President Muhammadu Buhari will commission the multi-billion dollar Dangote oil refinery in two weeks, a presidency spokesperson said on Sunday, setting up the plant for its first production since construction started in 2016.

Nigeria, Africa's biggest oil producer, sees the 650,000 barrels-per-day refinery - being built by billionaire industrialist Aliko Dangote's Dangote Group - as a solution to ending the country's reliance on imports for nearly all of its refined petroleum products.

Spokesperson Bashir Ahmad said Buhari will commission the refinery, near Lagos, on May 22, a week before he is due to leave office after serving the maximum two terms allowed by the constitution.

A spokesperson for Dangote confirmed the timing of the commissioning but did not give details.

The Dangote refinery's cost grew to $19 billion from initial estimates of between $12 billion and $14 billion, after years of delays.

Reuters

A Max Air aircraft reportedly crash-landed on Sunday at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja.

The aircraft was said to be arriving from Yola, Adamawa state when the incident occurred.

Faithful Hope-Ivbaz, spokesperson of the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN), confirmed the incident to TheCable but declined to give further details.

According to Daily Trust, the incident occurred after the plane’s tyre burst into flames.

The Aerodrome Rescue and Fire-fighting Service (ARFFS) at the airport reportedly put out the fire while the passengers were safely disembarked from the plane.

The runway has been temporarily shut until the evacuation of the aircraft.

Mike Ogirima, former president of the Nigeria Medical Association (NMA), who witnessed the incident, said the tyre burst occurred after takeoff at Yola Airport.

“We thank God. We are still on the runway and pilot has reassured us. He has called for the stairs and we are now disembarking from the runway to be evacuated to the airport building at the arrival hall,” Ogirima was quoted as saying.

“We bless God because we have witnessed the pull out of the tyre right from the airport in Yola and we went into prayer session. I never announced it as a surgeon so as not to cause any panic but we bless God.”

The airline is yet to issue an official statement on the incident.

In August 2022, an Owerri-bound plane belonging to Air Peace made an emergency landing in Lagos due to a bird strike.

The plane, which was en route to Owerri, could not land due to the impact of the bird strike, and as such, returned to Lagos for an emergency landing. 

‘WE’LL CARRY OUT FURTHER INVESTIGATIONS ON PLANE’

The airline in a statement confirming the incident, said there were 143 passengers and one infant on board the plane which was to land in Abuja from Yola at 3 pm.

Max Air said the aircraft, experienced two tire bursts on landing in Abuja and the emergency team immediately responded to it.

“We are pleased to report that all passengers and crew on board the aircraft are safe and sound. The airline has taken all necessary steps to ensure that the passengers are comfortable and are being taken care of during this time,” the statement reads.

“They have been conveyed to the arrival terminal with their luggage and belongings.

“The aircraft tires are being replaced and the aircraft will taxi to the ramp for further investigations before being released for future flights.”

The Cable

Fighting in Khartoum as mediators seek end to Sudan conflict

Fighting could be heard in south Khartoum on Sunday as envoys from Sudan's warring parties met in Saudi Arabia for talks that international mediators hope will bring an end to a three-week-old conflict that has killed hundreds and triggered an exodus.

The U.S.-Saudi initiative is the first serious attempt to end fighting between the army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) that has turned parts of the Sudanese capital into war zones, derailed an internationally backed plan to usher in civilian rule following years of unrest, and created a humanitarian crisis.

"Pre-negotiation" talks began on Saturday and "will continue in the coming days in the expectation of reaching an effective short-term ceasefire to facilitate humanitarian assistance," the Saudi Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

Saudi Arabia will allocate $100 million in humanitarian aid to Sudan, Saudi state-run Al Ekhbariya television said earlier on Sunday.

Battles since mid-April have killed hundreds of people and wounded thousands of others, disrupted aid supplies and sent 100,000 refugees fleeing abroad.

Manahil Salah, a 28-year-old laboratory doctor on an evacuation flight from Port Sudan to the United Arab Emirates, said her family hid for three days in their home close to army headquarters in the capital before eventually travelling to the Red Sea Coast.

"Yes, I am happy to survive," she said. "But I feel deep sadness because I left my mother and father behind in Sudan, and sad because all this pain is happening in my homeland."

Thousands of people are pushing to leave from Port Sudan on boats to Saudi Arabia, paying for expensive commercial flights through the country's only functioning airport, or using evacuation flights.

"We were lucky to travel to Abu Dhabi, but what's happening in Khartoum, where I spent my whole life, is painful," said 75-year-old Abdulkader, who also caught an evacuation flight to the UAE. "Leaving your life and your memories is something indescribable."

INTENDED AIM

While mediators are seeking a path to peace, both sides have made it clear they would only discuss a humanitarian truce, not negotiate an end to the war.

