MARCH 01, 2024

President Bola Tinubu has commissioned the Red Line Rail Mass Transit project in Lagos State, marking a significant milestone in the city’s transportation landscape. The inauguration ceremony took place Thursday, where President Tinubu was welcomed by Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu, his wife, Ibijoke, the Deputy Governor, Obafemi Hazmat, state commissioners, and aides.

The Red Rail Line, spanning 37 km and boasting 13 stations, integrates major bus terminals at Oyingbo, Yaba, Oshodi, Ikeja, Ebute Metta, Iju, and Iddo, with a direct link to the international and domestic wings of the Murtala Muhammed Airport. Also, the project holds the capacity to transport an impressive 1.1 million people daily when fully operational.

In his address, President Tinubu shared insights into the transformative vision for Lagos. “My team and I toiled day and night to craft and implement a developmental vision that will transform Lagos into the economic powerhouse of Africa and a respected mega city on the global stage. We are realising that dream,” he said. “It is not a crime to dream big. Just stay focused and stay on course, particularly, make development the central fulcrum.”

Acknowledging the success of the Lagos Metropolitan Area Transport Authority (LAMATA), Tinubu praised the agency for its commitment and well-guided initiatives. “LAMATA has demonstrated that an agency can succeed and work for the people if guided with a vision and committed to a larger value. The history of Lagos will be written with you in gold,” he said.

Tinubu also highlighted the digital payment platform, a single unified system for ferry, rapid bus, and rail services. “Today, we are gathered for the inauguration of the second of the six rail lines planned as part of that launching, and I thank our political leaders present for believing in us and for lifting our spirits.”

Governor Sanwo-Olu, speaking at the launch, emphasized that the project aimed not only to enhance transit but also to reshape the urban landscape, setting a new pace for development. “The LMRT project is a beacon of progress, illuminating the path to a future where our city moves smoother, faster, and more efficiently,” he expressed.

“Embarking on the Lagos Mass Rail Transit (LMRT) project is more than just enhancing transit; it’s about weaving the fabric of our city into a tighter, more connected community,” Sanwo-Olu added. “Every track laid, every station built, brings us closer to a Lagos where distance no longer dictates destiny.”

Among the distinguished guests at the commissioning were Governors Usman Ododo (Kogi), Abiodun Oyebanji (Ekiti), Dapo Abiodun (Ogun), former Lagos Governor Akinwunmi Ambode, and other notable dignitaries.

MARCH 01, 2024

Nigeria and India are the countries that accounted for the most increase in student or sponsored study visas granted by the United Kingdom in five years, according to new official immigration data.

The data published by the British government on Thursday said the majority of the increase in main applicants between 2019 and 2023 were from Indian (+85,849) and Nigerian (+35,366) nationals.

“These same nationalities together accounted for 65 percent of all sponsored study visas issued to dependants in 2023 (compared with 29 percent in 2019),” the British government said on its website.

It said last year, there were 457,673 sponsored study visas granted to main applicants, five percent fewer than in 2022 but 70 percent higher than in 2019.

The immigration data also revealed that Indian (18,664), Nigerian (18,143) and Zimbabwean (15,279) nationals together represented almost six in 10 (58 percent) of visas granted to ‘Care workers and home carer’ occupations in 2023.

“Over half (51 percent) of grants for ‘Nurses’ were to Indian nationals with 11,322 grants, and Indian nationals represented just under a third (32 percent) of ‘Senior care workers’ with 5,301 grants,” it said.

Africa’s most populated nation has in recent years seen a mass exodus of talent, popularly called ‘japa’ (a Yoruba word for “run quickly”), due to high poverty, unemployment, insecurity and poor education.

Data from the National Bureau of Statistics shows that the country’s headline inflation rate for the 13th consecutive time in January to 29.90 percent from 28.92 percent in the previous month.

Food inflation which constitutes 50 percent of the inflation rate rose to 35.41 percent from 33.93 percent.

The World Bank’s latest Nigeria Development Update report revealed that rising inflation and sluggish growth in Africa’s biggest economy increased the number of poor people to 104 million in 2023 from 89.8 million at the start of the year.

