Memo to the Committee on Review of Nigeria’s Economic Reforms
By Marcel Okeke Barely ten months to the end of the 48-month first-term tenure of the President Bola Ahmed Tinubu administration, the Government on Tuesday, July 14, 2026 set up…
Author: Marcel Okeke
The author, Okeke, a practicing Economist, Business Strategist, Sustainability expert and ex-Chief Economist of Zenith Bank Plc, lives in Lekki, Lagos. He can be reached via: obioraokeke2000@yahoo.com (08033075697) SMS only
The Nigerian Exchange (NGX): Is the ‘Bubble’ About to Burst?
By: Marcel Okeke The significant drop in foreign participation on the Nigerian Exchange Limited (NGX) in the last couple of months in the first half 2026 rightly prompts the question…
Nigerian Economy 2026: A Mid-Term Review and Commentary
By Marcel Okeke All of a ‘sudden’, the first six months of year 2026 is gone, marked by the good, the bad, and the ugly. With respect to the Nigerian…
Price Control or Forced Prices: Government’s ‘War’ Against Cement Manufacturers
By Marcel Okeke The Federal Government of Nigeria (FGN’s) anti-private-sector operations came to a climax recently when the Minister of Works, David Umahi, told cement manufacturers in the country that…
The CBN’s Exposure Draft on Holding Companies of Banks: Matters Arising
By Marcel Okeke A seemingly innocuous document—an exposure draft—recently issued by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) on the new structure and operations of holding companies of banks, is already…
Economic Reforms: Time to Move from Celebrating Statistics to Gauging Impact
By Marcel Okeke These days, the media space in Nigeria is saturated with economic statistics showing that the country has literally arrived at its Eldorado, economically. Surprisingly, the figures being…
The Pros and Cons of Nigeria’s $10bn Surge in Capital Importation
By Marcel Okeke In the past couple of days, Nigeria’s news media have been inundated with a story saying that capital importation into Nigeria in the first quarter 2026 stood…
Nigeria: Stifling Local Refining Through Intrigues and Policy Somersaults
By Marcel Okeke What has been happening in the downstream sector, and particularly the refining sub-sector, of the Nigerian oil and gas industry in the past couple of years is…
Nigeria: Whither the Fruits of 2026 Crude Oil Windfall?
By Marcel Okeke It’s really a serious irony that at a time that Nigeria is expected to be literally swimming in the ocean of humongous unplanned foreign exchange (FX) inflow,…
May Day 2026 and President Tinubu’s National Emergencies
By Marcel Okeke The similarity between the highlights of the International Labor Organization (ILO’s) May Day 2026 message and the focus of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s Workers’ Day address is…
Are Nigeria’s Economic Reforms Building Stock Market Bubble?
By Marcel Okeke In the past couple of years, as Nigeria’s economic reforms have kept toughening the investment climate, most discerning investors have taken a ‘flight to safety’. This, they…
Nigeria: A Return to Post-Fuel Subsidy Removal Contingencies and Palliatives?
By Marcel Okeke Today, it is obvious that the state of the Nigerian economy is, in almost all respects, the same as the immediate post-fuel subsidy removal time in the…
UK’s Coventry University: The Panacea to Nigeria’s Crashing Higher Education?
By Marcel Okeke One of the highlights of the ‘gains’ of President Bola Ahmed Tiubu’s recent state visit to the United Kingdom (UK) was the signing of a Memorandum of…
Why Recapitalized Banks May Not Boost Nigeria’s Economy
By Marcel Okeke It is really worth celebrating that the bank recapitalization exercise of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) came to a successful conclusion on March 31, 2026, twenty-four…
Is Nigeria a Pariah Economy to Foreign Investors?
