Business movers, shakers of 2022

The business community witnessed a series of event as several private and public players who bestrode the economic landscape and are in control of the levers of the major commanding heights of the economy made their marks even at great risk to themselves and the institutions they represent just as a sizeable few recorded some highs, lows and literally fell on evil days!

In the year 2022 roundup, IBRAHIM APEKHADE YUSUF captures some of the frills and thrills of the past 12 months

Clearly, different economic sub sectors from telecoms, oil and gas, petroleum exploration, infrastructure development, fresh investments, maritime security, manufacturing, monetary policy, fund repatriation to mention just a few were on the front burner of public discourse these past months with several players contributing their quota towards raising the bar and otherwise accordingly.

Enter MTN and MAFAB

MTN Nigeria and Mafab Communications Limited, who emerged as provisional winners of the 3.5 Gigahertz spectrum licence at the twilight of 2021, were finally able to ink the deal after paying $273.6m each ahead of the February 2022 deadline.

Aside from the $273.6m payment, MTN paid an extra $15.9m for the preferred Lot 1 (3500-3600 Megahertz-MHz) in the 3.5 GHz spectrum, while, Mafab Communications settled with Lot 2 (3700-3800 MHz) at no extra cost.

The year was particularly eventful for MTN, as it became the first telco to roll out the 5G technology services on its network on August 24, 2022 just as it recorded a profit surged in data revenue to N269 billion. Under Karl Toriola, its CEO, MTN also scored another first following the final approval for a Payment Service Bank (PSB) granted by the Central Bank of Nigeria its Mobile Money Payment Service Bank (MoMo PSB) as a payment system in the country as part of driving financial inclusion.

Abdulsamad Rabiu

Abdul Samad Rabiu, founder and chairman of BUA Group, Africa’s leading foods, mining, and infrastructure conglomerate dominated the Nigerian business landscape in 2022 with his bold business decisions and his uncommon philanthropy.

The year began on a fine note for Abdulsamad Rabiu, business mogul and billionaire, as the BUA Group early in January emerged the second richest man in Nigeria, as he recorded over networth $1.9billion, thus displacing Mike Adenuga, Globacom owner who held the position for several years.

The remarkable rise in Rabiu’s fortune came after his company BUA Foods, which was newly listed on the Nigerian Stock market, gained N420.49 billion in a single week and rose by 65 per cent within one week of receiving approval to be listed on NGX.

Abdulsamad Rabiu controls about 89.849% of BUA Foods holdings, owning 16.17 billion units of shares from the total 18 billion listed shares.

With his total wealth now valued at $6.2billion, the Kano-born cement tycoon is now the fifth richest man in Africa and the 574th in the world.

The Group quickly capitalised on this to venture into trading in steel, producing billets, importing iron ore, and constructing multiple rolling mills in Nigeria.

BUA is currently the second-largest cement manufacturer in Nigeria, only behind Dangote.

During the recent commissioning of the Sokoto cement plant, Abdulsamad Rabiu gave a peep into the company’s future investment plans.

Also, this year, BUA Foods Plc, a subsidiary of BUA Group, said it would commence rice production in the second half of 2022.

According to the company, the rice business is expected to recommence with a 480 MT per day capacity, and future expansion plans target a total capacity of 2,700 MT per day.

Recently, he donated a whopping sum of N10billion Nigeria Security Support Fund from his Abdul Samad Rabiu Africa Initiative (ASR Africa) towards the provision of some security equipment, medical and other supplies, upgrade of health facilities and other infrastructure for families of those on the frontlines.

Femi Otedola

For billionaire businessman and Executive Chairman of Geregu Power Plant, one of the leading lights of the Nigerian business community in 2022, the economic landscape showed a lot of promise for him as his company score a few first by making history as the first power-generating company to be listed on the Nigerian Exchange Limited (NGX) with 2.5 billion ordinary shares of 50 kobo each at N100 per share on the Exchange.

Besides, Geregu began acquisition talks with the Fund for Export in Africa, a development arm of the Afreximbank.

This is just as Otedola, founder of Zenon Petroleum and former chairman of Forte Oil emerged as the single largest shareholder of First Bank when his equity stake rose to 7.5 per cent although a process of gradual divestment has brought his equity stake down to 5.25 per cent.

