Equities jumped Thursday after data showing job losses in the US private sector fanned optimism for more interest rate cuts and overshadowed a partial shutdown of the country’s government.

Tech firms led the way higher as a deal between South Korea’s biggest chip firms and OpenAI added fuel to the AI-led rally that has helped push markets to record highs.

While debate rages over the impact of the closure of some US departments owing to a standoff between lawmakers in Washington, investors continue to focus on the outlook for more Federal Reserve rate cuts.

And hopes were given a boost Wednesday by figures from payrolls firm ADP showing companies shed 32,000 posts last month, confounding forecasts for a gain of more than 50,000.

The data was the latest in a string of below-par reports indicating the labour market in the world’s top economy continues to slow and will give more impetus for the Fed to cut rates twice more before the end of the year.

Observers said the reading had a little more significance owing to expectations that crucial non-farm payrolls statistics will not be released as usual on Friday owing to the shutdown.

“The market is going to have to focus on independent private sources to get a sense of what’s going on,” Wellington Management’s Brij Khurana said.

“If the administration does go forward with cutting headcount, there is potential for this to have an economic impact and probably more so than what we’re used to.”

Economists at Bank of America wrote before the release: “Some downside risks remain on the horizon for labour demand. Goods producing sectors have been shedding jobs since May, in part due to tariff uncertainty.

“Also, we expect to see continued layoffs in the professional and business services sector, where AI adoption is presumably relatively faster.”

They added that recent government layoffs by Donald Trump’s administration would also weigh.

After all three main indexes on Wall Street rose, with the S&P 500 and Nasdaq hitting records, Asia was happy to take up the baton.

Tokyo, Sydney, Singapore, Wellington, Bangkok, Manila and Jakarta were all up, with Hong Kong piling on more than one percent as traders returned from a midweek break. Shanghai is closed for a week-long holiday.

But Seoul and Taipei led the rally thanks to a boost in chip firms following news of the deal between OpenAI and Samsung and SK Hynix.

The Korean firms said they had signed preliminary deals with the US company to provide chips and other equipment for its Stargate project during a visit to Seoul by OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman.

SK hynix soared around 12 per cent at one point and Samsung around five per cent, helping the Kospi index to add 2.7 per cent to a record high.

Taipei’s TAIEX index jumped 1.5 per cent as chip titan and market heavyweight TSMC piled on three per cent.

Other regional tech firms also enjoyed a run-up, with Hong Kong-listed Alibaba, Tencent and JD.com all up between two and four per cent.

Tech companies have been at the forefront of a surge across markets this year as investors pile into all things linked to artificial intelligence, with hundreds of billions being pumped into the sector.

London, Paris and Frankfurt opened with healthy gains.

– Key figures at around 0715 GMT –

Tokyo – Nikkei 225: UP 0.9 per cent at 44,936.73 (close)

Hong Kong – Hang Seng Index: UP 1.9 per cent at 27,363.39

Shanghai – Composite: Closed for a holiday

London – FTSE 100: UP 0.2 per cent at 9,465.92

Euro/dollar: UP at $1.1737 from $1.1728 on Wednesday

Pound/dollar: UP at $1.3480 from $1.3476

Dollar/yen: UP at 147.22 yen from 147.14 yen

Euro/pound: UP at 87.07 pence from 87.04 pence

West Texas Intermediate: UP 0.2 per cent at $61.89 per barrel

Brent North Sea Crude: UP 0.2 per cent at $65.45 per barrel

New York – Dow: UP 0.1 per cent at 46,441.10 (close)

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In what is fast becoming an eyesore in Abuja, the nation’s seat of power, sub-standard schools built primarily for money-making now dot the landscape of most satellite towns in the FCT. With the education inspectorate doing little or nothing to address the menace, stakeholders fear that the practice may harm a system already struggling with the scourge of multi-layered neglect. DIRISU YAKUBU reports!

education is seen largely as both a service and a right. It is the responsibility of the government across all tiers to dispense education to the citizenry, whose right it is to embrace. Difficult as it is to enumerate its mileage in a single report, it suffices to suggest that the biggest weapon in the armoury of Nigeria’s foremost nationalists and Africa’s freedom fighters was the education they had, which enabled them to dare the colonial imperialists, forcing the latter to relinquish power reluctantly.

