🍞 Revisiting to-do list

Hello!

Adetomiwa here, writing with mild coffee jitters (as a sporadic coffee drinker)

Welcome back to The Daily Bread 🍞

In this edition, the Nigerian federal government’s increasing dependence on Dangote is starting to show. From petrol to sugar. What’s next? Also, if you’re in Nigeria and have noticed your phone has had less signal lately, you’re not imagining it, but Airtel Nigeria is working on a solution.

After years of talk, Nigeria and Morocco are about to sign an intergovernmental agreement to turn chat into action. It’s the most concrete step the project has taken since NNPC, Morocco, Senegal, and Mauritania signed the project’s memoranda of understanding in 2022. This latest step sets the stage for actual execution, not just announcements, feasibility studies, and pictures of officials shaking hands.

Once that agreement is signed, a coordinating authority will be set up in Nigeria, bringing together representatives from 13 countries. Which is exciting, but also like a logistical group chat that could get chaotic very fast.

The big picture (because this thing is massive)
This pipeline isn’t a small ambition. Backed by the Economic Community of West African States, it’s designed to stretch across 6,900km and move huge volumes of gas from Nigeria, through West Africa, up to Morocco, and eventually into Europe.

The goal is to turn West Africa into a serious gas player globally, while positioning Morocco as the plug between Africa and Europe. Everyone wins… in theory.

Slow and steady wins the race, amen?
Instead of waiting for one big “final decision” (which is usually where projects like this stall), they’re breaking it into phases.

So parts of the pipeline can be built and start working independently—connecting countries like Senegal, Mauritania, Ghana, and Côte d’Ivoire first—before everything eventually links back to Nigeria. The first gas from the initial phases is expected in 2031 (that’s 5 years from today).

Now, the slightly awkward part: money
There’s no confirmed funding yet. A joint venture between Nigeria's NNPC and Morocco’s ONHYM will handle financing, likely combining loans and investor funding. There’s “strong interest,” which is polite industry speak for “we’re still talking.”

Why you should care (even a little)
If it actually works, this could improve electricity supply, support industries, and deepen economic ties across West Africa in a way that’s been talked about for years but rarely delivered.

Other positives

But also… let’s not get ahead of ourselves
This project has been floating around since 2016. There have been announcements, MoUs, and timelines before. So while this new agreement is progress, it’s not the finish line. It’s more like an engagement, but nobody knows when the wedding will be held.

Bottom line
It’s big, it’s promising, and it’s moving again. But until the money lands and construction actually starts, this is still one to watch, not celebrate just yet.

👩🏽‍⚕️Nigeria’s pharma industry is growing up: Nigeria’s pharmaceutical companies are ditching their old playbook. For years, they leaned heavily on short-term bank loans to keep things running, but with interest rates now sitting north of painful (the Central Bank of Nigeria benchmark is 26.5%, and real lending rates can hit 30%+), that model is breaking down. Add a weak naira and the fact that over 70% of raw materials are imported, and you get the perfect storm: higher costs, tighter cash flow, and debt that’s no longer helping growth. So companies are switching things up. Producers like Fidson Healthcare and Neimeth International Pharmaceuticals are raising equity, restructuring loans, and stretching repayment timelines to ease the pressure. It’s less about quick cash, more about long-term growth. With multinationals like GSK and Sanofi leaving the country, local firms have a bigger opportunity to fill the gap, so it’s a great time to rethink their funding structure.

🍭Nigeria’s sugar dreams: The federal government is relying on Dangote Sugar Refinery to scale production up to 600,000 metric tonnes annually by 2030, as part of a broader push to close Nigeria’s massive sugar gap. Right now, the country consumes about 1.8 million metric tonnes a year, far above what’s produced locally. Officials, including the industry ministry and the National Sugar Development Council, are leaning heavily on big players like Dangote to drive that shift under the long-running sugar master plan. But getting there requires money. The government itself admits that access to long-term, affordable financing (“patient capital”) is one of the biggest blockers. Dangote says it’s committed and already expanding capacity, so fingers crossed. If it works, Nigeria could cut imports and build a local industry. If not, we’re back to importing sugar and having this same conversation in 2030.

🛜 Airtel is right behind MTN: Airtel Africa Plc is ramping up network capacity in Nigeria as competition in the telecoms market heats up, in a clear push to close the gap with market leader MTN Nigeria. Its local arm, Airtel Nigeria, has added over 1,500 sites in the last three years, taking its total footprint to nearly 17,200, and committed about $500 million to strengthening its network. The focus now isn’t really to grow subscriber numbers but rather to have enough capacity in the places where usage is heaviest. That urgency is coming from how fast data demand is rising. Nigerians used about 1.26 million terabytes of data in February 2026 alone, and networks are starting to feel it. So Airtel’s expansion is to increase its capacity to meet growing demand, especially in cities and busy outskirts where MTN still has the upper hand. In today’s market, whoever can keep their network from slowing down is basically winning.

Nigeria’s Central Securities Clearing System (Central Securities Clearing System) has rolled out a pretty big shake-up of its 2026 fee structure, basically changing how it charges people to trade and hold investments. Fees across things like trades, account services, and custody have all gone up, with some jumping sharply. OTC trades, for example, rose from ₦15 per million to ₦500 per million. Even simple things like account updates and transfers now cost more, and there are new charges for data and digital services.

What’s really happening is a shift in how the system makes money. Instead of flat, fixed fees, CSCS is now charging more in line with how big your investments are and how active you are in the market. Bigger institutional investors pay more, especially in areas like bonds and custody. On the surface, the entire pricing system has been redesigned to make more money from bigger players, but commonplace retail investors are still affected through small increases that seem inconsequential but add up over time.

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