The U.S. and Saudi Arabia urged the warring parties to use the latest talks to move toward "scheduling subsequent expanded negotiations to achieve a permanent cessation of hostilities," the Saudi Foreign Ministry statement said.

Confirming his group's attendance, RSF leader Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, commonly known as Hemedti, said he hoped the talks would achieve their intended aim of securing safe passage for civilians.

Hemedti has vowed to either capture or kill army leader Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, and there was also evidence on the ground that both sides remain unwilling to make compromises to end the bloodshed.

The conflict started on April 15 following the collapse of an internationally backed plan for a transition to democracy.

Burhan, a career army officer, heads a ruling council installed after the 2019 ouster of long-time autocrat Omar al-Bashir and a 2021 military coup, while Hemedti, a former militia leader who made his name in the Darfur conflict, is his deputy.

Prior to the fighting, Hemedti had been taking steps including moving closer to a civilian coalition that indicated he had political plans. Burhan has blamed the war on his "ambitions."

The extensive use of explosive ordnance throughout the fighting has increased the danger to civilians, especially children who can mistake the munitions for toys and play with them, said the United Nations Mine Action Service.

Western powers have backed the transition to a civilian government in a country that sits at a strategic crossroads between Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Ethiopia and the volatile Sahel region.

White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan was travelling to Saudi Arabia at the weekend for talks with Saudi leaders.

Reuters

RUSSIAN PERSPECTIVE

Kissinger makes Ukraine peace prediction

Former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger has told CBS News that the conflict in Ukraine may be approaching a turning point, and that Chinese-brokered peace talks could begin by the end of 2023.

"Now that China has entered the negotiation, it will come to a head, I think by the end of the year," the 99-year-old diplomat told CBS in an interview broadcast on Sunday. By that time, he continued, "we will be talking about negotiating processes and even actual negotiations." 

With the release of its ‘Position on the Political Settlement of the Ukraine Crisis’ in February, China put itself forward as a potential mediator between Moscow and Kiev. The Chinese plan was rejected outright by the US and EU, while Russian President Vladimir Putin described some of its 12 points as “in tune” with Moscow’s position, and Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky welcomed only a handful of its points, but maintains that Kiev will not compromise with Russia in any way.

Zelensky’s refusal to negotiate with Putin’s government – the Ukrainian leader banned contact with the Kremlin in a decree last October – is just one stumbling block faced by China or any other potential middleman.

Russia considers the conflict in Ukraine a proxy war between itself and NATO, and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Friday that any negotiations would not be held “with Zelensky, who is a puppet in the hands of the West, but directly with his masters.”

In Washington, the administration of President Joe Biden publicly claims that it is up to Ukraine to decide when to seek peace. Zelensky has been offered no incentives by the US to do so, with Biden offering to continue supplying him with weapons “for as long as it takes” to achieve his war aims. Among these aims is the capture of Crimea, a Russian territory since 2014. American military leaders have publicly admitted that the chances of this happening are slim to none.

Kissinger drew the ire of Kiev last year when he suggested that Ukraine should accept a return to the “status quo ante,” or relinquish its territorial claims to Crimea and grant autonomy to the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics, in the name of peace. He has since suggested that these territories become the basis of negotiations after a ceasefire and Russian withdrawal.

Moscow has repeatedly said that it is open to talks with Kiev but only if Ukraine “recognizes the reality on the ground,” including the new status of the regions of Donetsk, Lugansk, Kherson, and Zaporozhye as parts of Russia. Otherwise, the Kremlin has stated, Russia will settle the conflict by military means.

** Wagner to get ‘as much ammo as we need’ – Prigozhin

The Russian private military company Wagner Group, which is fighting Ukrainian troops in the Donbass city of Artyomovsk (Bakhmut), has been promised enough ammunition to continue the battle, the company's head, Yevgeny Prigozhin said on Sunday.

The statement comes after Prigozhin warned that his fighters would be forced to pull out of the city on May 10 unless ammunition shortages are addressed by Russia’s Defense Ministry.

In a voice message posted on his Telegram channel, Prigozhin said that Wagner received “a military instruction … in which we were promised as much ammunition and weapons as we need to continue our activities.”

“We were told that we can carry out activities in Artyomovsk as we deem necessary,” Prigozhin added.

He also said that Army General Sergey Surovikin, the deputy commander of Russia’s military operation in Ukraine, was tasked with “making all decisions related to the military activities of Wagner PMC in coordination with the Defense Ministry.”

On Friday, Prigozhin said that Wagner personnel were suffering heavy losses because of what he described as a 70% shortage of ammunition. He later announced that the positions held by Wagner would be handed over to Akhmat, an elite unit from Russia’s Chechnya.

The fierce and bloody battle for the mining city of Artyomovsk, known to Ukrainians as Bakhmut, has been raging for several months. Prigozhin claims his forces have taken control of nearly all of the city, while the Ukrainians are holding out in a small area in the western part.  

