The year 2012 was a good one for the Nigerian capital market. It was the year patient investors recouped some of the money they lost in the 2007 market crash. The All Share Index (ASI), which captures how market prices change from day to day and from year to year, moved up by a significant 35.54 per cent emerging among the top 10 best-performing stock markets globally in 2012. The only stock market that performed better in Africa in 2012 was the Nairobi Stock Exchange (NSE) in Kenya, which moved up 39 per cent.

The commodity super-cycle – in which commodity prices reach ever-higher highs, and fall only to higher lows – is not over. Despite the euphoria around shale gas – indeed, despite weak global growth – commodity prices have risen by as much as 150 percent in the aftermath of the financial crisis. In the medium term, this trend will continue to pose an inflation risk and undermine living standards worldwide.

From January 13 (my birthday) to January 20, 2013, the seventy “Senior Elders” from Nigeria held all-night vigils at St. Peter’s Square, Rome, as supplicants. The Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI, overwhelmed us all by his beneficence and goodwill. However, he gently admonished us: “The God we worship does not encourage selfish prayers. You should pray for others, not yourselves.” It was a salutary intervention and wake up call. What was truly amazing was that the more earnestly we prayed for others, especially the poor and the downtrodden, the more the Almighty blessed us!

The supervisory board of the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN), which was constituted in December, was finally inaugurated last Tuesday. This is a welcome development as it is expected to bring some sort of relief to electricity consumers because the contracts signed with Manitoba Hydro International can now be implemented.

The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) recently reported that the January inflation rate reached a record low of 9 percent, from the 12 percent recorded in December 2012. The significant 3 percent fall in the rate of inflation was attributed to high base effects, which implies that the impact of any price increase in January 2013 was felt less as a result of a high commodity price in January 2012. After all, the partial removal of fuel subsidy in January 2012 resulted in an increase in the general price level. In February 2013, we also expect the inflation rate to remain relatively flat at 9.1 percent (±0.25 percent) due to a minimal impact of the base period (February 2012).

The 2013 budget, which the president approved on February 26, allocates close to N1trn for fuel subsidies. We should welcome the attempted deregulation last year and the halving of the fiscal cost from N2.19trn ($14bn) in 2011, yet we should not expect the FGN to complete its mission in the next two years. The arguments in favour of the status quo were shallow but they prevailed because of the government’s credibility gap. The alliance of organised labour, sections of civil society and vested interests generated the protest that led the FGN to abandon the removal of the subsidy and instead raise the retail price of premium motor spirit (PMS) from N65 per litre (l) to N97/l in January 2012.

When the new Onitsha-Asaba bridge is completed and the old one pulled down, there will still be only three bridges crossing the lower Niger from Lokoja to the Atlantic—a distance of 362 miles/580 kilometers. Even at our present stage of economic development, and in view of the prevalent heavy east-west traffic, three bridges are simply not enough.

The Federal Ministry of Information recently designed a programme in collaboration with other agencies to tour projects in states across the country. It is said to be “a non-partisan tour involving the leadership of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ); the Radio, Television and Theatre Arts Workers Union (RATTAWU); leaders of women and youth organisations; National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS); National Council of Women Societies (NCWS); leaders of non-governmental organisations; operatives of security agencies; representative(s) of the Nigeria Governors’ Forum Secretariat; and reporters from the nation’s print and electronic media”.