By Marcel Okeke The above headline is necessitated by the continuing diminishing foreign direct investments (FDIs) inflow into Nigeria in the past couple of years, in spite of the ‘booming’…
Soaring Petrol Prices as Nigerian Economy’s Death Knell
By Marcel Okeke Within a space of three weeks, the price of Premium Motor Spirit (PMS) or petrol has almost doubled; rising from below N800 per liter (at the pump)…
Nigeria’s Oil Reform Taskforce: Unsolicited Memo from Concerned Nigerian
By Marcel Okeke It remains undisputable that Nigeria is a mono-product economy; having crude oil (and some gas) as the mainstay of its economy for several decades. Consequently, the fate…
Nigeria’s 2026 Economic Outlook: Back to the Drawing Board
By Marcel Okeke The palpable optimism that hallmarked practically all the analyses and projections about Nigeria’s economic outlook for this year has effectively been shattered by developments in the local…
Middle East Crisis: Is Nigeria Ready for Another Crude Oil Windfall?
By Marcel Okeke While the entire world remains on edge following the United States of America-Israel military strike on Iran last weekend, one of the upshots of the incident has…
Has Budget Failures Become a Hallmark of Tinubu’s Renewed Hope Agenda?
By Marcel Okeke Without any technical jargons or the blame games currently ongoing in the Presidency and topmost echelon of the officialdom, the stark reality is that the President Bola…
Nigeria’s Declining Oil Output and Soaring Foreign Portfolio Investment Inflow
By Marcel Okeke It is most intriguing that at a time Nigeria’s capital importation (hence, external reserves) is rising in leaps and bounds, the country’s crude oil production (output) remains…
National Assets’ Sale: Another of Nigeria’s Deferred Hope Agenda?
By Marcel Okeke For the umpteenth time, successive governments in Nigeria, including the sitting Bola Ahmed Tinubu administration, have flaunted proposals to sale some of the nation’s ‘rotting’ assets in…
Are CBN Policies Crippling Banks, Private Businesses in Nigeria?
By Marcel Okeke The popular idiom: “The chicken has come home to roost,” seems to be playing out in the Nigerian financial services industry where the policies of the Central…
Nigerian Economy: After Stabilization, Whither the Path to Development?
By Marcel Okeke Claims about the stabilization of the Nigerian economy have been made ad nauseam (to an excessive degree) since mid-2025; meaning that hitherto, it had remained fragile and…
Nigeria’s New Tax Regime: A Counterpoise to Cashless Economy and Financial Inclusion?
By Marcel Okeke For upwards of a decade-and-half, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has been implementing the financial inclusion and cashless economy initiative. Introduced in 2011, the policy aimed…
WEF 2026: Lingering Investment Draught and ‘Nigeria House’ in Davos, Switzerland
By Marcel Okeke The Federal Government has announced the establishment of ‘Nigeria House’ in Davos during the 56th Annual Meeting of the World Economic Forum (WEF) 2026, scheduled to take…
New World Economic Order: Headwinds for Nigeria in 2026 and Beyond
By Marcel Okeke These are really uncertain times for all nations of the world; the emergence of Mr. Donald J. Trump as the 47th President of the United States of…
Nigeria’s 2026 Economic Outlook: So Foggy, So Cloudy, So Uncertain
By Marcel Okeke One of the crucial steps in strategic planning is an assessment of the current situation: to know exactly where you are; and take proper note of what…
Nigeria’s 2026 Budget: Another Ritual or Economic Plan?
By Marcel Okeke When, on Friday, December 19, 2025—twelve days to end of the year—President Bola Ahmed Tinubu presented the 2026 Appropriation Bill to a joint session of the National…
President Tinubu, Minister Wale Edun and Nigeria’s Fiscal Profile: The Truth and the Lies
By Marcel Okeke The truth, they say, is constant: in the face of outright falsehood, half-truths, propaganda and prevarications, the truth will always stand out. This is why a country…
PEBEC and Nigeria’s Business Climate Competitiveness Awards: What Message?
By Marcel Okeke On Tuesday, December 2, 2025, a body known as the Presidential Enabling Business Environment Council (PEBEC) held its 2025 Awards and Gala Night at the State House…
Tight Monetary Stance: Is the CBN Not Stifling the Economy?