Capturing Artyomovsk, an important logistical hub, would allow Russian forces to make further advances in Donbass.

** Ukraine vows to continue killing Russians worldwide

Ukrainian intelligence chief General Kirill Budanov has told Yahoo News that his organization, the GUR, will continue its campaign of terrorism against Russians “anywhere on the face of this world.” The Kremlin has vowed that such attacks will “not be left unanswered.”

Budanov – who heads the Main Directorate of Intelligence of the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense – was charged with terrorism offenses by a Moscow court last month, and Russian authorities have linked him with a string of sabotage and assassination operations, most recently a foiled plot to murder top Russian officials in Crimea.

In an interview with Yahoo News, held last month but published earlier this week, Budanov declared that what Russia calls “terrorism, we call liberation.” Asked whether the GUR was responsible for the murder of Russian journalist and political activist Darya Dugina in Moscow last year, he gave a cryptic answer.

“Don’t continue with that topic,” he said. “All I will comment on is that we’ve been killing Russians and we will keep killing Russians anywhere on the face of this world until the complete victory of Ukraine.”

Despite Budanov’s boasting, Washington apparently has the GUR on a short leash. Recently leaked Pentagon documents suggested that when Budanov ordered his subordinates to “get ready for mass strikes” on Russian cities in February, American spies, who had been monitoring his communications, intervened to call off the operation. 

Since Budanov spoke to Yahoo, two explosives-laden drones were downed over the Kremlin and a car bomb seriously injured Russian reporter and activist Zakhar Prilepin. A suspect in the bombing attack on Prilepin admitted to Russian law enforcement that he had been hired by an unspecified Ukrainian intelligence service, while Moscow has said that the US bears ultimate responsibility for both incidents. 

“We know full well that decisions to carry out such terrorist actions are made not in Kiev, but in Washington,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said of the attack on President Vladimir Putin’s office. “Such crimes will not be left unanswered,”the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement, adding that the “Kiev regime”will face “a stern and inevitable punishment.” 

WESTERN PERSPECTIVE

Russia launches mass strikes on Ukraine ahead of May 9 Victory Day holiday

Russia launched a large-scale wave of strikes on Kyiv and across Ukraine sowing destruction and injuries, officials said early on Monday, as Moscow prepares for its cherished Victory Day holiday that marks the anniversary of its defeat of Nazi Germany.

At least five people were injured due to Russian strikes on Kyiv, Ukrainian officials said, while Russian missiles set ablaze a foodstuff warehouse in the Black Sea city of Odesa and blasts were reported in several other Ukrainian regions.

The fresh attacks come as Moscow prepares for its Victory Day parade on Tuesday, a key anniversary for President Vladimir Putin who has evoked the spirit of the Soviet army that defeated Nazi German forces to declare that Russia would defeat a Ukraine supposedly in the grip of a new incarnation of Nazism.

Russia intensified shelling of Bakhmut hoping to take it by Tuesday, Ukraine's top general in charge of the defence of the besieged city said, after Russia's Wagner mercenary group appeared to ditch plans to withdraw from it.

Three people were injured in blasts in Kyiv's Solomyanskyi district and two others were injured when drone wreckage fell onto the Sviatoshyn district, both west of the capital's centre, Mayor Vitali Klitschko said on his Telegram messaging channel.

The Kyiv's military administration said that drone wreckage fell on a runway of the Zhuliany airport, one of the two passenger airports of the Ukrainian capital, causing no fire, but emergency services were working on the site.

It also said that in Kyiv's central Shevchenkivskyi district, drone debris seemed to have hit a two-storey building, causing damages. There was no immediate information about potential casualties.

Reuters' witnesses said they had heard numerous explosions in Kyiv, with local officials saying that air defence systems were repelling the attacks. It was not immediately clear how many drones were launched on Kyiv.

Serhiy Bratchuk, spokesperson for the Odesa military administration, posted on his Telegram channel photos of a large structure fully engulfed in flames, in what he said was a Russian attack on a foodstuff warehouse, among others.

After air raid alerts blared for hours over roughly two-thirds of Ukraine, there were also media reports of sounds of explosions in the southern region of Kherson and in the Zaporizhzhia region in southeast.

Vladimir Rogov, a Russian-installed local official in Zaporizhzhia, said that Russian forces hit a warehouse and Ukrainian troops' position in Orikhiv, a small city in the region. Reuters was not able to independently verify the report.

Separately, Russian forces shelled eight locations in Sumy region in northeastern Ukraine on Sunday, the regional military administration said in a Facebook post.

In the past two weeks, strikes have also intensified on Russian-held targets, especially in Crimea. Ukraine, without confirming any role in those attacks, says destroying enemy infrastructure is preparation for its long-expected ground assault.

