ECONOMIC ENPOWERMENT IN NIGERIA

Subscribe Log in or register Manage subscription Search You are seeing the beta version of Economist.com Need assistance with your subscription? Dollar desert Nigeria’s foreign-currency shortage Despite a float of the naira, it is hard to change money Print edition | Middle East and Africa Feb 2nd 2017 | LAGOS DURING Muhammadu Buhari’s stint as military ruler of Nigeria in the 1980s, Fela Kuti, a well-known Afrobeat musician, was locked up for the offence of possessing foreign currency, to the tune of £1,600. More than three decades later Mr Buhari is back in office, elected this time, and the issue of who gets access to foreign currency, and what they can do with it, remains as contentious as ever in Nigeria. Last November officers of the State Security Service (SSS), the main domestic intelligence agency, arrested money-changers in cities across the country, in what was seen as a response to the tanking...

The demand for Nigerian debt Nigerian bonds are proving hugely popular with investors The Economist explains Mar 20th 2017 by M.F. NIGERIA’S economy shrank by 1.5% in 2016, its first annual contraction in 25 years. The president, Muhammadu Buhari (pictured, left), recently spent six weeks seeking medical treatment in London. And the country continues to be roiled by Boko Haram jihadists in the north-east and by unrelated militants’ attacks on oil facilities in the Niger delta. Yet investors don’t seem to mind: last month Nigeria issued a 15-year, $1bn eurobond—a bond in a currency other than that of the country issuing it—that was eight times oversubscribed. A second issuance is expected, possibly this month. It will probably be met with similar enthusiasm. What makes investing in Nigeria so attractive? Nigeria is benefiting from pent-up demand for African sovereign debt. Emerging markets started last year on a very bad footing: depressed cu...