Foreign capital imported to Nigeria declined by 32% from US$5.6 billion to US$3.8 billion between Q3 and Q4 2019, indicating a decline for the third consecutive quarter1. The decline during the period was driven by a fall in two components of foreign capital imports as portfolio investment and other investment declined by 37.7% and 30.5% respectively, while foreign direct investment increased by 24.5%. In 2019, the United Kingdom, the United States, and South Africa emerged as the top-three countries importing the highest capital while Lagos and Abuja remain the top destinations within the country. By sector, banking (31.92%), financing (26.18%) and shares (22.24%) emerge as the top sectors. Despite the decline in capital imports between Q3 and Q4 2019, there has been a 42.7% increase in the total value of capital imported between 2018 and 2019. Taking into consideration the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the global economy due to the decline in demand and widespread uncertainty, a further decline in foreign capital inflows is expected going forward.

Among the 17 SDGs for transforming the world by 2030, SDG 4, which emphasizes “Quality Education”, ranks high, and for obvious reasons. Basically, SDG 4 encourages all UN-member countries, including Nigeria, to ensure inclusive and equitable quality education, and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all – through the Education 2030 Framework for Action (FFA).
The role of education in the march towards development for any nation cannot be overemphasized. There is a nexus between quality education and national development. A country which is able to achieve quality education will in turn, make progress in other areas of development. Succinctly put, quality education is key to the attainment of sustainable development because as Adeyanju (2010) notes, no development can occur at all without education

In its worst performance since the 2008 financial crisis, the NSE All-Share Index and market capitalization depreciated by 13.49% to close the week at 22,733.35 basis points and N11.847 trillion respectively1. The decline in the market index is underpinned by the Saudi Arabia-Russia oil price war following Russia’s failure to cut oil supplies as well as the coronavirus pandemic. The NSE Banking Index, NSE Consumer Goods Index, and NSE Premium Index were among the worst hit as they fell by 26.2%, 21.7% and 16.1% respectively. Due to the high global connectivity and the dampened demand in developed countries as a result of the pandemic, the downslide in the Nigerian market is similar to ongoing trends in the markets of other African countries, Asia, Europe and North America; and is expected to continue until the risk factors are addressed. While the uncertainty has caused many investors to sell off risky securities such as stock, investors should rather take advantage of the low stock prices to increase their investments as the bearish trend in the market is driven by temporary risk factors and not a fall in companies’ fundamentals.

The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) has reported that the GDP growth rate in Q42019 is 2.55% which is relatively higher than Q32019 GDP growth rate at 2.28% and remains the highest quarter on quarter growth since the 2016 recession1. This cumulates to an annual growth rate of 2.27% for 2019. Furthermore, the aggregate GDP for Q42019 stood at N39.5 trillion compared to the aggregate GDP of Q32019 at N37.8 trillion and the corresponding quarter in 2018 at N35.2 trillion. While the non-oil sector shrunk year on year by 0.44%, it contributed 92.68% to Q42019 GDP which is significantly higher than the oil sector’s contribution at 8.78%. As the price of Brent crude oil falls below the US$57 per barrel benchmark in the 2020 budget, this threatens the realism of the budget, thus leading to a slowdown in economic activities. In order to achieve sustainable and significant economic growth, the country’s revenue base should be de-linked from oil, and recurrent expenditure in the form of cost of governance should be cut down. This will allow for the increased revenue to be diverted to key sectors including manufacturing and mining sectors.

The total stock of money in circulation declined at the end of January, falling by 7.9% month-on month from N2.4 trillion in December1. Although the current stock of currency in circulation is 5% higher than the corresponding year, the decline in currency-in-circulation stands to reduce the current levels of inflation2. This potential impact is in line with the expected outcome of the newly increased Cash Reserve Ratio (CRR) from 22.5% to 27.5% which aims to address monetary-driven inflation. The reduction in currency in circulation amid the increase in CRR, which in itself may constrain banks’ ability to create money through lending, may further increase interest rate and cost of doing business. However, the Central Bank of Nigeria’s stance on increasing the loan to deposit ratio from 60% to 65%, which hitherto has recorded some successes in increasing credit to private sector, may continue to further push market interest rates downwards or at least tame the negative impact of increased CRR.