Akpan Ekpo, a professor of Economics, is the Director General, West African Institute for Financial and Economic Management (WAIFEM). He speaks on issues in 2016 budget, the need for the Federal Government to prevent currency crisis in Nigeria, the decline in Nigeria’s foreign trade by N2.5trillion and depreciation of the naira.

Consequent upon pressures and the open admonition by Senate President Bukola Saraki, and made more intense by the Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund, IMF, Ms Christine Lagarde, the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, may relax its policy on forex this week.

Dr. Cosmas Maduka is the chairman/CEO of Coscharis Group of Companies and sole distributor for BMW in Nigeria. He is an achieving entrepreneur that has made remarkable impact in the auto industry.

Japan based electronics giant, Panasonic has established an assembly plant in Lagos to complement its manufacturing plant in India. In a statement, Shinichi Wakita, Managing Director of Panasonic, Middle East and Africa, said the company is extending the manufacturing of its air-conditioners and TV sets to the shores of Nigeria.

Chairman of the Nigeria Shipowners Association, NISA, Capt. Niyi Labinjo, has said that the country is losing N80 billion daily to petroleum products smuggled into the country.

10 communities in Ovia North-East local government area of Edo State have lamented the absence of electricity in their area in the last five years.

Given the current glut in the international oil market, the Chief Executive Officer, Oilserv Group, Mr. Emeka Okwuosa, thinks oil prices will slide further. He also tells journalists what his Group is doing to cope with the slump and what government can do to cushion the economic effects while also calling for the restructuring of the political system, as captured by Clara Nwachukwu. Excerpts:

THE Minister of Environment Hajiya Amina Mohammed has projected that the country can generate $7, 5 billion (about N15 trillion) from of grid solar energy.

It is no longer news that President Muhammadu Buhari in his inaugural speech, shortly after he was sworn-in as president of Nigeria at the Eagle Square, promised Nigerians drastic diversification from a mono-economy and sole revenue generation from the oil and gas sector to agriculture and solid minerals.

A sharp decline was recorded in revenue accruable to the Federal Government from the petroleum sector, as the country’s earnings from crude oil export dropped to N5.271 trillion for the nine month period, January to September 2015.