Putin invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022, calling it a "special military operation" to defend Russia from neo-Nazis in Ukraine, but Kyiv and its allies say it was an unprovoked, land grab.

The invasion sparked the biggest conflict in Europe since World War Two and has killed thousands and forced millions to flee the country.

RT/Reuters

My column of last week with the title “Like Mamu, like Abdulsalami and the billion naira firefighter” drew the attention of retired Colonel, Dangiwa Umar. The respected senior citizen was more particular about the first part because I mentioned him.

In the piece, I pointed out that Tukur Mamu, publisher of Kaduna-based Desert Herald and an aide to Ahmad Gumi, a popular Islamic cleric, was arrested in September last year and taken to court on a 10-count charge bordering on terrorism financing.

He was accused of receiving ransom payments from families of hostages on behalf of the Boko Haram terrorist group that attacked the Abuja-Kaduna train. The government said the offence contravenes section 21 (3) (a) of the Terrorism (Prevention and Prohibition) Act, 2022.

Then I went on to observe that four girls – Bilha Musa, Faiza Ahmed, Rahma Abdullahi and Hafsa Murtala – out of the remaining 11 schoolgirls of Federal Government College, Birnin Yauri, in Kebbi State, abducted by bandits on June 17, 2021, were released not out of magnanimity but because of what Mamu was accused of – negotiations and fundraising to get the abductees released.

“It took six days of negotiations in the forest before four of the girls were released to us,” Salim Kaoje told pressmen after their release. ₦80m was also said to have been given to the bandits out of the ₦105m they demanded. They held the remaining seven back until the balance was made available to them."

"Abdulsalami Abubakar, Attorney General Malami, Aminu Bande, who is also the Kebbi State Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) gubernatorial candidate, Adamu Aleiro and Malamawan Kebbi were said to have contributed the funds while Umar, who also contributed, went round the country to get the rest.

“This group”, according to the article, “donated and got some from the abducted girls’ relatives and good Samaritans, including organisations, to convey such to the abductors who, in turn, released their captives.” 

And then the question: “Is this not exactly what Mamu did, which was termed ‘financing terrorism’?”

But Umar, who called me on my mobile phone, disagreed.

Courteous, straight to the point and diplomatic, he calmly asked, “Am I speaking to Hassan Gimba?” to which I answered in the affirmative. And he said, “I am Dangiwa Umar.” He told me that he had read my article and that “it was quite wrong to compare us with Tukur Mamu.” 

To those now opening their eyes to Nigeria, Umar was a fiery military governor of Kaduna State, comprising Kaduna and current Katsina State, between August 1985 and June 1988, during the regime of Ibrahim Babangida.

During the ill-fated coup attempt of Gideon Orkar on April 22, 1990, Umar, as commander of the Armoured Corps Centre and School, Bauchi, threatened to shell and neutralise the coupists from his base. He retired from the army in 1993 and founded a political party called the Movement for Unity and Progress.

He is a social critic. The Nation newspaper editorial of June 8, 2020, said this of him: “Dangiwa Umar rarely speaks, and when he does, he captures the conscience of the nation. He has done that since he retired as a young, idealistic soldier during the turmoil of the June 12 crisis in the early 1990s.”

He told me that two of the four girls released had returned with kids and that what they did was to help bring succour to traumatised people. He lamented that some of the parents of the abducted girls had died as a result of the trauma of having their daughters in the hands of unconscionable brigands. He said kidnapped females are subjected to sexual abuse and that no one would be happy if someone close to him is a victim.

I could feel the pain in his voice. If he had the opportunity, the 74-year-old retired armoured officer would lead troops into the bush to give bandits a bloody nose. With a heavy voice, he lamented, “Hassan, there are over a thousand people in captivity in the bush.” 

While I understood the pain of the Colonel, I also do not see dissimilarities in what Mamu thought or did. Perhaps he, too, was touched by the sufferings of captives and the agony their loved ones found themselves in. I try as much as possible to see humanism as the motive of both sets of “saviours.” Whether one has “gained” anything or not is a matter of conjecture to be left for the courts to decide.

However, my chief concern is not why money was paid to bandits by anyone. After all, we daily hear of kidnappers, in towns and bushes, being paid ransom. It has reached a stage now where people get kidnapped in broad daylight in schools, markets, workplaces, intra and inter-town commercial vehicles, etc. I believe almost everyone will pay, except if they have no money, to secure the freedom of a loved one. Sadly, that route has to be taken because it seems like it is the only way.

When 27-year-old American Philip Walton was kidnapped in the Niger Republic and the kidnappers brought him into Nigeria as a safer place, US Special Forces, including the Navy SEALS, mounted an operation in Nigeria and rescued him.