Mele Kyari

Indeed for Kyari the Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) Limited, the year 2022 will go down in his career trajectory as one with fond memories as his sphere of influence within the business community grew in leaps and bounds.

On July 1, 2022, NNPC Limited legally transformed into a company whose operations and activities are regulated by the Companies and Allied Matters Act (CAMA), following the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA) 2021.

In the course of the year, Kyari led the smooth transition of the former Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) to a privatised sector entity.

Against all odds, he was able to champion reforms in the upstream sector, sustain oil output, boost its subsidiary, implement the National Gas Expansion project, AKK pipeline project, NLNG Train 7 FID, facilitate power projects, efficient crude oil lifting contracts and ultimately instil transparency in the corporation.

Interestingly, his efforts to fight oil theft have yielded positive results as disclosed during a meeting of the Senate’s joint committees on Petroleum (Upstream and Downstream) and Gas, that “within six weeks, 395 illegal refineries have been deactivated, 274 reservoirs destroyed, 1,561 metal tanks destroyed, 49 trucks seized and a four-kilometre illegal oil connection line from Forcados Terminal into the sea – which had been in operation undetected for nine years – detected.” These efforts have ramped up production to 1.6 million barrels per day.

Perhaps another milestone achieved under Kyari in the course of the year was the discovery of oil in northern Nigeria in commercial quantities.

The discovery in Kolmani reportedly has over 1 billion barrels of oil reserves and 500 billion cubic feet of gas. Reports have indicated that there is potential for more.

This discovery is coming at a time when Nigeria has lost its place as Africa’s largest oil producer and is now ranked fourth on the continent behind Angola, Libya, and Algeria.

Also, Nigeria’s production capacity hovers below 1 million barrels per day (BPD) despite OPEC’s projection of 2 million BPD and a production capacity of 2.5 million barrels per day – a figure the country has struggled to achieve in the last 10 years.

The discovery of oil in the north now means states, where oil is produced can now push to be included among states to receive oil derivatives, and this could also mean a potential increase in the percentage given to oil-producing states. According to reports, in 2021, nine oil-producing states shared N450bn through the 13% derivation agreement.

The discovery of oil in the north is expected to generate N32 trillion. The funds, if properly put to use, could pull millions of people out of poverty in the north; this will not only reduce the poverty level in the north but also in the country at large.

Following the discovery of oil in Kolmani, the refinery could now be utilised to its fullest capacity. Last month, the Federal Government signed a Memorandum of Understanding with South Korea’s Daewoo to rehabilitate the refinery.

During the first phase of the exploration, up to 120,000 BPD is expected to be produced. This will boost Nigeria’s daily production capacity.

Godwin Emefiele

The Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) was in the news for the most part this year as expected.

Apart from responding to the pervading economic climate through the actions of the Monetary Policy Committee, Emefiele also engaged the nation from time to time to explain the direction of the global and national economy.

The CBN governor, who threw his hat into the ring to contest earlier in the year for president under the All Progressives Congress (APC), had a few months ago announced plans to redesign the naira with a deadline set for January even as he reeled out a bouquet of policy to contain cash withdrawal.

The two policies were arguably informed by the economic expediency and the need to insulate the 2023 general election from financial inducements from politicians who go about offering money for votes.

But in a move described as both confusing, the bank, a few hours to the session with members of the lower legislative chambers on Thursday did a slight review, raising the weekly limits for individuals to N500,000 and N5million for corporate organisations.

Zainab Ahmed

The Minister of Finance, Budget, and Planning, headed by Dr Zainab Ahmed was enmeshed in a budget padding crisis as the Minister of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management, and Social Development, Sadia Farouq, accused her Ministry of N206bn in budget padding.

Specifically, Farouq, who appeared before the Senate Committee on Special Duties to defend the 2023 budget, claimed that the ministry requested some projects for the North East Development Commission and the National Social Safety Net Project in the 2022 budget, which were not released, but was surprised to see an inflated amount in the 2023 budget of the ministry.