The country’s unemployment rate also increased to 5.0 percent in the third quarter of 2023 from 4.2 percent in the previous quarter. It stood at 4.1 percent in Q1, down from 5.3 percent in Q4 of 2022.

The exodus of talent has led to the dearth of skilled workers in the key sectors.

“The finance and insurance, professional services, and IT sectors are expected to be hit the hardest. The migration of skilled workers could significantly impact the performance of these sectors and the overall economy,” a recent report by Phillips Consulting Limited said.

The report, which surveyed 1,054 Nigerian adults aged 18 or older between August 24 and September 3, 2022, showed that more than half of Nigerian highly skilled employees plan to quit their jobs and relocate abroad this year.

“Twenty-two percent plan to migrate abroad within the next two to three years, while 26 percent are still determining their plans or have no intention of relocating abroad,” it added.

Experts said apart from Nigeria’s high intellectual capabilities, other reasons why the UK is scouting for Nigerians are cheap labour, a large working population, high diaspora remittances and the withdrawal of the UK from the European Union.

British independent schools, especially private boarding ones, view Nigeria as an increasingly attractive market, according to Matthew Page, a non-resident scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

“Most of them warmly welcome Nigerian students and overwhelmingly see the students as better-than-average performers and net contributors,” he said in a recent article.

The UK, one of the most advanced economies in the world and top places to study, operates an immigration system underpinned by the principle of visa sponsorship.

The sponsor for immigration purposes is the educational institution where the student will study and the visa is issued for a particular course at the institution.

In 2019, the UK updated its International Education Strategy. The update reaffirmed the government’s goals of increasing the value of its education exports to £35 billion ($48 billion) and hosting at least 600,000 international students per year by 2030.

The strategy commits to previously established goals for foreign enrolment growth, which have been replaced by new immigration routes and work opportunities for foreign students. It intends to create clearer pathways to immigration.

Some of the ways in which this growth is to be achieved is the Graduate route, which was launched in July 2021. The route will allow eligible students to stay in the UK to work, or look for work, for two years (three years if studying at PhD level) after they have completed a degree in the UK. Others are high-potential individual visas, global talent visas and scale-up visas.

India, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, Vietnam, Nigeria, Brazil, Mexico, Pakistan, Europe, China, and Hong Kong are the markets spotlighted as priorities for the UK.

The minimum 600,000 target was achieved in 2021 as the total number of international students hit 605,130 and 679,970 in 2021 and 2022 respectively.

However the number of sponsored study visa holders and their dependents might decline in 2024 on the back of the UK’s recent visa policy restricting the number of families for international students due to an increase in net migration.

“Following a recent policy change, for courses starting on or after 1 January 2024, only research-based postgraduate students are now allowed to bring dependants (partners and children) to the UK,” the British government said.

Apart from dependents of students’ visas, the country announced a plan last December to slash migration levels and curb abuse of the immigration system, delivering the biggest-ever reduction in net migration.

“It is clear that net migration remains far too high. By leaving the European Union we gained control over who can come to the UK, but far more must be done to bring those numbers down so British workers are not undercut and our public services are put under less strain,” James Cleverly, UK’s home secretary said in a statement.

He added that the plan will deliver the biggest-ever reduction in net migration and will mean around 300,000 people who came to the UK last year would not have been able to do so.

“I am taking decisive action to halt the drastic rise in our work visa routes and crack down on those who seek to take advantage of our hospitality.”

MARCH 03, 2024

BY  Bethel Olujobi 

A total of 18,143 care workers and home carers left Nigeria to seek employment in the United Kingdom in 2023 a new report by the British government has revealed.

The updated immigration data, released Thursday, reveals that Nigeria joined India and Zimbabwe as the non-EU countries with the most care workers and home carers in the UK, representing 58% of all approved visas for the occupation.

Between 2022 and 2023, the care worker occupation in the UK experienced a huge leap in workforce. As of 2022, when foreign care workers and home carers had just become eligible for the ‘Skilled Worker Health and Care’ visa after a recommendation by the Migration Advisory Committee, there were only 19,864 visas granted to practice.

