may be tempted to acquiesce to some sort of regulation to prevent fake news or hate speech especially in these volatile times, however, a clampdown on free speech doesn’t always end at the extremities regulators claim they’re trying to prevent. A good example is the cancel culture that’s slowly growing around the world and on social media. At first, it started with hate and violent speech but has moved on to target conspiracy theories and speech deemed politically and socially incorrect or offensive.

The media has always been at the forefront of the struggle for liberty in whatever form it has taken over the years. There is no doubt that social media is a new and powerful tool for advocating freedom and if we are to diligently guard our liberty, we must also diligently guard freedom of expression and in particular, our freedom to use social media even for those whose words we dislike. We mustn’t forget so soon after, the role social media has played in exposing the failures of the government.

Even though things might be scary in these times, Nigerians should be careful of making the very common mistake of trading safety for freedom. While the government taking charge might give a facade of calm and sanity, greater dangers to liberty and even safety can arise from there.

Nigerian startup Autochek is aiming at playing a pioneering role in building a digital infrastructure to coordinate the sales, servicing and vehicle records of the auto market in Africa.
“We’re basically focused on technology solutions to build the rails of [Africa’s] automotive sector to run on. We’re focusing on three foundations of the market: transactions and trading, maintenance, and financing,” Autochek CEO Etop Ikpe told.

It’s different in the type of technology we’re building and that it’s asset-light. I don’t have any inventory. I don’t buy cars. I don’t transact any [physical] cars. I don’t own any inspection locations. I don’t own any dealerships,” he said.

Autochek this month raised a $3.4 million pre-seed round co-led by TLcom Capital and 4DX ventures in a bid to digitize Africa’s automotive sector. It plans to use the fund to expand its operations and geographic scope. 

Autocheck has over 20,000 unique vehicles as well as more than 12,000 dealers and private sellers. Currently, it operates only in Nigeria and Ghana. It is planning to start operations in Ivory Coast, Senegal, South Africa, Kenya, Egypt and Algeria.

“Acquisitions are going to be a core part of our expansion strategy,” said Ikpe. Also, the startup is exploring to add associated auto-related services, such as insurance and blue book pricing products.

A member of the United Kingdom Parliament, Tom Tugendhat, on Monday accused former Nigerian head of state Lt Col Yakubu Gowon of “stealing half of Nigeria’s Central Bank”, a claim the latter has denied.

Tugendhat was speaking during a parliamentary debate on EndSARS, which centered on whether the UK government should impose sanctions on Nigeria following the protests against police brutality that reportedly resulted in the deaths of some participants.

The Conservative MP Tugendhat while accusing Nigerian leaders of corruption said: “Some people will remember when General Gowon left Nigeria with half the Central Bank of Nigeria, so it is said, and moved to London.”

“We know that today, even now, in this great city of ours, there are, sadly, some people who have taken from the Nigerian people and hidden their ill-gotten gains here.”

“We know that our banks, sadly, have been used for that profit and for that illegal transfer of assets. And that means the UK is in enormous unique position in being able to do actually something to really exert pressure on those who have robbed the Nigerian people,” the MP said in the UK parliament.

But in an interview with the BBC, Gowon said the UK MP’s claims are baseless. “I don’t know where he got that rubbish from, I served Nigeria diligently and my records are there for all to see,” he said.

Gowon was Nigeria’s Head of State from 1966 to 1975. He was attending an Organisation of African Unity (OAU) summit in Kampala, Uganda, when he was told he had been overthrown in a coup back home by a group of army officers on July 29, 1975.

Gowon, who also came to power via a coup and played a key role in preventing the Biafran secession, fled into exile in the United Kingdom afterward.

Poor African countries have trillions of dollars stacked up in European banks and in United States’ institutions by African despots with limited knowledge of their existence. These monies were stolen by leaders whose greed got them to deny their people the basic necessities of life while they enrich themselves and their families.

One of such leaders is Nigerian despot, Sani Abacha, who is believed to have stolen over $5 billion and kept them in banks abroad. His criminal ways were uncovered after his death in 1998 and the country is fighting to recover the few monies they are aware of.

In 2004, Abacha was ranked as the fourth most corrupt leader in history. Together with his National Security Adviser Alhaji Ismaila Gwarzo, they made false funding requests which they approved. The funds would then be transferred to the Central Bank of Nigeria before laundering them to offshore accounts.

Growing up, many of us had childhood ambitions but some of them changed along the way. That is not the case with Fadji Zaouna Maina, the first Nigerien scientist to work for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). She has had ambitions of alleviating water problems in her hometown since age 10. Now, she gets to tackle the world’s water crises with data from NASA.