People like Mamu and everyone else take it upon themselves to negotiate with and give kidnappers money for the release of victims because there is a vacuum; those whose responsibility it is to secure citizens seem overwhelmed; the rogues among them even collude with the terrorists to make a killing on the misery of those they are paid to protect.

But when a retired General and onetime commander-in-chief of the nation’s armed forces, a onetime fiery military governor, senior officials of a sitting government and other respected citizens pool resources and deliver the proceeds to brigands to release their captives because there is no other way, then it becomes sad. And scary. It makes one cry for Nigeria.

** Hassan Gimba is the Publisher and Editor-in-Chief of Neptune Prime.

With the right foundation, your startup can overcome any crisis.

In the business-to-business (B2B) startup world, there’s an abundance of capital, renewed interest and a lot of new players who want to become active in the space. This is an area that we know very well. We’ve always been B2B, and we’ve always believed in the global depth of talent and ability to innovate. It’s from this background that I share some of what we’ve observed in successful B2B companies.

The big question for startup founders is this: How can they increase the chances that their startup will succeed and not become one of the many that fail each year? I dig deep into seven common causes of startup failure in my book Anticipate Failure. But in addition to that, there are certain laws of business building that have long been in place and must be followed. They can make the difference between a fast-scaling, successful startup and one that never quite reaches escape velocity.

Let’s take a look at these laws of business building.

It starts with observing a problem

To begin, every great B2B company starts with an observation about a significant customer problem that exists or a space in the B2B ecosystem that hasn’t seen innovation and really needs to be reinvented. What we find is that there is a product-oriented founding team that asks, “How can we reignite the space?” or “How do we solve this problem and express the solution in a product that a lot of people would be interested in?”

There’s usually an entrepreneur who isn’t steeped in a particular area, but who makes an outside observation, and the founding team has the relevant talent to build the product that needs to be built. They identify a pain point, design a new product to address it, and then they put together the right team to build it. Getting that initial product and product-market fit are essential. Even better is to secure product-market fit in a market that has many product adjacencies. This will enable second and third acts.

Then comes the founder-led selling phase

Next, there is the founder-led selling phase of the product — matching your product with the customer’s needs. This has to be done by the founders. A common mistake is when the founder is deeply technical, and the founding team hopes it can make a sales hire who will have the customer conversations and sell the product for them. Unless it’s another founding team member, that formula almost never works. This is the time when you’ve got to get that initial set of customers right, which is naturally the role of the founding team. It’s very important to lay that strong foundation for a B2B company.

Then, when the time is right, there is a transition from that founder-led selling to recruiting your first one or two missionary or professional salespeople who can then take over that role and get out to a much wider group of customers. A founder is not typically going to know how to scale a sales team to reach $1 billion in revenue. This is where you need to bring in an experienced executive to lead the charge — whether it’s building the sales team or a multi-product engineering team that can deliver on time with high quality. If you’ve never done that before, now is not the time to try to learn on the job.

The transition to execution-oriented sales leadership

After you get this sales team up and running, there’s a very important transition in getting from those initial salespeople to building sales leadership that’s execution-oriented, having marketing that can fill the funnel and then putting the systems and processes in place to execute. At that point, it becomes an execution game of knowing which customers to go after; having the right marketing in front of that; creating the right kind of funnel management and sales leadership; recruiting, hiring, training and enabling salespeople on the product; expressing very clearly the selling proposition of the product so that the next incremental sales hire can actually get it right; and so on. These things and more have to be executed in a perfect way. Fortunately, these are very learnable, doable and repeatable patterns.

Again and again, we see founders who haven’t done this part of the scaling before make the wrong sales hires; they don’t enable them or spend their precious marketing dollars on the wrong things. They don’t have the systems in place to know whether their sales are predictable or if the sales funnel is qualified. Ultimately, this is a phase in which you’re still taking very expensive capital, but you’re making all the same mistakes again and again. It’s better to make new mistakes than repeat old ones.

When everything seems like it's going right

And so, you are at a phase where you’ve got a lot of things going right: You’ve figured out the customer pain point, the product, the initial selling and the expansion part of it. And then, once you hit escape velocity — a $10 million run rate — a tremendous amount of cheap capital is available. This is a very important phase of a company where you’re moving from founder-led selling, to early selling, to repeatable, scalable selling. You have to get that right before you go off and raise a lot of capital that is just very cheap and totally hands-off.

Yes, ample capital is selectively available to the breakout companies. But there is still a lot of hard work and business building to be done from a company’s inception to its breakout. And if you’re not getting those steps right — if you haven’t followed the laws of business building — you could very well end up in a situation where you don’t have the right people around the table who are going to get you to that breakout level. And you’re probably just raising capital, but that capital that doesn’t understand how B2B companies are created, built and placed on a path to success.