So big is the harvest of a good quality education that the Sage, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, the then Premier of the Western Region, made education compulsory and free for children, many of whose parents could not afford fees and other payments required to keep their wards within the four walls of an educational institution.

The near collapse of governance at all levels in subsequent years culminated in the fall of education standards, forcing well-to-do parents to withdraw their children and wards from public schools for enrollment in private institutions.

With improved earnings over the years, many parents took the private schools’ option, given their ability to pay more remuneration to teachers while exposing pupils and students to better-teaching models and other extra-curricular activities.

The patronage of private schools, needless to state here, has seen education morph from a service to business ventures. Across major cities in Nigeria, including Abuja, the seat of power, those who have no expertise in school administration have, with a combination of greed and crass opportunism, set up schools, targeting the children of low-income earners, to earn a living.

In most of the satellite towns in the FCT, schools lack basic infrastructure, and qualified manpower and recreational facilities are a common sight today. With government officials either playing the ostrich or abdicating their duties, enforcement of standards has thus been relegated to the background.

In a tour of some ‘schools’ in Abuja, The PUNCH uncovered a litany of rot, ranging from the engagement of semi-literate teachers to the absence of libraries, laboratories, sports facilities, to name just a few.

Findings revealed that the school proprietors, while charging relatively high fees, pay their teachers peanuts, citing the harsh economic realities of the times.

At Leaders Academy Drive, off Tiga Street, Kurudu, Abuja Municipal Area Council, is a three-bedroom apartment housing a family of four. It is a middle-class residential building, plastered but not painted. On this fateful Tuesday morning, a sharp voice emanating from a store in this building got the attention of this correspondent.

To his surprise, a young lady reading out Nigerian States and their capitals announced to a class of four children an impending examination to test their mastery of what she had taught them thus far.

Surprised that a school was being run in such a location, this reporter took a few steps in the direction of the young teacher, and this conversation ensued.

“Good morning, madam. How are you doing today? You run a school here?,” I asked her.

Good morning, sir. Yes, we are just starting,” she replied. “Our target is the young children who are old enough to be in school now, but due to one reason or another, are not. Things are tough for many families, and we are trying to make sure that we have in place a system that can be of assistance to these young children and their parents.”

Then I went further by asking to know if it was a conventional school she set out to run.

“Interesting! I will be right to say this is not a formal school but an arrangement to get these young minds engaged, preparatory to having them enrolled in a conventional school.”

She replied, “It is a conventional setting, sir. From here, their parents can take them straight to basic four or five and after a year or two, they will proceed to junior secondary school. I have ten pupils here of different ages. They did not start at the same time, and I don’t teach them the same thing.”

When I asked which curriculum they used in teaching the kids, she added, “I teach them the things I believe they should know. I teach them English, Mathematics, Civics Education, Christian Religious Studies and Basic Science. We are not using any curriculum for now.”

On the affordability of her arrangement, she replied, “We have an agreement with the parents. I am also a bit careful because there are basic requirements for setting up a school. The parents love what I do here, and they support me. I don’t want to speak in detail about fees or whatever you call it.”

She refused to state whether she was a trained teacher or not, when this correspondent asked to know. Instead, she stated her love for teaching endeared her to the project.

“I will go back to school. It is my love for teaching that inspired me to start this. I will go back to school soon. Like I said, these children are very young. I am just trying to teach them basic things they should know at this stage of their lives,” she added.The story of this unnamed “school” resonates across many communities in the Federal Capital Territory. Taking advantage of a system with a near-zero disposition to the enforcement of basic standards, individuals with little or no training in education set up ‘schools’ that can best be described as business centres.

Still in the Kurudu District, the story is slightly better at the Lifespring Academy, which runs nursery/primary and secondary schools.