However, the number skyrocketed 349 percent in one year, and by 2023, the UK had granted about 90,000 work visas to care workers and home carers. In 12 months, it had seen about 70,000 new applications flood in.

Recent figures show that the ‘Skilled Worker Health and Care’ visas granted almost doubled in 2023, representing a 91 percent increase to 146,477, compared with the previous year.

Care workers and home carers accounted for the vast majority of the increase accounting for 89,236 grants in 2023.

Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country, is one of the countries deemed by the World Health Organization (WHO) to have a critical shortage of health workers. In recent years, nationals of the Western African state have gained popularity, leaving footprints worldwide following an exodus of skilled workers, popularly called ‘japa’, a Yoruba indigenous word meaning “escape”.

Nigeria’s caregiving industry, still at its infant stage and largely unregulated, was estimated to be worth $9 billion in 2019 and projected to triple by 2021, according to Chika Madubuko, founder of Greymate Care – a startup using tech to disrupt the country’s homecare industry by connecting clients with vetted caregivers.

However, in a situation where labour shortages in prospering economies coexist with unemployment in less-fortunate ones, Nigeria has been hit hard by a healthcare workforce deficit, fuelled by post-pandemic policies.

In 2020, Britain decided to part with the EU, and in the same year, established the ‘Health and Care’ visa route for health workers to come to the UK, contributing to a sharp increase in the number of work visas granted.

According to the Labour Force Survey statistics, the number of non-EU nationals working in the UK rose 12% to 2.29 million in one year, with Nigeria experiencing the greatest increase in skilled work visa grants.

Amid spiralling figures, however, there are some indications that the growth rate has slowed and that the numbers are declining.

In the fourth quarter of 2023, the number of skilled visa grants saw a significant decline, dropping by 37 percent to 28,467 compared to the previous quarter, Q3 2023. This decrease was observed across all primary occupations, particularly impacting health and care workers.

Specifically, the number of skilled visa grants for care workers and home carers decreased by 41 percent, while senior care workers and nurses experienced a similar decline of 41 and 24 percent respectively during the same period.

Global think tanks still see a win-win situation for the UK’s workforce troubles and Nigeria’s brain drain problems. Center for Global Development, a non-profit global advocacy organisation says both governments must work together to maximise benefits for both countries.

“There would be an even greater development benefit if migration was channelled through a bilateral labour agreement,” they said.

“If health worker migration is to take place from these countries, the WHO recommends it be included within an agreement which encourages the country of destination to provide additional investments back to the country of origin. The UK could develop such an agreement with Nigeria, similar to the one with Kenya, investing in the recruitment and retention of health workers at home, with huge spillover effects.”

In February, Britain and Nigeria signed a new deal to grow bilateral trade and investment relationships and create jobs in financial and legal sectors across both economies.

MARCH 04, 2024

By Abdullateef Aliyu

The Group Chief Executive Officer of Ethiopian Airlines, Mesfin Tasew, has said the devaluation of naira has affected the airline’s cash flow management but stated that it has not affected passenger volume.

Tasew said this in an interview on the sidelines of the inauguration of a state-of-the-art e-commerce cargo terminal in its hub in Addis Ababa which is a $55m investment to facilitate the development of e-commerce in Ethiopia, Africa.

Daily Trust reports that foreign airlines have been facing serious challenges in Nigeria with regards to repatriating their ticket funds. While they sell tickets in dollars, they are expected to get the dollar equivalent for the purpose of repatriation to their home countries.

However, Tasew stated that the devaluation of naira which he described as extensive has affected cash management.

He said, “You are absolutely right that naira has been devalued extensively and that has affected our cash management because since we are not able to take out our money, which is accumulating in Nigerian banks and due to the devaluation, we lost some money in the exchange rate, but in terms of passenger volume, we didn’t see any negative impact so far.

The load is very good, Nigerians are still travelling abroad and they are using Ethiopian Airlines. The traffic volume is still at the same level. We didn’t feel it negatively.”

The GCEO hinted about replicating the e-commerce facility outside Addis Ababa, especially Nigeria, in the near future.