The 29-year-old hydrologist from Zinder, Niger, joined NASA on August 27, amid congratulatory messages from Niger’s president and first lady and other high-profile members of her community. Nigerien President Mahamadou Issoufou referred to her as “a national pride, and a role model for the youth of Niger”.

Her response to the president was befitting and it summarised her entire journey. “I pushed the boundaries, I made it possible and I made a whole country proud,” she said. “The chances for a girl like me, born and raised in Zinder (Niger), to become a scientist at a well-known institution like NASA are almost zero.”

She acknowledges the fact that the water crisis in Niger is deteriorating due to climate change. As a girl child in Zinder, having tap water in her home gave her an edge over other children, especially girls who had to go in search of water from the lake or buy from neighbors.

“People think that the boys should go to school or go to work and the girls should find water and come back [to do] cooking and cleaning,” Maina told Share America in an interview in September.

“[Girls] don’t have time to go to school,” she said. “Girls’ education is one more problem that comes from climate change — I have seen that.”

This situation fuels her ambition to succeed and she is giving it her all.

“I have a responsibility on my shoulders because I believe I need to show the face of my country,” Maina said. “It’s like changing the image of Nigeriens and changing the image of the women generally.”

Maina, at age 16, completed her secondary education, having been skipped several times ahead of her peers. She has been an advocate for education and girl child empowerment since she was a teenager, and, at one point, served as a junior deputy in Niger’s National Youth Assembly.

Maina went to The University of Fes in Morocco to pursue a degree in geological engineering. She then proceeded to the University of Strasbourg for her master’s in engineering and environmental sciences.

In 2016, she earned her Ph.D. in Hydrology from the University of Strasbourg, a field she chose in order “to participate in improving the conditions of access to drinking water in Niger,” according to The Africa report.

On a quest to find tangible solutions to the global water crisis, Maina worked in highly acclaimed laboratories such as the French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission (CEA) before joining the Energy Geosciences Division of the University of Berkeley in the United States.

It was her work at Berkeley that caught the attention of Forbes, earning her a spot on the Forbes’ 30 Under 30 2020 Science.

Later, she saw a job opening online at NASA and went for it. Today, she works as a computational hydrologist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center where she uses mathematical models and remote-sensing products to study the impact of climate change on water, according to the Nigerien US embassy.

“I will try to better understand the water cycle and the evolution of water resources in the context of climate change by using mathematical models and data from NASA satellites,” Maina explained.

She continues to support girl child education and the emancipation of women in Niger. The young female scientist also advises young girls who aspire to be like her to keep pushing.

“I will say to them to not give up to keep going because everyone would think people from Niger, or a young girl from Niger, would not be able to do this. But just believe in yourself and find an environment that will support you,” she told.

From next year, officials in Nigeria and the British Museum will take part in an archaeological dig to look for royal treasures in the former African kingdom of Benin. The excavation, described as the “most extensive ever undertaken” in Benin City, will begin at a site adjacent to the palace of the Oba, Benin’s traditional ruler, AFP reported.
Nigeria has said it will build a new museum at that site to exhibit looted Benin Bronzes currently displayed in American and European museums. The 10,000-square-foot museum — the Edo Museum of West African Art –is being designed by the trailblazing Ghanaian-British architect, David Adjaye and is due to open in Benin City in four years.

Benin City was the capital of Benin Kingdom, one of the most highly developed states in Africa, when it was ransacked and burnt down in 1897 by British forces. Its destruction in what became known as the Benin Expedition of 1897 led to the fall of the once successful and well-recognized Benin Kingdom located in what is now southern Nigeria.

The Central Bank of Nigeria has been forced to backtrack in its attempts to boost local milk production by restricting access to foreign exchange, but efforts to cut down Nigeria’s dependence on imports continue. Kelechukwu Iruoma reports from Lagos

In July 2019, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) included milk and dairy products on its list of items not eligible for foreign exchange (FX), leading to the restriction of milk imports into the country. 

The decision banned commercial banks and other authorised dealers from accepting Form M – a mandatory document to monitor goods that are imported into the country – for milk and dairy products. This meant that milk importers would be forced to resort to the more highly priced parallel market to obtain foreign exchange, making importation more expensive.

In a statement, the CBN’s director of communications, Isaac Okorafor, stressed that the bank was not banning milk importation but that the FX restrictions were necessary to encourage local production.

The CBN’s list of items not eligible for foreign exchange was introduced in 2015 in  support of Nigeria’s policy of “backward integration” – a form of import substitution aimed at conserving foreign exchange and creating jobs. Milk now joined commodities such as rice, tomatoes and starch on the list.