At Lifespring, the school lacks a modest space required for the sporting needs of the students. As it were, students here make use of public fields at the Local Education Authority Primary School for their interhouse sports and other outdoor activities.

A man who simply identified himself as Mr Joshua told our correspondent that though Lifespring is an upgrade on other schools in the vicinity, it suffers from a lack of adequately trained manpower needed for imparting knowledge.

He said, “Everything is turning to business, and we should be worried. Here (Lifespring), one is surprised to see that they have an SSCE and NECO accreditation centre. That is their biggest bargaining chip. They will tell you that their accreditation status indicates the high rating they enjoy in the books of the Federal Capital Territory Administration authorities.

“We must not manage two things: education and health. If health and education facilities are substandard, let us not expect much to reap thereafter. What is happening is that business is winning, but services are neither here nor there.”

A trip to the Ivy Academy, Kpeyegi, revealed a similar pattern of poor standards and lack of trained manpower. A pre-nursery, nursery, and primary school, Ivy Academy boasts a handful of skilled teachers and several school certificate holders.

At the Graceland International Academy, Orozo, a magnificent edifice, paints a phoney picture of efficiency on how things ought to be done.

The PUNCH’s findings, however, revealed a litany of shady deals, including the poor payment of teachers, some of whom have complained to no avail.

“While the management of the institution frequently announces an increment in the fees paid by the students, the same does not reflect in the remuneration of teachers who do the bulk of the work,” a young woman who declined to be named told our correspondent.

According to her, “These people see themselves as destiny helpers and in a way, they are right. They make you feel that you are indebted to them for life for allowing you to earn a living. So, you have no power to influence things and a staff member, you also have to be careful because colleagues who are into eye service can betray you,” she added, without providing further explanation.

Perhaps, the worst of these private schools is the Potter’s Legacy Ville Academy, Anka. Located along the Karu/Orozo/Karshi expressway, one can be carried away with the allure of its beautiful name.

Exposed to multiple dangers, including security threats and noise pollution, the unfenced school is certainly where everything happens except conducive learning. Without a gate, the school, as well as its pupils and teachers, are exposed to the threat of abduction, invasion, and all forms of criminal activities.

Needless to state here, the school is an employer of poorly-trained teachers, who are only too glad to be earning a living with the little knowledge they can dispense.

At the City Royal Junior and Secondary Schools, Nyanya, Abuja, the major challenge identified by our correspondent is the lack of a playing field for extra-curricular activities for both teachers and students.

“Without striking a balance between education and sports, “a Mathematics teacher, Mr Haruna Kebe, argued that the needed psychological equilibrium needed to excel may prove a huge challenge for students.

While noting that education has gone beyond the rendering of essential services, Kebe frowned at the influx of businessmen into the sector, who merely built schools for the sole purpose of financial gain.

He said, “People are setting up schools as business ventures. Many of them are not educationists, but they are in the business of running schools everywhere. In some cases, residential buildings are converted to schools. They are tapping into a gap in the system to make the argument that they are also creating jobs. These people don’t care about standards. This is a grave concern we must address as a nation,” he said.

He further lamented the absence of a sports field for the physical development of children in the areas of football and track events, saying, “Most of them don’t have the environment for sporting activities, and this is one of the requirements for setting up a school.”

The Maths teacher, who has taught the subject in different schools, further revealed how the lack of standards makes it easier for school proprietors to enslave teachers, taking advantage of the scarcity of jobs in the country.

“Most of the teachers are overworked. In the last school I taught (name withheld), I was teaching Mathematics from JSS 1-3, taking SS1 students in Physics and handling Basic Science for JSS1-3 Basic Technology. You can see that they don’t care about the staff’s mental health. They are only interested in what comes into their pockets,” he added.

He also faulted religious bodies for setting up schools that they cannot manage.

“The churches are establishing schools because through these schools, they make money to run the churches. I have no issue with well-run schools owned by churches. But a situation where a church struggling to find its feet also sets up a school simultaneously leaves much to be desired,” he added.

