Business
N15bn Benue brewery set for inauguration in October
The Food Basket Brewery expected to be inaugurated in October, this year is expected to gulp between N10 billion and N15 billion upon completion.
The Group Managing Director of Benue Investment and Property Company Limited, Dr. Raymond Asemakaha, disclosed this to journalists in Makurdi, the state capital, on Thursday.
Asemakaha who took delivery of 10 truck loads of machine equipment for the brewery said that the company had earlier received 16 truck loads of machines for the brewery out of the expected 50 trucks.
He expressed optimism that the brewery, along with the Benfruit and Juice factories, would commence full operations by October, creating at least 1,500 jobs to boost the state’s economy.
According to the CMD, the company has slated October, this year to inaugurate the three factories which included, the Food Basket Brewery, Benfruit, and Juice factories
He explained that the expected factories would be added to existing factories such as table water, nails, polythene and bakery factories to take off the growing multitude of graduates off the streets.
He said, “The Food Basket Brewery, Benfruit and Juice factories all will take off in October this year. We are projecting to employ not less than 1500 direct jobs across the three businesses.
“At the moment, Benue doesn’t have businesses, we are introducing these businesses so that it will help us boost our economy and take our youths out of the streets.”
He added, “To establish a standard brewery, about £5m to £10m was needed for the project and we have already started and there is no going back.”
When inaugurated, he projected that the brewery factory alone will generate between N400 million to N500 million monthly.
Asemakaha said that factories earlier established had provided 580 direct jobs and over 3000 indirect jobs for the people of the state.
He said, “We want our money to rotate within the state to boost our economy. The brewery is a big market. The profit of the Nigerian Brewery the last time I know was over 26 billion a month.
“At the end, Benue is one of the contributor in that market but we didn’t tap into it. Even if we are able to have within 50 to 60 per cent it should be able to return the cash flow within the state.
“The businesses that we have introduced, the bread, nails, water, polythene factories are to give our people jobs and we feel that is the best way to contribute to the development of our economy.”
Asemakaha thanked the state governor, Hyacinth Alia, for his support to BIPC and pledged the company’s commitment to the administration’s industrialisation agenda.
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Nigerian billionaire, Femi Otedola, has disclosed a heated confrontation with former President Olusegun Obasanjo over the deregulation of diesel importation in 2004, in which Obasanjo was so angry that he accused Otedola of misleading him to deregulate the importation of the product.
Otedola revealed this in his memoir, ‘Making It Big: Lessons from a Life in Business,’ published by FO Books and slated for release on August 18, 2025.
In excerpts from the book seen by TheCable, the oil magnate elaborated on how Obasanjo flew into a rage after being told that there was diesel scarcity across the country because of deregulation.
Otedola, who owned Zenon Petroleum at the time, had convinced Obasanjo that the private sector could meet Nigeria’s diesel demand without the involvement of NNPC, which had been selling imported diesel below market price and getting subsidy reimbursement from the federal government.
The business tycoon wrote, “When President Obasanjo deregulated diesel in 2004, Zenon took an unassailable lead in the market.
“My opponents’ reaction was to tell the president that we’d turned the market upside down (and that the) economy was about to be brought down because there was no diesel, and Obasanjo was mad at me because he’d sought and received assurances from us that NNPC’s exit from diesel importation wouldn’t affect supply. “My critics then fanned the flames by telling him there was no diesel in the country, that trucks couldn’t move and that industries were shutting down.”
He continued, “The President called me at 2am, shouting through the phone. ‘You’re a stupid boy! God will punish you! You persuaded me to deregulate diesel, and now there’s no diesel in the country!’ He was livid. I flew to Abuja the following day. As soon as Obasanjo saw me, he flew into a rage again. ‘What kind of rubbish is this? What kind of nonsense is this?’ He was right in my face, screaming at the top of his lungs.
“I allowed him to cool down, and when he stopped talking, I tried to explain the situation. ‘Baba, they’re lying to you. It’s all lies. I have six ships waiting to discharge big supplies of diesel.’”
Otedola argued that diesel was available across the country and that he was even paying demurrage fees due to delays in offloading his shipments.
“I was even paying demurrage. I told the president that I was the victim of competitors’ backbiting,” he wrote, saying he asked Obasanjo to “see what they come up with next… You’ll see that it’s me who’s telling you the truth.”
To disprove the misinformation, Otedola said he proposed to Obasanjo that they advertise the availability and price of diesel on the front pages of national newspapers, aiming to reassure the public and address pricing concerns.