By Marcel Okeke The decision of the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) after its meeting on Tuesday, November 25, 2025, to retain the benchmark…
Nigeria: The Ramifications and Brunt of Insecurity and Uncertainty
By Marcel Okeke If the heightened insecurity in Nigeria has led to anything in recent times, it is the spreading and deepening of uncertainty in the polity. This trend assumed…
Tax Policy Swings: Whither Nigeria?
By Marcel Okeke The number and variety of taxes proposed, or already imposed by the President Bola Ahmed Tinubu administration in its 30-month of existence have begun to generate a…
Donald Trump’s Threat: What Collateral Damage to Nigerian Economy?
By Marcel Okeke Since Friday, October 31, 2025, when President Donald Trump of the United States of America designated Nigeria as a Country of Particular Concern (CPC), there has been…
Nigeria’s Life Expectancy as World’s Lowest
By Marcel Okeke A very noxious and worrisome media report about Nigeria came into public space recently, but appeared overshadowed and subdued by a deluge of other news and information…
Is Nigeria’s Exit from FATF’s Grey List Final?
By Marcel Okeke Palpable jubilation has been going on in Nigeria, especially in the officialdom and the financial sector in the past few days owing to the country’s removal from…
Nigeria’s Poor Ranking on Global Poverty, Hunger Scale
By Marcel Okeke In what looks like an irony, Nigeria is being ranked among countries with the largest number of hungry and poor people in the world at a time…
Economic Outlook: Nigeria’s Optimism Vs World Bank’s Pessimism
By Marcel Okeke About 30 months into President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s 48-month tenure, one of the Bretton Woods institutions—The World Bank—has begun to sing discordant tunes with Nigeria in respect…
Nigeria @ 65: How Near is the Economic Eldorado?
By Marcel Okeke The speech by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu on the 65th independence anniversary of Nigeria, October 1, 2025 would seem to have presented to Nigerians a picture of…
The Nigerian Exchange and Illusion of Progress
By Marcel Okeke The title of this piece is motivated by another article captioned: “MTN and the Illusion of Progress,” which I found in one WhatsApp platform, written by Chief…
Nigeria’s Economic Stability: Disinformation as Enlightenment?
By Marcel Okeke It looked very bizarre, that on September 3, 2025 when the leadership of the Buhari Organization visited President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, he opted to use the occasion…
Nigeria: From Fuel Subsidy to Petrol Tax
By Marcel Okeke Nigeria has really turned a full circle in so short a time: from the government paying heavy subsidy on fuel (premium motor spirit, PMS) consumption to Nigerians…
Nigeria: Any Hope in Renewed Hope Economic Blueprint?
By Marcel Okeke Well over two years into its four-year tenure, the President Bola Ahmed Tinubu-led Federal Government of Nigeria (FGN) seems to be making moves to take the critical…
Reforms: Is Nigeria Customs Courting Another Economic Crisis?
By Marcel Okeke In the name of reforms, the Nigerian economy has been taken through all manner of ‘trial-and-error’ initiatives in the past two years of the President Bola Ahmed…
Reviewing Nigeria’s Revenue Sharing Formula: Another Planning without Facts?
By Marcel Okeke Nearly sixty years ago, a book titled: “Planning without Facts: Lessons in Resource Allocation from Nigeria’s Development” was written by Wolfgang F. Stolper, with contributions from Nicholas…
The Persisting Dearth of FDI in Nigeria and its Implications
By Marcel Okeke Nigeria recorded the highest quarterly capital importation of US$5.6 billion since 2020 during the first quarter 2025, according to the latest report of the National Bureau of…
Nigeria: It’s Time to Dispose of Decrepit, Bankrupt Refineries
By Marcel Okeke “Port-Harcourt Refinery Not for Sale”: This headline of a story published recently in a number of online and offline media, shocked the vast majority of Nigerians to…
Rebased Economy: Nigeria’s Gains, Losses and Fresh Challenges
By Marcel Okeke The Federal Government of Nigeria (FGN) has, through the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), rebased the economy after over a decade when the last rebasing exercise was…
Tight Monetary Policy: A Choke on Nigerian Economy?
By Marcel Okeke To the utter disappointment and shock of most businesses, analysts and ardent observers of the Nigerian economy, the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) of the Central Bank of…