Qualification

“How many teachers are qualified? There are very few. But I don’t think a Bachelor’s degree in Education is the main thing, because some of these so-called qualified teachers are not better than those who do not have degrees in education. I have a B.Sc in Mathematics and a National Diploma in Chemical Engineering, but I have a passion for teaching. I see it as my calling. I have been in teaching, off and on, since 2007, but I don’t think a B.Ed holder in Mathematics will look me in the eyes and tell me he is a better teacher than I am. I will not accept it,” he added.

“What they pay the teachers is nothing to write home about. The money is very small compared to their workload. Before now, school owners in Abuja were paying N15,000 for NCE holders, N20,000 for B.Sc. This was before inflationary pressure forced them to have a rethink. Some of the schools now pay holders of B.Sc  N30,000 a month, especially those who are not in the sciences.

“In the last school I taught, the owner paid N30,000, and she deducted N2,000 each from those monthly salaries until it accumulated to N30,000. This amount was kept for each other, and anytime they wanted to leave, they were required to give a month’s notice. It’s this N30,000 that would be given to him or her in full anytime they choose to walk away. But if a teacher chooses to leave without a month’s notice, the N2,000 deductions would be forfeited.

“But as a Science teacher, I earned twice what my counterparts in the Arts were earning. The money is not encouraging. But the standard schools pay as much as N70,000 to N80,000 a month,” he explained.

Unskilled teachers

Accoroding to the Mathematics teacher, “Most of the school owners prefer school certificate holders as teachers because they are comfortable with the little token they pay them. The graduates demand higher salaries. In most of the schools, the school certificate and NCE holders are more in number compared to graduates because it costs less to retain their services.

“In the last place I taught, the proprietor retained me because she was bent on having an SSCE/NECO centre accredited for her. One of the requirements for having this centre approved for you is that your teachers must be well-educated. You must have at least five or six B. Ed or BSc holders before a NECO centre will be approved for a school. When the officials came to inspect the place, we were the qualified teachers who stood in defence of the school. The NCE and SSCE holders stayed away.”

A teacher in one of the privately-owned schools in Jikwoyi, identified simply as Chidi, called on the FCTA education inspectorate department to take its job seriously, noting that some of the schools operating in the nation’s capital today have no business existing in the first instance.

He said, “Ultimately, it is the future of the young ones we are jeopardising by sharp practices happening in these so-called schools. I know a man who turned the three-bedroom flat built for him by his son in Lagos into a private school. He goes around telling gullible parents that God instructed him to start a school.

“Being an evangelist, it is understandable that people are listening to him. What shocked me more was that with time, some parents withdrew their children from their schools and enrolled them at the there-bedroom apartment turned school.”

Asked how the evangelist cum educationist is paying the teachers, he was temporarily lost for words before continuing, “That is the interesting part of the story. He brainwashed some young people in his church into believing that the school is God’s project.  When he collects fees from the pupils, he pays the teachers. At times, he pays when his son sends him money. This is how the place is run.”

Speaking exclusively with The PUNCH, school proprietor, Mustapha Haruna, urged those with genuine interest in running schools to abide by due process and avoid cutting corners.

Haruna, who runs the Discovery International Academy, Suleja, Niger State, described education as the finest gift a nation can bequeath to the younger generation, stressing that anyone desirous of owning a school to build the lives of young minds must be prepared to go the whole distance.

Lamenting the influx of Nigerians into the system who have no training in school administration, Mr Haruna warned that if left unchecked, such a system may end up doing more harm than good.

In an interview with our correspondent, The Imiegba, Edo-born school proprietor said, “One needs to be passionate about education. It is not about making money. If you are making money and not impacting the lives of the pupils and students, you have not started, and you have no reason to remain in the system.”

For a country desirous of joining the league of advanced nations, education is a sector too significant to be left in the hands of unskilled men whose interest lies not in quality service delivery but in profit-making. From basic to secondary school education, the government, including federal, sub-national, and local, must take decisive steps to address the looming danger threatening the progress of the Nigerian state.

