Business

Cardoso warns excess cash, 2027 election threaten Nigeria’s economic gains

Cardoso expressed the concern during the National Economic Council (NEC) Conference 2026 at the Presidential Villa, themed: “Delivering Inclusive Growth and Sustainable National Development: The Renewed Hope National Development Plan,” Cardoso addressed the “Fiscal and Monetary Outlook 2026–2030: Priorities and Imperatives” panel.

Published

5 months ago

February 10, 2026

OCHEFA

247 Views

Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Governor, Olayemi Cardoso, has warned that excess liquidity and the 2027 election cycle could threaten Nigeria’s hard-won economic stability, urging careful management to protect reforms that have strengthened the economy.

Cardoso said: “The cost of loose monetary policy accessibility, the cost of having to soak up all that liquidity was a problem.

Next slide and persistent inflation. Inflation has served the 34.6% dysfunctional FX market.

You all remember, there’s a huge backlog of over $7 billion and that the parallel market premium exceeded 16% loss of investor confidence.

Everybody took flights, nobody went to hold Naira, and it was a very desperate situation.h

Then, of course, there was direct intervention by the Central Bank, which reached an unprecedented level of 10.93 trillion Naira, which honestly was a huge problem.”

He noted that these interventions “provided short-term support, which many people would argue, but created long-term mandatory distortions, excess liquidity and increased cost of liquidity management.”

Cardoso outlined the three-pillar response that restored stability.

First, “a decisive monetary policy on V set NPR increased by a very aggressive 875 basis points to decisively tackle inflation. And of course, we move back to what we call orthodox monetary policy.

We phase out all quasi-fiscal development finance interventions to focus squarely on price stability, because without that, you have no growth, you have no investment, you have no growth.”

Second, he stressed the importance of transparency and market-driven reforms: “Engineering a market-driven ethics regime, which we’ve been talking about for a long time, unification and price discovery, clearing the FX backlog and institutionalised transparency, which, to my mind, is a very, very key ingredient of managing the FX market.”

Third, Cardoso highlighted fiscal coordination: “Enhanced fiscal coordination, adhering to statutory limits of deficit financing, good ways and means advances to the government, and we had to have a sharp decline in that, from 2.65% in 2023 to 0.69% in 2024.”

The results, he said, are evident across key economic indicators:

“Sustained GDP growth of 3.98%, strong current accounts, for a very long time we haven’t had that $3.42 billion surplus recorded in the third quarter of 2020, by a significant improvement, significant maturation, inflation at 15.15%, banking sector soundness, and growing external reserves of $49 billion as of February 5, 2026.”

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Business

BUA Group Denies Reports of Bid to Acquire Stake in Kano Pillars Football Club

Published

8 hours ago

June 30, 2026

Charles Flames

24 Views

BUA Group has firmly dismissed online reports claiming that the conglomerate and its Chairman, Abdul Samad Rabiu, submitted a bid to acquire a 70% stake in Kano Pillars Football Club.

In a press statement issued on Tuesday, the company described the publication as inaccurate and misleading.

PRESS STATEMENT

Re: False Claims of Bid to Acquire Stake in Kano Pillars Football Club

Our attention has been drawn to an online publication suggesting that BUA Group and its Chairman, Abdul Samad Rabiu, have submitted a bid to acquire a 70% stake in Kano Pillars Football Club.

We would like to clarify that this report is inaccurate and does not reflect any position, action, or communication from BUA Group or Abdul Samad Rabiu. No such bid has been made, and there has been no engagement with any party on this matter.

We kindly request that this report be disregarded, and we encourage the public and members of the press to rely only on official statements issued through BUA Group’s verified channels for accurate information regarding our activities.

We appreciate the continued interest in BUA Group and thank the public for their understanding.

BUA Group reiterated its commitment to transparency and urged stakeholders to verify information through its official communication channels.

Business

Nigeria’s oil minister orders marketers to reduce fuel price

“While we believe that market forces will eventually restore equilibrium, the regulator also has a statutory responsibility to ensure that deregulation does not become an avenue for profiteering. This must be done in line with the extant provisions of the Petroleum Industry Act,”said Lokpobiri.

Published

12 hours ago

June 30, 2026

OCHEFA

19 Views

The Minister of State for Petroleum Resources (Oil), Senator Heineken Lokpobiri, at the NMDPRA General Counsel and Legal Advisers Forum, directed petroleum marketers to reduce fuel price .

At the two-day forum themed: “Beyond Compliance: Driving Regulatory Certainty and Investment Confidence in Nigeria’s Petroleum Sector, Lokpobiri noted that refiners and marketers have continued to sell petrol at elevated pump prices despite the significant decline in crude oil prices from a peak of $120 per barrel to about $72 per barrel last week.

He said: “Following de-escalation of tensions between Iran and the United States, we expected to see a commensurate downward adjustment in the prices of PMS and other petroleum products.However, that has not yet happened.”