The laws of business building still apply, and they must be followed if you want to guarantee your startup long-term success. Cheap capital is widely available, but you must use it at the right time. And until you know you’re a breakout, don’t settle for cheap, dumb capital. Hard work, the right people and discipline all play a signifcant role in getting a company to breakout status.

Entrepreneur

Speculators are once again fleeing the oil market, setting the stage for more extreme price swings. 

Money managers dumped their net-bullish oil holdings by 19%, the biggest drop in six weeks. The positions are now at the lowest seasonal level in more than a decade.

The exodus comes amid another crash for oil, driven by concerns over the economy. West Texas Intermediate futures have tumbled for three straight weeks, even briefly plunging to the lowest level since late 2021. 

With investors rushing for the exit, it’s drying up liquidity and leaving the markets largely in the hands of algorithm or momentum-based traders — a scenario that often creates even more volatility, said Michael Tran, managing director at RBC Capital Markets LLC.

“In short, the oil market needs more players on the field,” he said.

Money managers’ WTI net-long position, or the difference between bearish and bullish bets, dropped to 157,047 contracts in the week ended May 2, according to data released Friday by the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission. The speculators’ share of open interest, a measure of market participation, is near the lowest level in three years.

Without speculators, prices can become disconnected from supply and demand drivers. That can create pain for hedgers, merchants and producers who can’t walk away from the market even when its moving counter to what physical fundamentals dictate. Implied volatility already recently climbed to the highest in more than a month.

This kind of exodus has driven extreme price swings in the past. 

Last year, a combination of higher collateral requirements and rising interest rates dented demand from speculators who sometimes use oil as a hedge against inflation. The sapping liquidity caused increasingly erratic intraday price moves. By the end of the year, more than $120 billion poured out of global commodity markets. 

Part of the reason oil speculators are staying on the sidelines is that they have been repeatedly burned. For example in early April, they were holding a very large short position, or bets on falling prices. But Saudi Arabia and allies, known as OPEC+, announced surprise production cuts that sent prices surging, leaving many investors wrong-footed. Instead of buying back into the market with long holdings or new short bets, the money managers have decided to instead stay on the sidelines. 

WTI settled on Friday at $71.34 a barrel. Earlier in the week, the price touched $63.64, the lowest since 2021. 

For bulls to return, it will likely take both signs of a meaningful slowdown in Russian output along with a sustained recovery in Chinese demand.

Ultimately, when the oil market struggles, it can also pull other commodities lower as traders get margin calls across the sector, said Carley Garner, a Commodity Broker and Strategist at DeCarley Trading. 

“We’re not there yet, but if oil drops below $63, it will cascade in other markets — even stocks,” she said. “Oil lures speculators when prices move higher. They need to see a more rational market.” 

King Charles III was crowned Saturday at Westminster Abbey, in a ceremony steeped in ancient ritual and brimming with bling at a time when the monarchy is striving to remain relevant in a fractured modern Britain.

At a coronation with displays of royal power straight out of the Middle Ages, Charles was given an orb, a sword and scepter and had the solid gold, bejeweled St. Edward’s Crown placed atop his head as he sat upon a 700-year-old oak chair.

In front of world leaders, foreign royals, dignitaries and a smattering of stars, the monarch declared, “I come not to be served but to serve,” and was presented as Britain’s “undoubted king.”

Inside the medieval abbey, trumpets sounded, and the congregation of more than 2,000 shouted “God save the king!” Outside, thousands of troops, hundreds of thousands of spectators and scores of protesters converged.

It was the culmination of a seven-decade journey for the king from heir to monarch.

To the royal family and government, the occasion — code-named Operation Golden Orb — was a display of heritage, tradition and spectacle unmatched around the world.

To the crowds gathered under rainy skies — thousands of whom had camped overnight — it was a chance to be part of a historic event.

Julie Newman, a 77-year-old visitor from Canada, said the royal procession had been “absolutely fabulous. Couldn’t ask for anything better.”

“But we’re ready to go back home and watch it all on the television,” she added.

But to millions more, the day was greeted with a shrug, the awe and reverence the ceremony was designed to evoke largely gone.

And to a few, it was reason to protest. Hundreds who want to see Britain become a republic gathered to holler “ Not my king.” They see the monarchy as an institution that stands for privilege and inequality, in a country of deepening poverty and fraying social ties. A handful were arrested.

As the day began, the abbey buzzed with excitement and was abloom with fragrant flowers and colorful hats. Notables streamed in: U.S. first lady Jill Biden, first lady Olena Zelenska of Ukraine, French President Emmanuel Macron, eight current and former British prime ministers, judges in wigs, soldiers with gleaming medals, and celebrities including Judi Dench, Emma Thompson and Lionel Richie.

During the traditional Anglican service slightly tweaked for modern times, Charles, clad in crimson and cream velvet and ermine-trimmed robes, swore on a Bible that he is a “true Protestant.”