“I knew it was people in NNPC – the state monopoly, in their now – teetering positions of power, who were against deregulation – who’d been telling him these lies. They wanted to continue to import, and rake in the subsidy money.
“Obasanjo was a determined and robust president. Jealous people did not easily sway him. Once he made up his mind that someone was trustworthy and genuine, as he seemed to do about me that day, he stopped listening to the naysayers,” he added.
Nigerian government liberalised the diesel market in 2004, making it the first petroleum product to be fully free of subsidy and ending the associated rent culture.
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The Bank of England on Thursday cut its key interest rate by a quarter point to four percent, the lowest level in 2.5 years, as it bids to boost a UK economy threatened by US tariffs.
Alongside the expected decision, the BoE forecast British economic growth to hit 1.25 percent this year, slightly better than the central bank’s previous estimate of one percent.
“The direct impact of US tariffs is milder than feared, but more general tariff-related uncertainty still weighs on sentiment,” the BoE said in a statement after studying data gathered by UK businesses.
London and Washington reached an agreement in May to cut levies of more than 10 percent imposed by US President Donald Trump on certain UK-made items imported by the United States, notably vehicles.
The quarter-point cut on Thursday was the BoE’s fifth such reduction since starting a trimming cycle in August 2024.
“Interest rates are still on a downward path, but any future rate cuts will need to be made gradually and carefully,” its governor, Andrew Bailey, said following Thursday’s decision.
The BoE voted 5-4 for the reduction, but not before an unprecedented second vote owing to a three-way split among its nine policymakers that prevented a necessary majority result.
Initially, four members voted for the reduction and four for no change. One member called for a larger cut of 0.50 percent, before switching in favour of a quarter-point drop, as voted for by Bailey.
It was the first time since the BoE became independent of the UK government in 1997 that a second vote had to be held.
“Looking ahead, interest rates are expected to be 3.5 percent in a year, which is slightly higher than before the (latest) meeting,” noted Kathleen Brooks, research director at XTB trading group.
Expectations that the rate will remain at four percent for longer boosted the British pound.
The BoE’s main task is to keep Britain’s annual inflation rate at 2.0 percent, but the latest official data showed it had jumped unexpectedly to an 18-month high in June.
The Consumer Prices Index increased to 3.6 percent as motor fuel and food prices stayed high.
The BoE on Thursday predicted that the annual inflation rate would peak at four percent next month.
Latest official figures show that Britain’s economy unexpectedly contracted for a second month running in May, and UK unemployment is at a near four-year high of 4.7 percent.
This is largely down to Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Labour government increasing a UK business tax from April, the same month that the country became subject to Trump’s 10-percent baseline tariff on most goods.
Finance minister Rachel Reeves welcomed the latest rate cut, saying in a statement that it helps to “bring down the cost of mortgages and loans for families and businesses”.
The US Federal Reserve last week kept interest rates unchanged, defying strong political pressure from Trump to slash borrowing costs in a bid to boost the world’s biggest economy.
Asked about US tariffs following the decision, Fed Chair Jerome Powell told a press conference: “We’re still a ways away from seeing where things settle down.”
The European Central Bank is meanwhile widely expected to keep rates unchanged at its next meeting, with eurozone inflation around the ECB’s two-percent target.
But that could change, according to some economists, based on how Trump’s tariffs affect the single-currency bloc.
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Apple will invest an additional $100 billion in the United States, taking its total pledge to $600 billion over the next four years, a senior White House official said Wednesday.
The announcement, which was first reported by US media, will be officially made later Wednesday at 4:30 pm (2030 GMT) at a White House event with President Donald Trump.
In February, Apple said it would spend more than $500 billion in the United States and hire 20,000 people, with Trump quickly taking credit for the decision.
The Silicon Valley-based giant said it was its “largest-ever spend commitment,” which came as tech companies battle for dominance in developing artificial intelligence technology.
It builds on plans announced in 2021, when the company founded by Steve Jobs said that it would invest $430 billion in the US and add 20,000 jobs over the next five years.
Trump, who has pushed US companies to shift manufacturing home by slapping tariffs on trading partners, claimed that his administration was to thank for the investment.
Apple reported a quarterly profit of $23.4 billion in late July, topping forecasts despite facing higher costs due to Trump’s sweeping levies.
Tariffs are essentially a tax paid by companies importing goods to the United States. This means Apple is on the hook for tariffs on iPhones and other products or components it brings into the country from abroad.
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