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Naira Redesign: Farmers Ask FG For Compensation Over Losses

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The All Farmers Association of Nigeria has appealed to the Federal Government to compensate farmers for losses recorded during the implementation of the Central Bank of Nigeria naira redesign and subsequent cash crunch.

The farmers made the plea in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria on Saturday in Lagos while reviewing the impact of the policy on food production and agribusiness.

They said that the compensation became necessary to encourage farmers to return to the farms.

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The farmers said the compensation could be inform of grants, inputs, fertiliser and farm implements.

They added that it would enable them to meet the food production target already set for 2023.

Dr Femi Oke, AFAN’s Chairman Lagos and South-West Zone, said a lot of their members were affected during the implementation of the policy, thereby disrupting farming activities.

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READ ALSO: Men Arrested For Printing Fake Naira, Dollar Notes

According to Oke, the cashless policy and naira redesign policy of the Federal Government in February affected farmers seriously.

From what we have seen and heard so far, the loss recorded during the period is huge and on the high side, especially for our members that are into livestock, poultry and piggery and processors.

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“If we are to quantify these losses, it runs into billions of naira that we have lost during this period.

“The poultry farmers were the most affected, it was just like the period of the COVID-19 which we experienced in 2020. We pray never to have a repeat of the COVID-19 again because it was a great loss.

“We also discovered that many farmers could not pay their labourers and this became a huge problem.

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“Majority of the farms are situated in the rural areas where there is little or no presence of commercial banks so they had to travel long distance and spend more money in order to buy naira from Point-of-Sale operators to pay the farm workers,” he said.

READ ALSO: Naira Gains Against Dollar At Investors’ Window

Oke said it was a great problem because many of the farm workers rely on daily payment because they don’t have bank accounts.

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“Many farmers could also not transport their farm produce such as pepper, vegetable and other perishable items to the market due to lack of cash and patronage from customers.

“The situation led to loss of farm produce right before the eyes of the farmers. It was a sad sight to behold.

“There’s nothing more agonising, discouraging and painful than watching your farm produce and hard work go to waste without any solution,” he noted.

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Oke urged the FG to compensate for all these losses caused by the ill-timed policy.

We want the Federal government to take action by assisting us with grants with interest rate as low as five per cent.

“Giving us grant is one way to solve these mirages of problems affecting food production now,” he added.

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READ ALSO: NLC Protests: CBN To Flood Banks With Old Naira Notes

Oke urged the CBN to liaise with the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and AFAN on policy formulation and information dissemination to farmers.

We have said it times without number that the CBN should not be dealing or dictating to farmers directly.

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“CBN should work with the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and the umbrella body of farmers, which is AFAN, on issues affecting farmers.

“CBN should desist from dealing directly with them to avoid misinformation and misrepresentation,” he said.

Oke, however, urged farmers not to relent or be discouraged by recent happenings in the economy but to go back to the farms and support government policies to boost food production and self-sufficiency.

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Be rest assured that the incoming government will do a lot for farmers,” he added.

READ ALSO: Naira Redesign Strangulating Nigerians, Northern Elders Warn CBN

Also speaking, Mrs Adewunmi Malik-Adeola, a livestock and crop farmer, urged the FG and CBN to engage farmers in future to prevent needless losses recorded during the implementation of the naira redesign policy.

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Malik-Adeola noted that there was poor information about the policy in the rural areas where majority of the farmers reside.

She lamented that information on the policy’s modalities, take off and implementation was not available.

She added that concerned stakeholders must be educated on government policies to prevent loss of investment which could lead to sickness or even death.

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We are stakeholders and we need to be carried along whenever a new policy is been introduced.

“One of the reasons why the programme failed was due to lack of information and how farmers and the general public can prepare ahead.

“It really destroyed a lot of our farming activities during the period, especially the livestock, our birds and eggs.