But a preface was added to the coronation oath to say the Anglican church “will seek to foster an environment where people of all faiths and beliefs may live freely.” It was the first ceremony to include representatives of the Buddhist, Hindu, Jewish, Muslim, and Sikh faiths, as well as the first in which female clergy took part.

Charles was anointed with oil from the Mount of Olives in the Holy Land — a part of the ceremony so sacred it was concealed behind screens — before being presented with the Sovereign’s Orb and other regalia.

Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby then placed the crown on Charles’ head, while he sat in the Coronation Chair — once gilded, now worn and etched with graffiti. Underneath the seat was a sacred slab known as the Stone of Scone, on which ancient Scottish kings were crowned.

For 1,000 years and more, such grandiose ceremonies have confirmed the right of British kings to rule. Charles was the 40th sovereign to be enthroned in the abbey — and, at 74, the oldest.

These days, the king no longer has executive or political power, and the service is purely ceremonial since Charles automatically became king upon death of his mother, Queen Elizabeth II, in September.

The king does remain the U.K.’s head of state and a symbol of national identity — and Charles will have to work to bring together a multicultural nation and shore up support for the monarchy at at time when it is waning, especially among younger people.

While most Britons view the monarchy on a spectrum ranging from apathy to mild interest, some are fervently opposed to it. The anti-monarchy group Republic said several of its members, including its chief executive, were arrested as they arrived at a protest in central London.

Police, who’d warned they would have a “low tolerance” for people seeking to disrupt the day, said they made 52 arrests. Human Rights Watch said arrests of peaceful protesters were “something you would expect to see in Moscow, not London.”

The multimillion-pound cost of the all the pomp — the exact figure unknown — also rankled some amid a cost-of-living crisis that has meant many Britons are struggling to pay energy bills and buy food.

Charles has sought to lead a smaller, less expensive royal machine for the 21st century, and his was a shorter, smaller affair than his mother’s coronation.

The notoriously feuding royal family put on its own show of unity. Prince William, who is next in line to be king, his wife, Kate, and their three children were all in attendance. Towards the end of the ceremony, William knelt before his father and pledged loyalty to the king — before kissing him on the cheek.

Then Archbishop Welby invited everyone in the abbey to swear “true allegiance” to the monarch. He said people watching on television could pay homage, too — though that part of the ceremony was toned down after some criticized it as a tone-deaf effort to demand a public oath of allegiance for Charles.

William’s younger brother Prince Harry, who has publicly sparred with the family, arrived alone. His wife Meghan and their children remained at home in California, where the couple has lived since quitting as working royals in 2020.

As Charles and the key royals joined a magnificent military procession after the ceremony, Harry stood waiting outside the abbey until a car arrived to drive him away.

Large crowds cheered as Charles and Queen Camilla, who was also crowned, rode in the Gold State Carriage from the abbey to Buckingham Palace, accompanied by a procession of 4,000 troops and military bands playing jaunty tunes. From the palace balcony, the king and queen waved to a sea of people who cheered and shouted “God Save the king!”

For many other Britons, the day’s events drew mild curiosity, at best.

Cherie Duffy, who was visiting London from Anglesey, Wales, on a trip planned before the coronation date was set, watched the ceremony on TV — but only because someone else turned it on.

“There’s a general not-botheredness,” she said about how she and her friends felt.

AP

Over 40 percent of deposits in local banks are now in United States (U.S.) dollars, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has said.

It blamed the trend of saving in hard currency on rising inflation and exchange rate volatility.

The IMF described the practice as a confirmation of loss of confidence in the local currency, adding that “it is usually difficult to reverse”.

According to the IMF, market participants defend their wealth by shifting to dollar savings under high and persistent inflation.

In its Report on dollar savings, the Fund said “Nigeria operates with dollar bias for international trade, finance invoicing and of recent, store of value. Over 40 per cent of Nigeria’s bank deposits are in dollars”.

The IMF said the process of reversing citizens savings in dollars could be complex even after addressing the initial trigger, such as high inflation and exchange rate volatility.

The use of dollars for storing value worsened in the country following the implementation of the naira redesign policy and issuance of new banknotes by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).

Under the policy, the CBN introduced new 1,000, 500 and 200 naira denominations and withdrew the old notes from circulation.

But a March 3 Supreme Court verdict on a suit spearheaded by Kaduna, Kogi and Zamfara state governments forced the CBN to reintroduce the rested notes.

In its judgment, the apex court directed the CBN and the Federal Government to allow the old and the new naira notes to co-exist till December 31.

Analysts said the redesigning of the bank notes could inadvertently lead to the dollarisation of the domestic economy.

The IMF said most economies operate with a foreign exchange (FX) – the dollar bias for international trade and finance invoicing.

“The optimal choice between domestic currency versus dollars  will depend on the monetary framework and the benefits that each may offer as they co-exist as two currencies,” it said.