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Nigeria spent a total of $2.86bn servicing external debt in the first eight months of 2025, according to the international payment data from the Central Bank of Nigeria on Wednesday. This accounted for 69.1 per cent of the country’s total foreign payments of $4.14bn in the period.

In the same eight-month stretch of 2024, debt service stood at $3.06bn, representing 70.7 per cent of total foreign payments of $4.33bn. The figures show that while the absolute value of debt service fell by $198m between 2024 and 2025, the share of debt in overall foreign payments has remained persistently high, with about seven out of every ten dollars leaving the country used to meet debt obligations.

The monthly breakdown highlights the volatility of Nigeria’s repayment schedule. In January 2025, $540.67m was spent compared with $560.52m in January 2024, a fall of $19.85m or 3.5 per cent. February 2025 recorded $276.73m, slightly below the $283.22m in February 2024, down by $6.49m or 2.3 per cent.

March 2025 surged to $632.36m against $276.17m in March 2024, an increase of $356.19m or 129 per cent. In April 2025, payments reached $557.79m, which was $342.59m or 159 per cent higher than the $215.20m of April 2024.

May 2025 stood at $230.92m, sharply lower than the $854.37m in May 2024, a drop of $623.45m or 73 per cent. June 2025 rose to $143.39m compared with $50.82m in June 2024, a rise of $92.57m or 182 per cent.

July 2025 fell to $179.95m, down by $362.55m or 66.8 per cent from $542.5m in July 2024. By August 2025, debt service climbed to $302.3m, which was $22.35m or 8 per cent higher than the $279.95m of August 2024.

Month-on-month trends in 2025 further underline the erratic nature of the payments. The country began January with $540.67m, which dropped by $263.94m or 48.8 per cent to $276.73m in February.

March then spiked to $632.36m, up by $355.63m or 128.5 per cent. April fell to $557.79m, down by $74.57m or 11.8 per cent from March. May dropped to $230.92m, down by $326.87m or 58.6 per cent. June slipped further to $143.39m, a decline of $87.52m or 37.9 per cent.

July rebounded slightly to $179.95m, an increase of $36.56m or 25.5 per cent, before August rose again to $302.3m, which was $122.35m or 67.9 per cent higher than July.

The dominance of debt service in Nigeria’s foreign obligations is clear. In the eight months of 2025, $2.86bn of the $4.14bn total foreign payments went to debt, giving it a share of 69.1 per cent. A year earlier, $3.06bn of the $4.33bn total foreign payments went to debt, accounting for 70.7 per cent.

These figures show that, despite spending nearly $200 million less on debt this year compared to 2024, debt still accounted for the overwhelming majority of foreign exchange outflows.

This high ratio of debt service to total foreign payments highlights Nigeria’s vulnerability, as nearly three-quarters of its international outflows are being channelled into debt repayment rather than critical imports or investments.

Fitch Ratings recently noted that Nigeria’s external debt service will increase from $4.7bn in 2024 to $5.2bn in 2025. This includes $4.5bn in amortisation payments and a $1.1bn Eurobond repayment due in November. Fitch noted, “Government external debt service is moderate but expected to rise to $5.2bn in 2025 (with $4.5bn of amortisations, including a $1.1bn Eurobond repayment due in November 2025), from $4.7bn in 2024, and fall to $3.5bn in 2026.”

The agency also cited a minor delay in the payment of a Eurobond coupon due on March 28, 2025, as a reflection of persistent challenges in public finance management. Although Nigeria’s external debt service remains within manageable levels, Fitch warned that high-interest costs, weak revenue performance, and limited fiscal space remain significant concerns.

Fitch said general government debt was expected to remain at about 51 per cent of GDP in 2025 and 2026. However, it expressed concern over the government’s revenue position, noting that interest payments will consume a substantial portion of income.

It stated, “We expect general government revenue-to-GDP to rise but to remain structurally low (averaging 13.3 per cent in 2025–2026), largely accounting for a high general government interest/revenue ratio, above 30 per cent, with the Federal Government interest/revenue ratio of nearly 50 per cent.”

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