Okorafor said that Nigeria had been heavily dependent on milk imports for over 60 years and there was a need to channel energy and funds into improving and increasing local production. Nigeria spends between $1.2bn and $1.5bn a year on milk imports.

He stated that the bank had approached milk importers and asked them to take advantage of the CBN’s low-interest loans to begin local milk production, but that although there had been some successes the vast majority of importers had continued to treat this “national aspiration” with “imperial contempt”.

At the same time, he stressed that the bank was “ready and able to provide the needed finance to enable investors who genuinely want to engage in milk production”.

“That is a very high import product into the country, given that it is a product that we are convinced can be produced in Nigeria,” CBN governor Godwin Emiefele told journalists after the announcement of restrictions.

Prices spike at market

Yet the decision by the CBN led to shortfalls in milk production and an increase in the prices of dairy products across the country. Milk sellers at markets in Lagos complained of scarcity and an increase in prices.

“Milk became scarce and the prices went up,” says Chinwe Amadi, a milk wholesaler at the popular Balogun market in Lagos. “The Marvel milk we had, we used to sell between N11,000 [$29] to N13,000 for the small [wholesale] size. Then we started to sell N15,000 per carton. The big size of it, we used to sell N20,000 but we started selling N25,000 per carton.”

Despite the potential for producing milk in large quantities, Nigeria’s domestic production does not meet consumer demand. Nigeria’s annual milk production is estimated at 500,000 tonnes while the annual local demand for milk stands at an average of 1.7m tonnes, with the shortfall imported into the country.

Nigeria’s cattle rearing sector has met with numerous challenges including a lack of feed, water, and poor rearing techniques. Desertification in the north as a result of climate change has led to cattle and herders travelling far south for grazing and given rise to conflict with farmers. Meanwhile, outdated cattle rearing practices also lead to lower milk yields per cow, leading local manufacturers to resist sourcing raw milk locally.  

While the CBN has been keen to reduce currency outflows through milk importation, it was clear that the local market did not yet have the industrial capability to produce the quality and quantity of milk required domestically. As a result, the CBN started giving loans to cattle farmers to boost production.

“We are determined to make milk production in Nigeria a viable economic proposition. If you need a loan to acquire land, do artificial insemination, grow grass or even provide water, we will give to you,” Emiefele said on Twitter following the announcement of restrictions.

Sourcing locally 

The CBN has also led efforts to encourage foreign milk manufacturers to source produce in Nigeria. Milk manufacturers including FrieslandCampina WAMCO Nigeria; Chi, and TG Arla Dairy Products have started to engage with state governments and local cattle farmers to partner with them to source milk locally for production.

In September 2019, the Kaduna state government signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Arla Foods International, a Denmark-based milk production company, to source milk locally from its cattle farmers. Now operational, the aim of the project is to create 50,000 jobs. Governor Nasir el-Rufai of Kaduna said the investment in the livestock sector would help to increase production among nomadic herdsmen.

“Our hope is that what we started with Arla leads to the development of the grazing reserve in Kubau local government; and we want to develop jointly with them. [We] will show the itinerant nomadic herdsmen that it is possible to engage in modern livestock production without having to go up and down the country,” he said.

In November 2019, the Niger State government signed an MOU with FrieslandCampina WAMCO Nigeria to provide 10,000 hectares of land at the Bobi Grazing Reserve for milk production.

Policy failure?

Despite the deals, progress has been slow. The challenge of meeting targets by local farmers – who lack the equipment and expertise of industrial-scale foreign producers despite CBN support – and the unwillingness of milk manufacturers to source milk from local production led to the lifting of restrictions for some companies by the CBN in February 2020.  

The CBN asked commercial banks to start accepting Form M again from Nestlé Nigeria, FrieslandCampina, HBC Chi, Promasidor Nigeria, TG Arla Dairy Products and Integrated Dairies Limited.

The bank stated that the decision to lift the ban was due to the failure of its efforts at stimulating the local production of milk. Despite the failure to reach its ambitious target, efforts continue. It said that the aim was to increase milk production in the country to 550,000 tonnes within the next 12 months.

Citizens have been left frustrated by the experiment with backward integration. Though there is again enough milk supply in the country, prices continue to rise, said Jane Frances Onuoha, a young Nigerian citizen. 

“It is devastating that the price of milk in Nigeria is increasing on a daily basis,” she lamented. “Milk is one of the essential dairy products and it should not be expensive. We have a lot of cattle in Nigeria. So why should the price of milk always increase?”