The IMF explained that in a highly dollarised economy, there is extended use of the exchange rate for price indexation (high real dollarisation and almost complete pass-through from depreciation to inflation). Forex is also used in foreign trade.

It said: “There is limited scope for fiat currency (tax payments, public expenditure, non- durable goods, and low- value transactions; extended forex use for durable goods, real estate, capital goods, and high-value transactions. Also, forex takes over the role of store of value as lending capacity in domestic currency becomes limited. Most loans become forex- denominated when forex bank deposits are allowed.”

The Fund said banking systems in many developing economies are bi-monetary while the  U.S. enjoys a privileged status as issuer of the most widely used international currency.

It said a bi-monetary system embodies the failure to conduct monetary policy in an effective way, such as, secure price stability, efficient payment systems, and well-functioning financial markets (including long-run financial contracts at comparatively low nominal interest rates).

“The most common type of dollarisation is financial dollarisation (FD), or asset substitution, caused by a poor performance of the local currency.

“The local currency is used more for payment transactions but is replaced by the dollar as saving asset or store of value, in line with Gresham’s law.”

Under extremely high inflation, such as in Venezuela or Zimbabwe, real dollarization (RD) – i.e., use of the dollar as means of payment transactions and store of value -also takes place.

It said: “On the one hand, in some countries dollarisation is entrenched and a bi-monetary system is formally allowed (e.g., Uruguay). On the other hand, in other countries it is not allowed, or dollar accounts are restricted. Under high inflation (e.g., Argentina or the Democratic Republic of the Congo), the public holds a large share of financial assets abroad and local financial intermediation is low.

“Countries with no history of extreme high inflation (e.g., Malaysia) impose restrictions on dollar deposits, but there seems to be no significant impact on local financial intermediation.”

The IMF said a bi-monetary system limits the role of the exchange rate as a shock absorber, as real dollarization implies a high pass-through from exchange rate depreciation to inflation.

It said: “Financial dollarlisation creates currency mismatches and liquidity risks for the financial system and the economy as a whole. Therefore, the exchange rate amplifies negative external shocks rather than absorbing them.

“Both financial dollarization and   real dollarisation jeopardize monetary transmission mechanisms, as inflation expectations are difficult to anchor with a weak interest rate channel.

“Financial dollarisation-related financial instability would need to be addressed via policy responses such as a central bank forex reserve buildup and associated regulation.”

The Nation

Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) candidate in the February 25 presidential election and his counterpart in the Labour Party (LP), Peter Obi, met on Saturday at the burial of the father of Bayelsa State Governor, Douye Diri.

The duo got talking at the funeral held at Sampou community in Kolokuma/Opokuma Local Government Area of the state in what appears to be their first public meeting after the general elections.

Vice President Yemi Osibanjo, former Presidents Olusegun Obasanjo and Goodluck Jonathan, former and several prominent Nigerian leaders, also bid farewell to Pa Abraham Diri.

Others in attendance include former first lady, Patience Jonathan, National Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Iyorchia Ayu, state governors, including  Ifeanyi Okowa, (Delta), Ademola Adeleke (Osun), Godwin Obaseki (Edo) and his wife, Betty, Udom Emmanuel (Akwa Ibom), Seyi Makinde (Oyo) and Darius Ishiaku (Taraba).

Governors-elect of Akwa Ibom, Plateau, Taraba and Niger states were also in attendance.

Speaking during the funeral, Osinbajo described Pa Diri as an exemplary teacher and community leader, who gave his children proper upbringing.

He said, “We are here to celebrate the life and times of Pa Diri. The array of personalities here is an indication that Pa Diri brought up and nurtured the aspirations of so many children.”

He noted that the late Diri’s reward as a teacher came not just through his son, but attracted so many notable Nigerians to Sampou.

“He could not have imagined that an array of personalities would come here to honour him. According to the book of Proverbs 14:23, “in all labour, there is profit.”

Former President Jonathan, in his remarks, said he was with the bereaved Diri family to appreciate Obasanjo, Osinbajo and all those who came to honour the family and the people of the state.

He recalled that Pa Diri died on a day that the present administration in the state was marking its third anniversary and prayed God to strengthen Diri and his family.

Also, former Vice President Atiku said: “There is a special relationship between me and the people of Bayelsa State. l am with you as a family and that is why l am physically here.”

Responding, Governor Diri said he and his family as well as the entire state were humbled by the large turnout of high profile dignitaries in his community to bid his father farewell.

He said: “We are indeed overwhelmed. There can be no love more than that. I would not have thought even in the wildest of my imaginations that there would be a large number of high profile Nigerians here to celebrate my father.”

Diri, who described his father as a disciplinarian, noted that he impacted positively on all who crossed his path and they all shared his positive attributes.

Daily Trust