He said the inauguration of the e-commerce facility is a “significant breakthrough for the Ethiopian Group and the entire African economy.

Learn more

“We have implemented high-end technologies in the infrastructure that revolutionise the way goods are transported and delivered in the e-commerce industry in Africa.

“Through this facility, Ethiopian Airlines paves the way for development of e-commerce services in Ethiopia and the African continent. Built on 15,000 square meters of area, the facility boasts a capacity to handle 150,000 tonnes annually.

“For the time being, we have set up this facility in Addis Ababa. This facility would serve the Nigerian people and its market. We will bring the e-commerce here and sort them, then, deliver them to our Nigerian customers. In the future, this is something to consider to set up a similar type of facility in Nigeria.”

MARCH 05, 2024

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) has lifted the visa restriction on Nigerian travellers after a two-year diplomatic row.

UAE Embassy in Abuja, Nigeria’s capital city, and the Nigerian government in a statement said their agreement shows a “shared commitment to strengthening ties, enhancing cultural exchanges, and fostering opportunities for economic and social collaboration.”

Following meetings between Nigeria’s President Bola Tinubu, and UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the Embassy said a new verification process has been introduced for Nigerian visa applications.

“All Nigerian applicants for UAE visas are required to first obtain a Document Verification Number This essential step is to be completed by visiting the dedicated online Document Verification Hub platform (official link https://documentverficationhub.com,” the UAE Embassy said.

UAE Ambassador to Nigeria, Saleem Saeed Al-Shamsi, said the introduction of the Document Verification Number will enhance the integrity of the application process and ensure prompt processing for applicants.

“We encourage all prospective travellers to adhere to the guidelines and initiate the applications promptly, ensuring and smooth transition to the new system,” Al-Shamsi said.

Nigeria and UAE authorities were enmeshed in a diplomatic row that culminated in UAE’s Emirates Airline halt its flight operations to the West African country due to trapped funds since 2022. Emirates Airlines puts the figure at $85 million.

Nigeria’s leader at the time Muhammadu Buhari had a phone call with UAE’s President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, where he appealed for lifting the travel ban on Nigerians.

Buhari told Nahyan that he had directed the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to increase foreign exchange allocation to the airline while all concerned government officials were working on the trapped funds.

The Nigerian government thereafter said it released $265 million to airlines operating in the country to settle outstanding ticket sales. The CBN also promised to release another $120 million to the international carriers to offset part of the trapped funds by the end of October 2022.

One month later, Emirates Airlines announced the suspension of inbound and outbound Nigerian flight operations “to mitigate against further losses moving forward”. The airline has since not resumed operations in Nigeria. However, the UAE Embassy said there are still “ongoing efforts” for stronger ties with Nigeria. It is unknown if the potential resumption of the airline was part of the discussions.

MARCH 07, 2024

Mesfin Tasew is the group chief executive officer of Ethiopian Airlines. In this interview, he speaks on passenger traffic to Nigeria and why the new e-commerce logistics hub was built by Ethiopian Airlines.

Did the naira devaluation affect Ethiopian airline’s passenger traffic in Nigeria?

You are absolutely right that naira has been devalued extensively and that has affected our cash management because since we are not able to take out our money, which is accumulating in Nigerian banks and due to the devaluation, we lost some money in the exchange rate, but in terms of passenger volume, we didn’t see any negative impact so far. The load is very good, Nigerians are still travelling abroad and they are using Ethiopian Airlines. The traffic volume is still at the same level. We didn’t feel it negatively.

Why did you build the facility and projected annual revenue generation?

This new e-commerce logistics hub was built by Ethiopian Airlines Group to facilitate the development of e-commerce in Ethiopia, Africa. We commenced its construction about two and half years ago. Its capacity is to handle over 150,000 tonnes of goods yearly. Historically and until now, Ethiopian Airlines has been in the cargo business transporting cargo by air, but our mode of operations was mostly on conventional cargo for small and large cargo transportation.