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READ ALSO: Naira Scarcity May Affect Private Business In Q1 – Report

“It came as a shock to everyone because this is something we have never experienced in the history of this country.

“The damage had been done; government must look for how to compensate us for all our losses.

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“Government should release money for us to meetup with demand, we need financial assistance, inputs and grants,” she said.

Mrs Abimbola Francis-Fagoyinbo, Secretary, AFAN in Lagos, described the impact of policy on her business as devastating.

Francis-Fagoyinbo, a cassava processor and packaging farmer, said that a lot of her produce were destroyed due to poor sale.

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She urged the government to come up with programmes that would ameliorate the damage in the sector.

“Right now, as I speak, some of our farmers in the farm are calling me that the garri they have processed there’s nobody to buy it and the ones they have lost they cannot recover the money.

READ ALSO: Naira Scarcity May Push Nigerians Into Depression, Suicide —Psychiatrist

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“There is no sale and transportation; the cashless policy of the Federal Government really affected farmers.

“As a cassava farmer, whether you like it or not, once it is time to harvest your cassava, you must harvest it, you cannot not leave it longer than necessary or else, you will lose it.

“We are looking at our market on the ground and we are not selling them and they are going bad because we cannot keep garri for too long,” she lamented.

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Francis-Fagoyinbo said that the price of garri had increased due to the naira redesign policy.

“Smallholder farmers rely on the profit they make on their produce and turn it over.

“We also paid a lot to manual workers on our farms, we have to buy money to pay them cash because they don’t accept monetary transfer.

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“At the end of the day, everything was a waste, what we paid double for, we could not sell them.

READ ALSO: Cash-induced Recession Imminent, Experts Warn As Naira Scarcity Persists

“Right now, the price of garri is going up and not coming down because they have made great losses in the past.

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“We were buying money to operate our farms so it has affected us.

“Right now, the Federal Government should come up with a programme that will at least assist the farmers.

“Government should empower us with inputs, chemicals, fertilisers and tools,” she said.

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Mrs Latifat Ajani, a fishery and crop farmer, said the policy and its implementatiom should be properly studied before reintroducing it.

It was a very serious issue for my family and I. There was no business or market during the period and I lost some of my fish in the process because fish cannot stay long.

“I was able to survive through the help of my children, there was no sale, my money was trapped with customers and in the banks.

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“It was not a good experience for me because I could not buy feeds to feed the fish, transfer was not going through, everything was a disaster. So, I lost many of my investment in the process.

“Government need to support and compensate us for all our losses,” she said.

PUNCH

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French Media Giant Canal+ Takes Over S.Africa’s Multichoice

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French media giant Canal+ said Monday it had taken effective control of South African television and streaming company MultiChoice, creating a group present in nearly 70 countries in Africa, Europe and Asia.

The companies said in a joint statement that the combined group will have a workforce of 17,000 employees and serve more than 40 million subscribers.

The acquisition is “the largest transaction ever undertaken” by Canal+, the statement said.

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READ ALSOFrench Media Giant Acquires MultiChoice In $3bn Deal, Gains Full Control Of DStv, GOtv

Canal+, which is already the sector’s leader in French-speaking African countries, now controls what it described as the leader in the continent’s English- and Portuguese-speaking regions.

“This acquisition allows us to strengthen our position as a leader in Africa, one of the most dynamic pay-TV markets in the world,” Canal+ chief executive Maxime Saada said in the statement.

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The buyout was given a final green light by South Africa’s competition authority in late July, more than a year after Canal+ launched its bid.

READ ALSO:FG To Arraign MultiChoice Chairman, MD, Others For Allegedly Breaching FCCP Act

Canal+ offered 125 rand ($7.2) per share for MultiChoice when it launched its offer last year, valuing the South African firm at around $3.0 billion.

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Canal+ is present in 25 African countries through 16 subsidiaries and has eight million subscribers.

MultiChoice operates in 50 countries across sub-Saharan Africa and has 14.5 million subscribers.