Things literally went south at the budget defence when one of the committee members, Senator Elisha Abbo (APC Adamawa North), asked the minister about the inflated N206bn in the budget.

The minister said, “Yes, we made mention of the projects for 2022 that were not released, and part of it was for the NEDC.

“The money was not released, and now that we have seen it recurring by almost 10-fold, we are also going to seek clarification from the Ministry of Finance to know why the increase occurred despite the fact that the previous year, the money requested wasn’t released for the projects. So, we will get the details and then send them to you.”

Also during the 2021 budget defence, lawmakers in the House of Representatives raised eyebrows over the Humanitarian Affairs Ministry’s extra-budgetary spending and the incomplete budget documents submitted by Farouq.

Like a sore thumb which will not go away, the defence minister also told the senate that Ahmed inserted a total of 11bn into its 2023 budget; the minister of health also accused her of budget padding.

Meanwhile, the Minister of Finance, described as spurious budget padding allegations made against the ministry.

However, in the view of Mazi Okechukwu Unegbu, the budget has always been padded by successive governments.

Unegbu said it was rather scandalous that such evil was still being perpetrated under the President Muhammadu Buhari administration which prides itself with the toga of anti-corruption.

Lekki Deep Seaport

Clearly, the Lekki Deep Seaport stood out as a major investment for the federal and Lagos state governments considering its huge potential.

With a projected $361 billion which is roughly about N287 trillion to be realised from equity investment in Lekki Deep Seaport after liquidating loans acquired for the project, it is a good deal.

With the successful completion of the project, it is expected that the direct and induced business revenue impact is estimated at $158 billion, about N124.7 trillion, in addition to a qualitative impact on the manufacturing, trade, and commercial services sector.

The Lekki Deep Seaport is the largest deep seaport in West Africa with over 1.2 million TEUs annually.

During the formal unveiling of the project, Governor rBabajide Sanwo-Olu and the Chairman, Board of Directors, Lekki Port LFTZ Enterprise Limited (Lekki Port), Mr. Biodun Dabiri noted that about 170,000 jobs will be created.

Tomopolo

The Pipeline Surveillance contract reportedly worth N48 billion annually, awarded to the Tantita Security Services Nigeria Limited (TSSNL), a company linked to ex-militant warlord, Government Ekpemupolo, otherwise known as Tompolo, by the Nigerian National Petroleum Limited was arguably the most significant contract by an individual.

Pipeline protection contracts were first awarded to companies owned by former Niger-Delta militants in 2011.

The N4 billion per month contract, which covers Delta, Ondo, Imo and Rivers and some parts of Bayelsa, had attracted opposition from some stakeholders.

Dangote

The year was a roller coaster of some sort for the President of the Dangote Group, Alhaji Aliko Dangote. For the eleventh time in a row, Aliko Dangote was named the richest man in Africa as well as the richest black man in the world with an estimated net worth of around $13 billion. Dangote has been the man of the moment in the year 2022, from increasing his net worth from $18.5 billion to $19.1 billion, to supporting flood victims with N1.5 billion.

This year we have also seen him make some power moves in his refinery, fertiliser and cement firm.

Due to Aliko Dangote’s propensity for exploration and expansion, his wealth, which is derived from multiple significant commercial endeavours, continues to grow every year.

Dangote has a significant impact on the economic landscape of Africa. The business tycoon does everything in his power to stay ahead of the competition, and this year has been no different. He recently announced that his multimillion-dollar investment in his sugar company, Dangote Sugar Refinery Plc (DSR), will generate at least 300,000 jobs in Nigeria. Dangote is continuing to strategically invest in his sugar company in accordance with the Nigeria Sugar Master Plan’s requirements (NSMP).

Also in 2022, he began moves to increase DSR Numan Sugar sub-sector capacity from 3,000 hectares of cane per day to 6,000tcd, 9800tcd and 15,000tcd. He also announced the process of committing $ 700 million to invest in the backward integration programme. The year will also be remembered for the dispute with the Kogi State Government over the ownership of the Dangote Cement’s Obajana Plant. It was a dispute that took the intervention of the Council of State before the Kogi government allowed the cement plant to be reopened. The battle has been taken to court for adjudication.