But, as you know, e-commerce is the future now; the western world is using e-commerce extensively because they are ready for it in terms of its platform, payment and daily services. Unfortunately, Africa is not yet there. So, Ethiopian Airlines understands that it is a matter of time for Africa to endorse e-commerce as a way of life, as a way of doing business, and trade. So, it has to start from somewhere and Ethiopian Airlines wants to take the pioneering growth in investing and construction of this facility.

Gradually, we believe that the portion of e-commerce services will grow in parallel with the conventional cargo. It is just the beginning, but there are a lot of things to be done to really make e-commerce grow in the African continent. There should be a payment platform, electronic marketplace and the companies that are ready to do first line, first mile and last mile delivery services.

Our focus now is on the logistics part of e-commerce. So, it is difficult to know how much revenue to generate now, but it will start at a small level and continue to grow. Until that happens, this facility is going to be used also for mail and parcel services. Today, we do mail and parcel services on a small scale and manually, but this facility would do it automatically and with minimal mistakes.

Can you speak on your partnerships with Ali Baba and others?

So far, what we have partnered is for the construction company of the company with a Chinese company, but when it comes to operations, we will work with other e-commerce Chinese companies; Ali Baba and the other.

We transport e-commerce goods from China to other parts of the world and in a strategic agreement with the two companies in China. Now, we have started to do sorting here; we can bring the goods from these companies to Addis Ababa and re-aggregate it and we can ship it to Africa destinations

Future establishment elsewhere

For the time being, we have set up this facility in Addis Ababa. This facility would serve the Nigerian people and its market. We will bring the e-commerce here and sort them, then, deliver them to our Nigerian customers. In the future, this is something to consider; setting up a similar type of facility in Nigeria.

MARCH 07, 2024

(Bloomberg) -- Qatar Airways sees strong demand as traveler numbers continue to surge after the pandemic but cautions that customers are becoming more selective in their bookings. 

Demand is still robust but “it’s not only catch up and revenge like before,” Chief Commercial Officer Thierry Antinori said in a Bloomberg TV interview, referring to the sudden wave of post-Covid travel after months of border closures.

Passengers are “more selective, they will look more cautiously for what they book, for the quality and the value of what they buy,” he said.

That trend should help strong airlines continue to grow and widen the gap with “second tier” carriers, Antinori said — a departure from a year ago, when all carriers benefited from supply bottlenecks. 

The Gulf carrier, which competes with Dubai-based Emirates and Abu Dhabi’s Etihad, has seen traffic jump by 31% in the first two months of this year as it expands its network and benefits from a travel boom that’s pushing global and regional airlines to record profit. 

While the Doha-based airline has increased capacity into Europe, routes to Southeast Asia have lagged behind “because we have limited traffic rights and are in no position to sell more into Australia,” Antinori told Bloomberg on Wednesday.  

Qatar Airways’s access to Australia is restricted after a request to operate more routes to the country was rejected in 2023. The airline viewed the decision as unfair, since Qatar’s national carrier had helped repatriate citizens during the pandemic. 

In the meantime, regional rival Turkish Airlines made its Australia debut over the weekend via Singapore. It will launch direct flights from its Istanbul hub as it acquires more aircraft over the next few years, highlighting demand for long-haul services from the Middle East.   

As for Qatar Airways, “we just have to go somewhere else and balance the statistics between east and west,” Antinori said. 

He added that the airline would like to expand more to Mauritius and South Korea. The carrier may add a few more aircraft to its fleet, he said, but will also be selective as it looks to grow organically and leverage Oneworld partnerships. 

(Updates with details on routes starting in sixth paragraph.)

MARCH 08, 2024

Over 250 passengers of Delta Airlines were on Friday stranded at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport (MMIA), Lagos over mechanical failure to the airline’s aircraft.

The passengers who were on their way to Atlanta, Georgia, US, were already boarded for an afternoon flight out of Lagos, but were later disembarked from the aircraft due to the mechanical failure that was discovered in the aircraft.

It was learnt that the failure of the airline to airlift them as scheduled led to protest among the passengers, but the media consultant to the airline in Nigeria, debunked the claim.

The passengers it was learnt were onboard the aircraft for about four hours before they were told to disembark, which did not go down well with the passengers.