It includes Africa’s premier sports broadcaster, SuperSport, and the DStv satellite television service.

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AFP

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BREAKING: Nigeria’s GDP Grows By 4.23% In Q2 2025 – NBS

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Nigeria’s Gross Domestic Product grew by 4.23 per cent (year-on-year) in the second quarter of 2025, the National Bureau of Statistics revealed in its Q2 2025 GDP Report.

According to the report released on Monday on its website, the figure shows a significant improvement compared to 3.48 per cent recorded in the second quarter of 2024 and the 3.13 per cent recorded in Q1 2025.

The figures signal a strengthening economy, driven by recent rebasing, rebound in oil production and a resilient non-oil sector.

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READ ALSO: UK GDP Records Fastest Growth In Q1 2025

The report said, “Following the rebasing of the Gross Domestic Product using 2019 as the base year, previous quarterly GDP estimates were benchmarked to the rebased annual estimates to align the old series with the new rebased estimates

“This procedure provided a new quarterly GDP series, which is compared to the 2025 second quarter estimates. Gross Domestic Product grew by 4.23% (year-on-year) in real terms in the second quarter of 2025.

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“This growth rate is higher than the 3.48 per cent recorded in the second quarter of 2024. During the quarter under review, agriculture grew by 2.82%, an improvement from the 2.60% recorded in the corresponding quarter of 2024.

READ ALSO: BREAKING: Nigeria’s GDP Grew By 3.46% In Q4 2023 — NBS

According to NBS, “The growth of the industry sector stood at 7.45% from 3.72% recorded in the second quarter of 2024, while the Services sector recorded a growth of 3.94% from 3.83% in the same quarter of 2024.”

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The report said in terms of share of the GDP, “the Industry sector contributed more to the aggregate GDP in the second quarter of 2025 at 17.31% compared to the corresponding quarter of 2024 at 16.79%.”

It added, “In the quarter under review, aggregate GDP at basic price stood at N100,730,501.10 million in nominal terms. This performance is higher when compared to the second quarter of 2024, which recorded an aggregate GDP of N84,484,878.46 million, indicating a year-on-year nominal growth of 19.23%.”

Details later…

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Why Nigeria’s Crude Oil Production Dropped To 1.63mbpd In August – NUPRC

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The Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC) has explained that unscheduled maintenance at a refinery facility made Nigeria’s crude oil production drop on a month-on-month basis in August.

This comes as Nigeria’s crude oil production dropped to 1.63 million barrels per day month-on-month in August, down from 1.71 million bopd in July.

NUPRC disclosed this in its Crude Oil and Condensate Production for August 2025, released on Saturday.

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This means a 4.7 per cent drop in combined crude oil and condensate production from 1.71 million bopd in July.

READ ALSO:Marketers Get Dangote’s Free Fuel Supply

In the same vein, crude oil production itself declined by 4.8 per cent, down from 1.5 million bopd in July 2025.

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The month-on-month drop was driven by a single-day unscheduled maintenance at an oil facility.

“In the month of August, the lowest and peak combined crude and condensate production were 1.59 million bopd and 1.85 million bopd, respectively,” NUPRC said.

The data showed that while there was a decline month-on-month, the country’s crude oil production rose on a year-on-year basis by 5.5 per cent to 1.63 mbpd in August this year from 1.58 million bopd in the same period last year.

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READ ALSO:‘We Like Greek Gifts,’ Nigerians Blast NUPENG Over Dangote’s Fuel Price Reduction

Further analysis indicates that daily condensate production in August stood at 197,229 bpd, reflecting a decline.

Also, Nigeria’s crude oil output in August achieved 96 per cent of its OPEC quota, which is set at 1.5 million bopd.

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Accordingly, in the period under review, Forcados Terminal topped the production charts, delivering a total of 8.99 million barrels, including 8.08 million barrels of crude oil and 915.2k barrels of condensates.

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