One of the affected passengers who contacted said that: “We were inside the aircraft for good four hours and we didn’t even know what is happening. They initially told us they were trying to get fuel for the flight. We were inside the aircraft until a few minutes ago when we were told the aircraft cannot depart again because it is faulty.”

Tope Ogbeni-Awe, the Media Consultant to Delta in Nigeria, confirmed that the airplane was scheduled to airlift the passengers out of the country on Friday after, but had to be rescheduled due to mechanical fault and crew time out.

He also explained that all the affected passengers would be lodged in a hotel in strict adherence to the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) standards and recommended practices till they are airlifted on Saturday.

MARCH 11, 2024

By Adekunle Sulaimon

The United Kingdom has banned Health and Care Workers from bringing dependants to the country.

This was made known by the UK Home Office via its verified X handle (formerly Twitter) on Monday.

“From today, care workers entering the UK on Health and Care Worker visas can no longer bring dependants.

“This is part of our plan to deliver the biggest ever cut in migration,” it wrote.

Details later…

MARCH 11, 2024

The Minister explained that in Lagos, the population of doctors is about 7,600 and 4,700 in Abuja.

By Mariam Ileyemi   

The Nigerian government has revealed that the country now has only 55,000 licensed doctors to serve its growing population of over 200 million.

During an interview on Channels TV’s Politics Today, the Minister of Health and Social Welfare, Muhammad Pate, also disclosed that about 16,000 doctors left the country in the last five years and about 17,000 have been transferred.

Mr Pate lamented the mass exodus of doctors, health workers, tech entrepreneurs, and various professionals abandoning the country for better opportunities abroad, while the country is “barely managing” the available ones.

According to the Minister, Nigeria has about 300,000 health professionals, including doctors, nurses, midwives, pharmacists, laboratory scientists, and others.

“We did an assessment and discovered that we have 85,000 to 90,000 registered Nigerian doctors. Not all of them are in the country,” he said.

“Some are in the diaspora, especially in the US and UK. But there are 55,000 licensed doctors in the country.”

Impact

Speaking further, the minister expressed concern over the impact of brain drain on the health sector, stating that it has deprived Nigeria of its top medical professionals, resulting in a scarcity of healthcare practitioners.

He also highlighted an uneven distribution issue, with a significant concentration of skilled doctors in urban centres like Lagos and Abuja.

He explained that in Lagos, the population of doctors overall is about 7,600 and 4,700 in Abuja.

“The doctor-to-population ratio in Abuja is 14.7 per 10,000 population; in Lagos, it is about 4.6, even though the average is 2.2 by 10,000,” he said.

The Minister stressed the critical role of human resources in a robust health sector, saying Nigeria cannot afford to keep losing its top talents to developed nations.

He added that the government is making efforts to enhance the training programme and incentivise healthcare workers who opt to remain in the country.

“Now to the ‘Japa’ you talk about, it is not only limited to Nigeria. It is a global phenomenon,” he said, adding: “Other countries don’t have enough and they are asking to take more.”

Brain Drain in Nigeria

Nigeria has been battling the increasing exodus of healthcare professionals, especially doctors, pharmacists, and nurses, to developed countries. With a doctor-patient ratio over five times worse than the WHO recommendation, Nigeria has continued to lose hundreds of doctors annually to brain drain.

Various statistics show that over 5,000 Nigerian medical doctors have migrated to the UK between 2015 and 2022.

According to data documented by the Development Research and Project Centre (dRPC), 233 Nigerian doctors moved to the UK in 2015; the number increased to 279 in 2016; in 2017 the figure was 475, in 2018, the figure rose to 852, in 2019 it jumped to 1,347; in 2020, the figure was 833 and in 2021, it was put at 932.

As of July, the President of the Nigerian Association of Resident Doctors (NARD), Emeka Orji, revealed that the association is left with only a few over 9,000 medical doctors, due to the brain drain crisis in the healthcare system.

The continued emigration of health practitioners has led to a shortage of skilled health workers in the country, which has negatively affected the quality of healthcare services provided to the citizens.